Astronomy

There are some funky reflector telescopes out there. Then you start to need motor drives to track. Like all hobbies it can get expensive.
 
I'd love to hear if you have any telescope recommendations (i.e. is there such a thing as a budget beginners one that might allow someone to see some planets?). I was up at the SFU Trottier Observatory last night and got to see Vega pretty nicely through their giant telescope :)
 
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I do have recommendations. I'd need to know budget, where you're observing, who will be using the telescope, how much you can reasonably lift, expectations, storage space, how careful you are with possessions, how much you want to learn, etc. If this is too personal, PM me.
 
While I don't have any illusions for my prospects for seeing anything interesting with at-home astronomy technology, I always thought it would be a fun project to try to make a thing ("stage"?) to track stars through the night sky in real time. I expect you can just buy a thing to do it for you, but where's the fun in that?

It always seems prohibitively expensive to buy all the parts I'd need to essentially just fiddle around though.
 
If you buy a projector, you could use it with free astronomical software and display the night sky on your wall or ceiling.
I can't say what you would find interesting, but I enjoy using my telescope even in badly light polluted Toronto. A lot of you would have much better viewing.
 
Lloyd Gordon said:
It won't look like much, like an extra star in Corona Borealis near Arcturus, should be able to use binoculars. I'm waiting, maybe by September.
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It won't look like much, but still, you'd get to say you saw a star explode ;) I'm sure someone somewhere will capture it as it happens, and it will be cool to see even just a little flare after the fact.
 
If anybody is watching, depending on the conditions and scope, you'll either see a star appear or brighten. Only exciting to astronerds like me.
 
For the last year and a half my kindergartener has announced his determination to be an astronomer (after finally giving up his lifelong dream of becoming an excavator). He's fascinated by stellar evolution and when I told him about the possible upcoming nova, he put on a live performance of a white dwarf siphoning off matter from a giant red dwarf, expanding, exploding, then shrinking again. That was probably more entertaining than the actual event witnessed from here on Earth, but I promised him we'd look out for it nonetheless :) We just have binoculars in a very bright city, so I'm not holding my breath.
 
Binoculars are a great recommendation for this. Light-weight, relatively cheap, and quick to "set up & take down" as in, no time at all, lol

I have a pair of Celestron 8 x 56 mm that I got from a special sale through the Canadian astronomy magazine "Sky News."
They have been excellent.

I use them more than the Celestron Super Polaris C8 telescope, TBH.

I too am looking forward to the "Blaze Star" going off. At a possible magnitude of 2.5 to 3, it should be obvious where you mentioned it in Coronae borealis, @Lloyd Gordon. Hopefully we all get to see it; as next time is 80 years after.
 
A Celestron C8, that's quite a telescope. I have a C6 and it's about as much as I can handle. What's the Bortle reading where you are?
 
Lloyd Gordon said:
A Celestron C8, that's quite a telescope. I have a C6 and it's about as much as I can handle. What's the Bortle reading where you are?
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Probably Class 4-5 from the backyard; if I go just a km away I'd give it a possible 3-4, as we are on the edge of this small town. But close to Red Deer (100,000+) and Edmonton & Calgary at a million each North & south respectively. "Clear outside" App gives it a 5 right now. Then again, we're in a thunderstorm right now... Also, my neighbors are really fond of patio lanterns & such.
My Cele C8 goes back a long time; to the late 80's. I was still in University when I got it. It's needing some mount work., but it's a trooper. The German Equatorial mount is heavy though; that counter-weight and full tripod add up. So again, I can't emphasize enough how wonderful a good set of binoculars are.

Sorry for delay replying. Was on the lake on paddle boards all day. FINALLY got some sun and heat here!
 
Toronto is pretty bad and the neighbours love their crazy lights. Still in the backyard, if I turn our lights off, it's too dark to see the racoons chasing me when I dark adapt. I can see over the year 2-3 closed clusters, 2-3 galaxies and the Ring Nebula so maybe it's an 8. I'm also limited by the buildings and trees. Still it's enough to make it interesting. My setup is I suspect around 24 pounds and not terribly bulky so I can just manage if the back is ok. Traffic is so evil here that I don't drive around much.
 
Not totally new news, but new to me and maybe some others - the sound of two black holes colliding!
 
It's kind-of a fun feature that LIGO and similar/related ground-based gravitational wave detectors are sensitive *specifically* to gravitational waves at the range of frequencies that a human would interpret as sound. It means you can basically just play the signal as-is, without the extra step of turning the signal into a form that makes sense to humans. It's maybe not something people think about very hard when looking at, eg, those "X-ray spectrum photos" of the sun, but like, obviously you're not literally seeing what it looks like in X-rays, because humans don't see X-rays, and that image looks yellow/blue/whatever. With LIGO, you're literally hearing what the gravitational waves sound like to humans. Though, perhaps at a higher volume.
 
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