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Showing posts with the label meade

Astronomy Gear Upgrades

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I recently picked up a relatively inexpensive larger telescope to help improve my views of the sun.  I say "relatively inexpensive" because a little, cheap camera lens would cost more than this telescope cost.  This new telescope is significantly larger than my previous "large" telescope which should help to see more detail on the surface of the sun...  when and if the skies here ever allow for crisper viewing! Although this telescope is larger, the optical glass in the telescope is not nearly as good as the glass in my other telescopes.  For relatively narrowband viewing of the sun, however, this should not matter.  Since the glass in this telescope isn't "perfect" (to simplify things), it is considered more of a low-end telescope.   When this telescope arrived, I needed to replace the stock focuser.  Most low-end telescopes only come with a single speed focuser, however, it is far easier to focus fine detail when you have a dual speed focuser.

Some Solar Astronomy

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My health is still recovering from the problems I had Saturday but I felt like dragging a telescope out to the front deck to observe the sun this morning. It doesn't require a whole lot of energy to peer through a telescope but I do need to be careful out in the sun or I'll end up with failing health again. I definitely don't have the energy nor is my head clear enough to attempt any home improvement/repair projects so I will probably bounce between the piano and the telescope all morning. It is a bit hazy again today so the viewing isn't great but it is better than the clouds and rain we've had for the past week or longer. At least the sun is shining! Up until today, all my astrophotography has been done using my Sony a6000 with its 1.5x crop sensor. This morning, however, I decided to give my full frame Sony a7 a shot... My Sony a7 worked just fine. This camera will give me a slightly wider view but also should provide smoother gradients and simply bette

Solar Astrophotography

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The sun can be seen illuminating the back end of the Wedge. It has been difficult for me to get out at night lately to view the night sky with a telescope. We don't get crisp, clear nights all that often and especially in the summer. My health problems don't help in this cause either because quite often I am left too exhausted by the time we finish dinner. The real icing on the cake lately has been a roaming bear in our neighborhood at night and I really have no desire to bump into a roaming bear in the dark! Needless to say, it has been difficult to get out at night for some astronomy in recent weeks. The aforementioned nighttime viewing problems got me wondering about giving daytime solar astronomy a try. To make a long story short, I found that all I need to do to view the sun is replace one part of my telescope with a part that is designed specifically for viewing the sun... then add a filter or two... then I can view the sun with my own telescope and shoot images w