Celestron C8N + Meade LDX300 tripod

May 21, 2008 on 8:00 am | In Astronomy | No Comments
This weekend I picked up a Celestron C8N telescope on a Meade LDX300 tripod. Both the telescope and the tripod are older models, probably manufactured in the late 90’s, but that doesn’t make them any less of a bargain for me, since it’s more light gathering power than I could have afforded otherwise; $500 out the door from Scope City in San Francisco. I also picked up a collimation tool and a Parks 8-24 eyepiece at the same time, both purchases I felt were worth the money.

I spent over an hour on Sunday collimating the Celestron and my Meade 4502 then took some time that night to compare the two. Unluckily the fog and clouds had other ideas and all I was able to do was get a couple glimpses of the moon and Arcturus. But that was enough to make me glad I’d gotten the Celestron. The difference between the light gathering capabilities of the two scopes is immense; the Meade has an aperture of F/8, while the Celestron’s is F/5. Even when the two are at approximately the same magnification, the Celestron makes it possible to see stars that I never could with the Meade. The Parks eyepiece is pretty good, it’s nice to be able to zoom in on a star without having to change eyepieces, but it doesn’t perform the zoom to 8mm without having to refocus slightly. My next purchase will be a decent Barlow, to extend the capabilities of the scope even farther.

Last night was the first night I was able to use the telescope properly and it made me realize how much I have to learn about the sky and the stars out there. I was able to not only pick up Saturn but see one of it’s moons, even if it was just as a little tiny dot. I also got to see my first Messier object, which I think was M64, near Coma Berenices, but I’m not 100% certain. I’m glad I’d read a little about observing nebula/galaxies and knew enough not to expect much more than a slight smudge of light in the eyepiece when viewing from a light polluted place like my backyard.

The mount has an attachment point for a camera, and I’ll probably put a small camera on it from time to time. Without a goto mount or motor of some sort it’s not worth trying to do any serious astrophotography right now. Maybe once my wife has gotten over this purchase I’ll start looking into a motor, say in six months or so.

Limitations of a 4.5″ Scope

May 6, 2008 on 5:14 am | In What I saw tonight | No Comments

I like my Meade 4502 4.5″ reflector, but this weekend I discovered some of the limitations of the scope. With an aperture of F/8 and a 12.5mm eyepiece, the light collecting ability of the telescope is extremely limited, something that hadn’t bothered me when looking at the stars in town, but became a huge issue this weekend when I had an opportunity for some star viewing far (very far) from any city or road lights.

Let me take a step back for a moment; every year on the first weekend of May,me, my father, my brother and about 30 other guys go on what’s called the Indian Valley Reservoir Fishing Trip. Very little fishing goes on during the trip, but a lot of other things happen, primarily drinking. We all go to the same camp site fifteen or more miles from the nearest town and more than ten miles from the nearest paved road. There’s a lot of local light pollution as the bonfire’s built up and from lights in people’s camps, but a little judicious spacing and a tent between me and the light source takes care of a lot of the problem.

I took my Meade on the trip with great expectations, but I was sorely disappointed. The first night, a lot of the problem wasn’t the telescope, it was a light cloud cover that mostly disappeared at sunset, but not completely. The Milky Way was visible and I could see a lot more than I can at home, but it still wasn’t the stunning visual I’d hoped for. Saturday night was a bit better, but still disappointing. I wish there’d been a better sky, but there’s nothing I could have done about that.

The frustrating part was scanning the skies with my binoculars, finding the stars I wanted to look at, then not being able to find them with the telescope. I would mark stars in my mind, point the telescope in the right direction, then not be able to see the stars I had marked as my guides. At first I thought my sighting scope was out of alignment, until I realized that the real problem was the stars weren’t bright enough for me to see with the telescope. My binoculars have a better aperture than my telescope and stars that were a cinch to see in the binoculars weren’t even bright enough to see at all in the telescope!

Part of the problem might have been solved if I’d brought the 25mm eyepiece, but I didn’t. The real solution will be to wait a little while until I can afford a better telescope and pay attention to what’s really important in a telescope, the aperture. It’s great to be able to magnify an object 100x, but if it’s too faint to see, you’ll walk away frustrated.

The good news is, I got to show about half a dozen rednecks Saturn. Of all the objects in the sky, that’s the one that was easiest to show them that they could recognize easily. Of course, rednecks, beer and telescopes don’t always mix, but we managed to get away without any injuries this time.

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