[b]Thread Music:[/b]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj-4t9drUlM[/media]
[img]http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Science_and_Body/Astronomy/Fast_comet.gif[/img]
[img]http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Geography_and_History/Planet_Earth/eart h_5.gif[/img]
[b]What is skywatching?[/b]
[indent]Sorry for not having a real definition, but skywatching is quite easy to explain. It's observing objects that are beyond Earth's atmosphere, such as stars, planets, comets, satellites, and any other celestial objects you might be able to think of. Skywatching can be done ANYWHERE. Whether you live in New York City, or Siberia, it really doesn't matter. Skywatching is different from place to place though, depending on which hemisphere you are watching from, the weather, the time of day, etc.[/indent]
[b]This sounds cool, but I don't have a telescope. :crying:[/b]
[indent] That shouldn't stop you! There are plenty of objects you can see with the naked eye.[/indent]
[b]For example:[/b]
[img]http://www.twanslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/venus-pleiades.jpg[/img]
[b] Beautiful, aren't they?[/b]
[indent] As you can see, it is pretty simple, and you CAN enjoy the night sky, even without unnatural aid. However, scopes will help you out though, so use a scope if you happen to come across one![/indent]
[b] :siren: Important Note! :siren: [/b]
[indent]It is true what some say, being in the city affects your ability to see celestial objects. It is best to find a nearby rural region without a lot of lights. [/indent]
[b] Nice! What can I use to see the stars? [/b]
[indent] The eyes are the basics you can use to view the stars, but there are a few more things you can use to look at them, such as:[/indent]
----------------------------
[b]Monoculars/Binoculars[/b]
[b] A seemingly standard pair of binoculars [/b]
[img]http://www.alltackle.com/nikon_action_ex_extreme_binocular.jpg[/img]
[b]A monocular[/b]
[img]http://www.microglobe.co.uk/catalog/images/Opticron_10x25_Oregon_Monocular.jpg[/img]
[indent]So if you got one of these layin' around from when you were fapping to the girl next door, or stalking garry, you should use it when you get the chance.
These are some basic tools to observing the sky. If you want to know what kinds of things you can see with binoculars, check out this .pdf [url]http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/binocular.pdf[/url][/indent]
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[b] Telescopes [/b]
Standard----Intermediate----Advanced----Professional
[img]http://mediacdn.shopatron.com/media/mfg/1323/category_image/x01_0.jpg?1267089385[/img]
[indent] Last, but most certainly not least, telescopes. There is much to say about telescopes, I will cover a few things about them.[/indent]
[b] Aren't telescopes expensive? [/b]
[indent]That depends on your definition of expensive.[/indent]
[img]http://mediacdn.shopatron.com/media/mfg/1323/product_image/thm/t316_ab625e3d38cf7ddb573c74f506f06949.jpg?1263605400[/img] [b] Basic telescope, good quality: $149.99 USD[/b]
[indent] Now, I'd certainly not call that expensive. It's $150 and it is fine for the casual skywatcher.[/indent]
[b]Do you need to clean your telescope often?[/b]
[indent]If you know what you're doing, then no. This depends on whether or not you got a cap for your telescope. The cap is twisted into the viewing side of the telescope and it keeps any types of dust from getting into it. If you are not this lucky, and you did not get a cap with your telescope, then yes, you will have to clean it occasionally.[/indent]
[b]Are telescopes complicated?[/b]
[indent] This is a good question, and I answer that with: No. They are not complicated. The reason for this is simply determined by whether or not you are using a telescope built for someone of your experience. If you bought the telescope pictured above, you shouldn't have any problems with it, considering it is built for the general population. Now, on the other hand, if you bought a telescope that is remote controlled, and you don't know how to operate it, then you are not ready for it yet. Most if not all telescopes come with a manual, if you are unsure on how to ready your telescope, then you know where to look. [/indent]
[b] Please post any pictures you have taken of the night sky, so we can all see them. I would contribute to this part, but sadly I have no pictures to show.[/b] :frown:
Also, please be gentle, this is my first science thread. :love:
I always wanted to skywatch.
Also, those gifs look like they belong in a 1998 website.
I love you.
[QUOTE=davidofmk771;22521334]I always wanted to skywatch.
Also, those gifs look like they belong in a 1998 website.[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure they do. :haw:
[QUOTE=Roskarnolkov] I love you.[/quote]
:love:
Skywatching is rad. I used to do it with my Dad quite a lot.
[IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2546/4138698017_abc0108af6_b.jpg[/IMG]
A friend and I do this quite often. Nip up to the nearest field and snap pics of the heavens.
FYI, the movement is from the movement of the Earth, not a shaky hand.
I have more, if y'all want to see them.
[editline]01:20AM[/editline]
Personal favourite.
[IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3159/2961890207_553705b5e8_b.jpg[/IMG]
I want to see them
[QUOTE=Oman;22521525]Skywatching is rad. I used to do it with my Dad quite a lot.[/QUOTE]
I learned all my sky stuff from my Dad. :3:
I have a Meade ETX90-AT, it's quite good for the price.
Always nice to set up a long-exposure picture to capture Earth's rotation.
[QUOTE=dookster;22521539]
[IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3159/2961890207_553705b5e8_b.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
The second one is very nice, but, what is going on down in the left corner? It looks like a laser beam.
[QUOTE=Ncccookiees;22521584]I learned all my sky stuff from my Dad. :3:[/QUOTE]
Curious, my dad was a mini-astronomer (That has his title apparently), had subscriptions to NASA magazines. I still have a few, one about the Geminis, another one about the Mariner, and so on.
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;22521623]Curious, my dad was a mini-astronomer (That has his title apparently), had subscriptions to NASA magazines. I still have a few, one about the Geminis, another one about the Mariner, and so on.[/QUOTE]
Is your father the reason why you are into science? You probably make more science threads than anyone here.
[QUOTE=Ncccookiees;22521616]The second one is very nice, but, what is going on down in the left corner? It looks like a laser beam.[/QUOTE]
Plane.
[editline]01:26AM[/editline]
[IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/2961886273_1b80a4f0df_b.jpg[/IMG]
And now the most amazing of nebulae: [URL=http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/bkayf7690/Astronomy/Pillars20of20Creation.jpg]The Pillars of Creation (Link'd for size)[/URL]
(I know it's not strictly skywatching, unless you consider the Hubble Telescope skywatching. But it's the Pillars of Creation, and it deserves a post in every thread. Deal with it.)
[QUOTE=Ncccookiees;22521644]Is your father the reason why you are into science? You probably make more science threads than anyone here.[/QUOTE]
I suppose it was a combination of my father and my mother knowing a lot about science and answering most of my questions, natural curiosity, a lot of science books, Carl Sagan's Cosmos :3: and unlimited Wikipedia (And Atomic Rockets :v: ) access.
[QUOTE=dookster;22521672][IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3148/2404282978_eb81a5e00e_b.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Is that a suburban or urban area?
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;22521668]And now the most amazing of nebulae: [URL=http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp304/bkayf7690/Astronomy/Pillars20of20Creation.jpg]The Pillars of Creation (Link'd for size)[/URL]
(I know it's not strictly skywatching, unless you consider the Hubble Telescope skywatching. But it's the Pillars of Creation, and it deserves a post in every thread. Deal with it.)[/QUOTE]
Which nebula is that?
I wanna say Horse head but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong.
[IMG]http://i48.tinypic.com/vdhgf9.jpg[/IMG]
[editline]02:33AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Predat0r;22521747]Which nebula is that?
I wanna say Horse head but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Nebula#.27Pillars_of_Creation.27_region[/url]
This story is kind of random but it's just a childhood story I had involving astronomy. I just want to share it with you guys as my friends are too much of asses to listen to my story.
10 years ago, I used to be in fucking LOVE with astronomy. When I was a kid, I always asked my parents if they could buy these astronomical books for me. I eventually got some of these books, I still have them somewhere. My dad then decided it was a good idea to buy me a telescope, it was one of those beginner, inexpensive, Tasco telescopes, it didn't matter to me, I was too excited over the fact that I actually have a telescope. Oh man, it was probably one of the happiest days of my life. It came with several posters of the Solar System and the Moon. I taped them up on my bedroom walls. They're still there. I bought a ton of glow-in-the-dark planet stickers and stuck them all over the walls of my bedroom as well. Guess what? They're also still there. I haven't gotten the chance to use the telescope a lot because my mother didn't know how to operate it and my dad was always working. When he's home early and outside is clear, we'd go outside, get the telescope, and he'd always help me get it set up. This was rare though as I never learnt how to set it up myself and he's almost never out of work early.
Then, I remember on August 27, 2003, around 2 years after I got the telescope, Mars was closest to Earth it will ever be in several thousand years. I had the chance to bring my telescope out and view Mars. We packed up, left the house at around 8PM, and drove abut 2 hours to get to a rural area. My dad had decided to leave work early just for this moment.
We arrived at around 10PM and brought out the telescope. Mars was at a great angle and the sky was extremely clear. You could see a ton of stuff in the sky you'd never see when you're in the city. Mars was the reddest and one of the biggest things in the sky, you couldn't miss it. I've never seen Mars that big before. Man, viewing Mars with the telescope was like a dream come true, even if the telescope didn't really focus that well on the Red Planet. I appreciated it a lot as it was a once in a lifetime experience.
After hours upon hours of having such a great night with my family, Mars eventually disappeared into the horizon, I began to tear up a little, knowing I won't ever have this same experience ever again. We packed up, put the cap on the telescope, and went back to the city. After this day, I started to lose interest in astronomy because of school and other things that made me too busy.
I haven't touched that telescope in nearly 7 years. Just a few weeks ago, I decided to bring it out and try to get used to setting it up. I brought it outside, looked at the cap on the end of the telescope and thought, "Wow, that cap hasn't been opened since I was a kid." It felt as if I was reopening my childhood once again. I don't know why but I expected a lot of dead bugs and dust inside, I slowly opened it up, inside looked completely new. I set it up, learned how to operate it, and became a star gazer once again.
I miss my childhood.
[QUOTE=hl2poo;22522049]This story is kind of random but it's just a childhood story I had involving astronomy. I just want to share it with you guys as my friends are too much of asses to listen to my story.
10 years ago, I used to be in fucking LOVE with astronomy. When I was a kid, I always asked my parents if they could buy these astronomical books for me. I eventually got some of these books, I still have them somewhere. My dad then decided it was a good idea to buy me a telescope, it was one of those beginner, inexpensive, Tasco telescopes, it didn't matter to me, I was too excited over the fact that I actually have a telescope. Oh man, it was probably one of the happiest days of my life. It came with several posters of the Solar System and the Moon. I taped them up on my bedroom walls. They're still there. I bought a ton of glow-in-the-dark planet stickers and stuck them all over the walls of my bedroom as well. Guess what? They're also still there. I haven't gotten the chance to use the telescope a lot because my mother didn't know how to operate it and my dad was always working. When he's home early and outside is clear, we'd go outside, get the telescope, and he'd always help me get it set up. This was rare though as I never learnt how to set it up myself and he's almost never out of work early.
Then, I remember on August 27, 2003, around 2 years after I got the telescope, Mars was closest to Earth it will ever be in several thousand years. I had the chance to bring my telescope out and view Mars. We packed up, left the house at around 8PM, and drove abut 2 hours to get to a rural area. My dad had decided to leave work early just for this moment.
We arrived at around 10PM and brought out the telescope. Mars was at a great angle and the sky was extremely clear. You could see a ton of stuff in the sky you'd never see when you're in the city. Mars was the reddest and one of the biggest things in the sky, you couldn't miss it. I've never seen Mars that big before. Man, viewing Mars with the telescope was like a dream come true, even if the telescope didn't really focus that well on the Red Planet. I appreciated it a lot as it was a once in a lifetime experience.
After hours upon hours of having such a great night with my family, Mars eventually disappeared into the horizon, I began to tear up a little, knowing I won't ever have this same experience ever again. We packed up, put the cap on the telescope, and went back to the city. After this day, I started to lose interest in astronomy because of school and other things that made me too busy.
I haven't touched that telescope in nearly 7 years. Just a few weeks ago, I decided to bring it out and try to get used to setting it up. I brought it outside, looked at the cap on the end of the telescope and thought, "Wow, that cap hasn't been opened since I was a kid." It felt as if I was reopening my childhood once again. I don't know why but I expected a lot of dead bugs and dust inside, I slowly opened it up, inside looked completely new. I set it up, learned how to operate it, and became a star gazer once again.
I miss my childhood.[/QUOTE]
You sir, deserve a heart.
Come on rate this guy hearts!
I like the sky, particularly space. Apparently my family is more scientific seeing that one of my old relatives (who passed away a while ago) worked for NASA. He said that there's places around the country and they only build a small part for whatever they were designing and then ship all the parts to somewhere to be assembled. He said that sometimes they never even knew what they were building.
He also said (or it could've been one of my other relatives) that he (or possibly one of my other relatives, I can't remember too well) Helped design the small thrusters on satellite that turn it, and also a wind turbine that had blades that were designed for the Sahara and that would run off of the heat or something coming from the ground. I'll have to check this all up with my grandfather and grandmother, one of them being a genealogist. My grandfather also claims that he met a scientist that worked on the Manhattan Project, he said that he liked to hunt and junk. I have another ancestor that was a Brigadier General, but that's unrelated. But if you really want to know, feel free to PM me.
Well, i'm going to stop typing now so I don't get pelted with boxes if I add more. Hope this helped the conversation slightly.
Viewing the moon is what got me into science. I asked my dad if earth was the first planet from the sky. I was dead wrong as I was only five, but wondered why. So I studied up on everything and got more questions than answers. Now I know a ton of stuff that most don't.
August 27, 2003 was a great day. Mars was red to the naked eye. Also, I have so many memories of going to my grandparents' house in a remote part of northern Arizona and watching the sky with my dad and his dad. T'was amazing.
[img]http://www.tekapotourism.co.nz/images/night_sky_photography.jpg[/img]
My 5 minute exposure of stars.
[img]http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/324/6/8/Stars_in_5_Minutes_by_DaliGiger.jpg[/img]
I've always seen it called stargazing ;s
[QUOTE=Biggins;22522624]I've always seen it called stargazing ;s[/QUOTE]
This works too.
If I lived out where my uncle lived, I'd skywatch every night. So nice and secluded.
Once, when my family were driving on a dark road. We pulled off to the side, and we looked up. There is nothing cooler than seeing the white splotches on the sky of the milky way.
[QUOTE=ASmellyOgre;22522501]August 27, 2003 was a great day. Mars was red to the naked eye. Also, I have so many memories of going to my grandparents' house in a remote part of northern Arizona and watching the sky with my dad and his dad. T'was amazing.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds like what hl2poo was referring to.
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