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Amateur
Astronomy & Stargazing
For many years I have been an amateur astronomer
interested in the heavens and enjoy star-gazing,
watching
for
meteors,
satellites,
observing the constellations, and even dabbled
in a little bit of astrology for fun too.
Recently I purchased a decent quality telescope, and have built a web site dedicated to it:-
Orion Skyquest XT10i Dobsonian Telescope Reviews
The Orion XT10 telescope is a Newtonian Reflector, with a computer database which enables you to point the scope directly at stars and planets. It is called the Orion Skyquest IntelliScope Computer Object Locator.
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One
of the simple pleasures you can enjoy is going
out into your garden at night with a set
of binoculars and just sitting back on a reclining chair, letting
your eyes adjust to the darkness.
You do not need a big expensive telescope to
be able to enjoy the heavens.
Slowly
the stars become brighter and after about 5-10
minutes you are able to see so much more than
when you first came out.
When you first look up, everything looks static
and lifeless, but you will be surprised how much
activity you can see.
Just
keep your eyes gazing up, and within the space
of 10-30 minutes you
can almost be guaranteed to see communications
and weather satellites. They are easy to
spot against
the motionless background
of
the
stars.
You will see a tiny pinprick of light, which
will probably appear to be flickering as it revolves
reflecting the sunlight as it moves across the
night sky, until it passes into the
shadow of the earth and vanishes from sight.
Meteorite showers are quite
common in the summer, and again are quite fascinating
to see.
What
amazes me is the incredible speed of
a meteorite as it enters the earths atmosphere.
For these
you
have
to
just look upward and not focus on any particular
part of the sky, just try to take in the whole
field of view. Be patient, and after a
while very suddenly you will see a bright point
of
light shoot incredibly
quickly
across
a section of the sky.
It burns up and is gone
within a half of a second! And yet it traversed
maybe 30 degrees of sky - Amazing!
If you are watching
with someone else you both have to see it
at exactly the same time, because it is gone too
quickly to be able to point it out to each
other!
Those hunks of rock have travelled millions
of miles across the infinite boundaries of
space,
who knows from where they came. And you were
probably the only person to have just
witnessed its final dying moments, as our protective
cushioning atmosphere saved earth from the
meteor's destructive mass, and it exhausted
its kinetic energy in a fiery display, which
for a brief moment looks more like a white
laser beam has scratched the black sky.
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If you would like to explore the heavens
and get a more intimate knowledge of the
planets, our solar system, the moon, constellations,
and galaxies and be able to track man-made
satellites too, I highly recommend the software
from www.StarryNight.com.
It is probably the best and most realistic
astronomy software you can find, and it has
an excellent range of astronomy
software products for junior astronomers,
to professional
astronomy software that integrates with telescope
tracking modules. Prices range from just
$25 to about $250. It is incredibly easy
and fun to use, and allows you to explore
deep space and travel through time, view
distant galaxies or close ups of the moon,
and naturally it shows in real-time the current
positions of the objects in the sky so you
can look them up on your computer, then go
outside and view them with your eyes, binoculars
or telescope. |
Puffle.co.uk - Amateur Astronomy
Photography
No not the "puffle" telescope,
Puffle.co.uk is
a web site run by one of my friends, James
Billings, who has his
own telescope and being a keen photographer
also takes night-time
astronomy photos of the planets, star trails
and the moon, the aurora or Northern Lights,
lightning, landscapes, sunsets, and so on.
Click the image below for an incredible photo
of the moon taken by James. I love the immensity
of the star-field in the background, and the
way this, almost 3-dimensional picture, gives
a real depth and sense of the moon floating through
space. (The appearance of this photo may depend
a bit on the contrast/brightness settings of
your computer screen).
James is also
very keen on 3D Computer Art, and has
a section showing a variety of interesting
computer generated images.
Click here to visit Jame's Amateur
Astronomy and Telescope Photography Imaging pages.
He also creates his own K750 themes for his
mobile phone. If you own a Sony Ericsson
K750 Mobile Phone, you will find some
FREE menu themes he has made on the following
page where you can
click on a preview link, or use the
download
link.
Free
Space menu theme download for Sony Ericsson
K750 Mobile Phones
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