WHAT CAN YOU SEE IN A DOBSONIAN TELESCOPE? SPRING TARGETS
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- In this episode, Part V, of Great Targets for a Dobsonian: More Spring Targets, we'll look at some more deep sky objects suitable for a Dobsonian:
A Showcase Double-- Izar
Globular Cluster - NGC 5466
Planetary Nebula: NGC4361
Planetary Nebula- NGC3242
Galaxy-- M104
I'll show you how to find the objects, what you can expect them to look like in your telescope, and some information about each object. If you would like to see previous episodes in this series here are the links
Part 1: • WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT TO...
Part 2 Summer : • 10 GREAT TARGETS for a...
Part 3 Autumn: • GREAT TARGETS for a DO...
Part 4 Winter: • GREAT TARGETS FOR A DO...
Spring: • Video
Cheers Tsula that was tops. I especially enjoy splitting double stars, the colour and size differences are fascinating.
Thank you. Double stars are often overlooked but make great targets for people who live in light polluted areas and many of them are quite beautiful-- one of the few times you get to see colors.
I'm always happy when Tsula does a video deep-dive on a single object or a small number of them. It gives me the pleasant feeling of spending a night under the stars, searching for some of its hidden treasures!
PS: Although you may not realize it, Tsula, you followed one of the essential rules in Strunk & White's essential ELEMENTS OF STYLE when you shortened "What you can expect to see in a Dobsonian telescope" to "What you can see in a Dobsonian telescope" (leaving out the words "expect to"). Shorter is almost always better than longer, and words and phrases like "expect to" and "I believe that" and "in my opinion" are always problematic and (as Julius Caesar said about overly long or obscure words) a reef for the captain of her style to avoid rigorously. (You might have gone even further, by the way, and pleased Strunk and White even more, by going with "What to see in a Dobsonian telescope" - but that's just them and me. 🙂)
Walter: Thank you! You may not know this about me but I am quite the grammarian and in fact, I own a copy of Strunk and White. I tried to make my employees use it but they never would. But thank you for reminding me of this very basic rule and I will try to adhere to it in the future. Cheers.
@@tsulasbigadventures Another invaluable style guide is Herbert Spencer's 20-page essay, THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE, which Jack London swore by and which may have inspired a famous joke by Groucho Marx (the one about the elephant). But best of all are Mark Twain's essays (there are two of them, one a little harder to find online than the other) regarding James Fenimore Cooper's excesses - at once the sharpest and funniest literary criticism I've ever read.
@@waltergold3457 Thanks. I'll look for it. Mark Twain was very funny.
@@tsulasbigadventures Just be forewarned that he was, after all, Mark Twain! 🙂 And he also seems to have been confused about the size of riverboats in Cooper's day, which preceded Twain's career as a riverboat pilot by several decades. The rest of the essays is, however, pure gold.
Thanks for the additional targets, Tsula! Great things to see and my Dob is anxious to get out. 😀
Thanks, Greg. I have been looking at some used Dobsonians lately and learning that people don't just store the poor things in closets; they actually abuse them! I have been horrified. So, I'm glad you will be letting yours out of the cage when the sky is clear. Cheers
@@tsulasbigadventures Ugh, that's very sad! Honestly, I think Dobs are things of beauty -- elegant in their simplicity and functionality. I keep mine in a case, even it's in the closet! I do, sometimes, feel like I ought to paper the inside of the case with photos of stars so it doesn't feel lost, though. Hahaha!
@@gregerianne3880 That's funny. I don't think people realize that spiders can and will make spider webs inside the tube even if you leave the cap on. One lady decided that the mirror needed to be dusted. I was horrified and asked her what she used and at least she used a micro cloth. Nevertheless she could have easily scratched the mirror. And this was mild compared to what some other people did to their poor Dobs.
This is the second video of yours I have watched. The first was about your video classes and certificates. I was quick to judge and left a comment that I regret. You are truly an amateur astronomer. Practical astronomy greatly underappreciated. I noticed you draw your observations in a journal. I too have done that for over two decades. I thought I was the only one left doing that.
You talked about splitting stars. November 6th, 2004 I wanted to test the resolution limit of my 10" Newtonian on my German equatorial mount. For that objective I chose 72 Pegasi, magnitude 4.97. These two stars had a separation of only .5 arcseconds.
In the results section of my journal I wrote, "Observed 72 Pegasi for a while. At 25mm and 10mm I observed a medium to lighter yellow single star. At 3.7mm and at moments of good seeing 72 Pegasi would resolve into two distinct stars."
In my notes section I wrote, "Observing 72 Pegasi was a fun and constructive activity. The two stars danced around like two yellow balloons tied together and in moments, (especially a couple moments) of good seeing resolved into two stars. That's neat considering the two stars are only half an arc second apart."
Sorry for the long comment. I just wanted to share that.
Just subscribed to your channel!
Gary: I saw your earlier comment about my certificate video. Don't worry about it and thanks for sharing your comment about splitting 72 Pegasi which is only separated by .5 arc seconds. That is quite the accomplishment. This winter I tried to split 52 Orionis with my 10" Dobsonian but wasn't able to split it. It is separated by one arc second. I will try again next winter on a night of good seeing. And now I will add 72 Pegasi to my to do list as well. Thank you for subscribing.
Cheers tsula you have helped me greatly with my 8 inch dob!
I'm glad to hear that.
Great info Tsula. Thank you.
Thanks, Ron.
Very enjoyable video ... there's so much stuff to see even when you think you've seen it all!
Thank you. And sometimes you forget what all you have looked at already. I realized later that I had seen NGC 5466 before. Oops.
Great Video Tsula, you've gained a subscriber from across the globe!
Thank you so much!
best ,as always, from Tsula!
Thank you so much.
First, GREAT SHOW, I'm a beginner in Astronomy/Astrophotography and your shows are almost a 100% match for the questions/issues I'm working-through/trying to figure out. Secondly, I was wondering what camera you are shooting your video's with. Its just fantastic! The depth almost looks 3D, everything is sharp, colors are great and their depth is spot on (at least to my brain). Third, I'm 60 (that's what they tell me anyway) and, as a beginner, on top of the frustration of trying to find a star, get focus right, angle of binoculars right, height of tripod, etc, I also have to deal with the fact that I need 1 pair of glasses to look at stellarium or a star map, I need another pair of glasses to look at the stars with "naked" eyes, and on the binoculars I don't use a pair of glasses (and I don't know if this is the correct way to do it or not? -- I don't like using glasses to to look through eyepieces). Are there, in terms of stargazing, other things older people need to consider in terms of their eyes? For instance, I need flashlights and reading glasses at key places around the house (router wiring room, fuse box for house, etc) because I cannot see anything! I feel like I need to carry around a big halogen light just to see things that are not in bright light (very frustrating!) . I have not purchased a red light yet -- am I going to need a 2 megawatt red light to see in the dark? Do people who saw 30 go by a long time ago, need more time for adjusting to the dark? There is actually a book on this but I'm already behind by about 10 books in my reading. So there is the 4th thing. Time. I have a full time job, wife kids, dogs, cats, house, yard etc. I need to be extremely efficient in terms of the time -- is there a list of items (or whatever) that will make my stargazing time more efficient/productive? Yes, being out in the dark with my wife on our back deck is relaxing -- really even with no stars -- and a heck of a lot better than watching tv -- in my opinion anyway. However, I'm driven to make progress continually in anything I do --- so I want to get better at seeing the amazing beauty of the Universe from my backyard (how cool is THAT!?) . As an example of what I talking about here, Bray Falls (another youtube astrophotgrapher), has made a great case for doing your stargazing when the seeing is good (since he does photo processing the "garbage in/garbage out" paradigm applies). I have the Astropheric and 'Clear Skies' apps to check the present day's night (and the forecast for the next 3 there)
Hi Brad: First of all thank you and welcome to the wonderful world of amateur astronomy. Let's see if I can answer some of your questions. You sound very busy so I'll try to be succinct. I use a Sony A7Siii for making my videos. One of the best cameras ever. Get a red light or amber even for star gazing. It doesn't take longer to dark adapt as you get older; rather as you get older you will be unable to dilate your pupil as much as when you were young. Everyone is different but younger people in general can dilate to about 7mm and at your age only about 5mm. This impacts what is the best eyepiece to use. Maybe it's too advanced at this stage in your journey but I made a video about the exit pupil. More important I wanted to address what you said about seeing. I made a video about seeing also: ua-cam.com/video/oQVyRURxI7s/v-deo.html
Seeing is only important when viewing the planets, the sun, the moon, and when splitting double stars. Everything else you want to look it with your binoculars or telescope is much more dependent on the transparency and the seeing is not important at all.
I need glasses to see distances and so I have to wear my glasses when looking up at the sky but I really don't like wearing them when looking through the eyepiece and you don't need to either unless you have very bad astigmatism. I have a little bit of astigmatism but not enough to require wearing the glasses to view through my telescope. For starting out in astrophotography I would recommend not getting a ZWO camera but just trying out a DSLR or Mirrorless camera on the Dobsonian first. The object is going to move out of the field of view quickly at the high magnifications when using a dedicated astrophotography camera like a ZWO. You will have better luck with your DSLR. I would start there. For the planets and moon you will be taking short videos with the camera and stacking the video into a photo. Seeing is critical for planetary, solar, and lunar photography but not for other things. Don't get a big halogen light! Some people use a soft white light at night instead of red. Either one is going to set you back on your dark adaptation but it's necessary in order to look at your charts and plug things in etc. Some red lights are worse than others. LED right lights are way too bright. So, get a good one and make sure it doesn't make you go through white to get to red. Cheers.
Hi Tsula, I just watched and thanks. I'm itching for my Dob 8" and I was looking at the specs and they mentioned "Limiting Stellar Magnitude" I went huh? I now know but maybe this is a good topic for a you to make a video? Love your work and hope you dark skies. I just thought of this, I see people using poster board around the end of the scope to cut out neighbors lights and they say it's a decent dew shield, any thoughts?
I forgot to say mine that is coming is 14 I haven't read that far but I hope that's a good thing
@@krazyhorse448 14 is a decent limiting stellar magnitude and thanks for the suggestion for a video topic. I'll have to think about it and the best way to present it without putting people to sleep. As for poster board at the end of the scope, I'm not sure that would do much on a Dobsonian. Or is yours a truss tube? If so, then yes. I have heard of people putting a blanket over their heads to block out annoying lights. That works for short periods of time before you need to come up to breathe.
I use index cards around my finder scope. Bring extras for when they get soaked.
@@garylawson5381 I have a small dew strap that fits around the finder scope. I don't often have that much dew where I live and always forget to pull it out when needed. Never thought about using index cards but will keep that in mind next time there is a lot of dew.
So does the aperature matter far more than the telescope type for planet viewing? I was thinking Mak but I could maybe get a larger aperature Dob for same price
Aperture and seeing conditions matter the most when it comes to the planets. If the seeing is bad it doesn't matter what telescope you use; you won't be able to make out much detail. I have heard people say the best looks they ever got of Saturn was through a large refractor but in both cases the refractor was large for a refractor-- seven inches-- and extremely expensive. I have looked at Saturn and Jupiter through a 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain, a 10" Dobsonian, a 6" Refractor, a 6" Mak-Cass, and the best look I had was through the 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain. In the 6" Mak-Cass it looked wonderful but the image was much smaller than in the 10" or 12". If you are only going to look at the planets then the Mak-Cass will probably perform better with sharper images than the Dob will on planets. But are you really only going to look at the planets? Currently there aren't any planets visible in the night sky. This will change in a couple of months and later in the year Saturn and Jupiter will come to opposition (best time to look at the planets). But what about in between those times? Well, if you really are only going to look at the planets then I think the Mak-Cass would be the better choice although in general you do want the biggest aperture possible when it comes to the planets.
@@tsulasbigadventures ty you for such a deep dive into your real life experience.
@@PadroPadro22 You're welcome.
Whats the hype around double stars? Why do older folks obsess about them? Do they obsess because they’re trying to split them?
When you observe from a light polluted area and you are having trouble seeing deep sky objects, you can usually still see double star even with a gibbous moon out. The exception is when the seeing is poor and at those times it is difficult to split tight double stars but you can still see colorful pairs. So, the "obsession" is that sometimes it is just the challenge to see if your optics are good enough to split a tight double star and sometimes it's just the thrill of seeing a beautiful color distinction.
@@tsulasbigadventures I've been interested in Mizar and Albireo since my first telescope, many decades ago. So I wouldn't call my interest a factor of my age, let alone an obsession. I simply find it more educational and edifying than, say, playing my video games.
@@waltergold3457 I would agree with that.
Why do we do it? Because we can
North Star is trash to look at until you see it's not just one, And the OHHH moment hits. Me the big dipper and I went OH that is a 3 and with a better scope it's a ....