Testing Celestron next star 8SE reflector

[MRC01]

I tried some photos connecting my SLR to a Celestron 6SE. Couldn't get the focus just right since the adapter requires the camera to be in mirror lockup, which forces me to use the camera's LCD screen to focus instead of looking through the viewfinder. And while the scope mount is motorized to keep things centered, the image slowly rotates which blurs long exposures. So the photos are more blurry than the view through the telescope. At least you can tell what they are:

Saturn

Mars, you can just barely make out the polar caps

Pics aside, one of the most fascinating things to observe is the Orion Nebula.

 

[MRC01]

... The nights depend on the weather cloudy as not much one can do? Other than wait? ...

Tell me all about it, says the fellow who lives in the Seattle area, one of the cloudiest places on Earth!
An 8SE is big enough to have enough light gathering to see some pretty nice stuff.

 

[JeffS7444]

Someday, I'd like to build a 6" f/8 Dobsonian telescope out of Sonotube and birch-ply. Stargazer Steve used to offer just the thing.

I don't know that I'll ever tire of viewing the planets, but one of the most magical experiences that I've beheld to date was the Pleiades star cluster, when I realized that the seemingly empty space between the large stars was in fact packed with countless very faint points of light!

Never was able to discern any surface details of Mars or Venus, and am amazed that anyone thought they could see canals crisscrossing Mars.

 

[MRC01]

... Never was able to discern any surface details of Mars or Venus, and am amazed that anyone thought they could see canals crisscrossing Mars.

When Galileo first looked at Mars through a telescope, it was around 1600 and there was a lot less light pollution back then. The night sky would have looked amazing. Every other year when Mars makes a close approach, a decent scope can make out the polar caps and some barely visible surface features.

PS: Venus is so darn bright and never far from the sun, I've never seen any features, even with a filter. That's probably an excuse to get a bigger telescope

The stripes on Saturn on Jupiter (and the red/brown spot) are visible and quite striking.

 

[Bugal1998]

Cell phone held up to eyepiece of 8" Celestron Edge HD SCT a few years ago.

 

[JeffS7444]

When Galileo first looked at Mars through a telescope, it was around 1600 and there was a lot less light pollution back then. The night sky would have looked amazing. Every other year when Mars makes a close approach, a decent scope can make out the polar caps and some barely visible surface features.

PS: Venus is so darn bright and never far from the sun, I've never seen any features, even with a filter. That's probably an excuse to get a bigger telescope

The stripes on Saturn on Jupiter (and the red/brown spot) are visible and quite striking.

Think phases of Venus are supposed to be visible, though I've never noticed any, nor have I ever really seen Cassini's division in Saturn's rings.

I have usually been able to discern a couple of darkish bands on Jupiter, though not the GRS. Jupiter's 4 largest moons are always fun, and easy enough to spot with binoculars.

Only rarely get the opportunity to see a really dark night sky, and recall being able to spot the nebula in Orion by naked eye, which was a hoot.

Most distant planet that I've viewed is Neptune, via a 16" SCT owned by the local university under fairly light-polluted conditions. Definitely no surface details there, just the sense of seeing a blueish disk.

 

[Bugal1998]

Pics aside, one of the most fascinating things to observe is the Orion Nebula.

Agreed!

My wife and I are calling our listening room/theater build "Trapezium" after the central stars in the Orion Nebula.

 

[pkane]

I tried some photos connecting my SLR to a Celestron 6SE. Couldn't get the focus just right since the adapter requires the camera to be in mirror lockup, which forces me to use the camera's LCD screen to focus instead of looking through the viewfinder. And while the scope mount is motorized to keep things centered, the image slowly rotates which blurs long exposures. So the photos are more blurry than the view through the telescope. At least you can tell what they are:

Saturn
View attachment 179840

Mars, you can just barely make out the polar caps
View attachment 179841

Pics aside, one of the most fascinating things to observe is the Orion Nebula.

To focus a DSLR in lock-up mode, you'd want to center the scope on a near-by bright star, then magnify the LCD display 10x. My Canon DSLRs can all do it, and then focus to get the smallest/sharpest possible star size on the LCD. Alternatively, something called a Bahtinov mask can be placed in front of the scope (simple lines/geometric shapes) that simplify visual focusing even on an LCD screen by creating an obvious diffraction pattern when in focus.

 

[Andysu]

piggyback mount for my canon DLSR

 

[Andysu]

a friend, been doing it for ten years tries to align the settings for auto star scan but snags with coordinates. but now found the coordinates and numbers been put into degrees, hr, min and seconds, so when going outside again maybe in week or early march at new forrest as it is ideal location for astronomy.

got the rotating speed of the telescope to move very slowly for smooth star gazing. got the contrast set on the remote so it can be easily read.
i look to see if i can mount my laser pointer or fit another piggyback to nextstar 8se.

affordable ccd and additional laptop later, so laptop can be used with software to program the telescope for star tracking.

object of interest was orion m42 nebula, faint distant but i could see the gases cloud shade of black and white, yet i could see it.
DSLR wide field, wide lens i forget to put a white circle around the area where orion is.

still i find all this astronomy and hi-fi audio home cinema all sinful as i still miss my Cat, Sooty.

 

[SIY]

Sigh. You guys are making me want to get a better telescope. Every time I bring that up, I get taken to the observatory behind our house by my long-suffering wife, just to shame me into not spending the money.

 

[NTK]

Sigh. You guys are making me want to get a better telescope. Every time I bring that up, I get taken to the observatory behind our house by my long-suffering wife, just to shame me into not spending the money.

Save up for the 2024 solar eclipse. It goes right pass your backyard. Not to be missed.

Interactive map for the 2024 Eclipse Simulator | Eclipse2024.org

 

[SIY]

Save up for the 2024 solar eclipse. It goes right pass your backyard. Not to be missed.

Interactive map for the 2024 Eclipse Simulator | Eclipse2024.org

95% chance it will be cloudy, dammit. When it's clear, the seeing here is great since we're on a hill and very rural. But we rival Seattle for cloudiness and rain.

 

[MRC01]

... we rival Seattle for cloudiness and rain.

Hey, I resemble that remark! It's so often cloudy here in Seattle, I only use my telescope a handful of times each year.

 

[SIY]

The local newspaper is the Alfred Sun, a weekly. Their tagline is, "In Alfred, the Sun comes out once a week."

 

[Andysu]

95% chance it will be cloudy, dammit. When it's clear, the seeing here is great since we're on a hill and very rural. But we rival Seattle for cloudiness and rain.

the sun is free and yet people turn the sun eclipse into capitalizing with silly things to buy and then ends up being a cloudy day.