Archive for : January, 2010

Stargazing with Binoculars Book Review

Stargazing with Binoculars BookStargazing with Binoculars with Robin Scagell and David Frydman

Stargazing with Binoculars is the latest book from Philip’s (as of Spring 2008). Using binoculars is a great way to begin your astronomy hobby before you go out and spend money on a telescope, especially now that you can buy some powerful binoculars for little money. I use a pair of binoculars myself as they are quick and easy to pick up and use, I think everybody should have a pair.

So it is about time we saw a book on astronomy with binoculars. The book does contain in-depth information on the various types of binoculars and what to look for when purchasing a pair. This includes the various models, using tripods and how to attach the binoculars with an L bracket, this information is not at the beginning of the book but actually at the back of the book.

The book also covers how to look after your binoculars and how to observe the sun with them. Stargazing with binoculars actually begins by introducing you to the night’s sky and how to find your way round it.

There is an interesting chapter entitled “The binocular observer’s year” which tells you what the best sights are to look out for month by month during the year.

The book also contains a chapter on the solar system which gives readers a general overview of the night’s sky and the hobby of astronomy.

Stargazing with binoculars is a great book as it contains some really nice colour images of the night’s sky, which are all up to date. If you are interested in astronomy and want to buy a pair of binoculars or if you already own a pair but want to get outside to look at the night’s sky, then buy this book.

Stargazing with Binoculars is available at Waterstones

Orion Nebula and Pleiades Images

Managed to get out last night at about 9.30pm until Midnight. With so many great sights in the sky at the moment in January it’s hard to know what to try and image first.

M1 Crab Nebula, M45 Pleiades, Mars, M42 Orion Nebula, Horsehead Nebula etc.

At the moment I love connecting my Canon 450D up to my £100 refractor guide scope. I just find it so easy to use and focus compare to the LX200. The worst thing on the LX200 is not seeing where you are when focusing. I like to see the drawtube on the refractor.

I ended up taking the pleiades and the orion nebula with the 70mm refractor.

Pleiades Image

Orion Nebula

Lunar Eclipse Image on Sky News

I sent my lunar eclipse images around the internet and managed to get the photo on the Sky News website within about 12 hours. The local CAA have also responded, and so have the SPA. The SPA have requested a high resolution version, hopefully for the quarterly magazine, but we’ll see.

Lunar Moon Eclipse on Sky News Website

Partial Lunar Eclipse New Year’s Eve 2009

Managed to get out tonight for a while around 7.30pm, I did not think the clouds would clear. Usually whenever there is something worth looking at it’s always cloudy! But eventually the clouds went and the moon was in full view, even though it was -1 degrees in the shed.

Lunar Eclipse 31st Dec 2009

I took these images by attaching my Canon 450d to my cheap £100 guiding refractor telescope, I still think the photographs it produces are great for a £100 telescope. Images were taken mostly using an exposure time of 1/800th and an ISO400

I stayed out as long as possible to try and get the full story of the eclipse, all the way through from start to finish, but I did move my camera between the refractor and the lx200 so some later shots did get rotated as I did not put the camera back in the exactly same position.

moon-slides

The partial eclipse was not a great site to behold, but still something worth looking at.