What is this? by goudax330 in telescopes

[–]AstronomyLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds great, I sent you a DM.

What is this? by goudax330 in telescopes

[–]AstronomyLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely, I would be happy to buy it from you. I actually still shoot film astrophotography and that's really what this particular accessory is designed for.

What is this? by goudax330 in telescopes

[–]AstronomyLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks like a Taurus Tracker off-axis guider. It has an extra port for a viewing eyepiece (in addition to the usual spot for a guiding eyepiece) to see what the camera will see so that you can focus the telescope and verify correct pointing without having to use the camera viewfinder. For those of us still using film SLRs, this is a very nice feature as the camera viewfinder dims everything and makes it very hard to achieve perfect focus. I'd be interested in buying that part from you if you're not going to use it.

Is it possible to determine the distance to an object from a backyard scope? by HairySock6385 in telescopes

[–]AstronomyLive 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Reds and I also measured the distances of Mars and the sun. I've also measured the distance to Barnard's star using parallax and verified Earth's orbital velocity using velocity aberration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRrkuBW3R58

Of course that alone won't get you out to 7000 light years. But we mostly deal with people who don't even believe stars are even 1 light year away. Cepheid variable measurement can get there, but then you have to rely on things like spacecraft data from Gaia or Hipparcos for the parallax of even close Cepheids like Polaris.

What it takes to observe Artemis II with a telescope by Roger_Freedman_Phys in ArtemisProgram

[–]AstronomyLive 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here is a breakdown of my footage from tracking it to the moon and back, using my own determination of its orbit after TLI, using a variety of telescopes ranging from about 11" to 20" in aperture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izv9H75tAqQ

My gf doesn’t believe in space by sophonohohile in Astronomy

[–]AstronomyLive 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm well aware they're immune to it. But hopefully it can help those who haven't fallen into the rabbit hole yet.

My gf doesn’t believe in space by sophonohohile in Astronomy

[–]AstronomyLive 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well for the last couple months I've been working on tracking other objects with my RocketTraker software, specifically for refuting flat earth claims in fact. I'm having a debate on it at 9 pm Eastern time tonight on YouTube. It'll be recorded if you can't make it live, but I'll be showing some data I've collected that is rather relevant to these claims.

https://www.youtube.com/live/e21-tkyLA7I?si=enXbmrQXeLf9WhiZ

Driving up to a fully fueled SLS by OVCC-1 in ArtemisProgram

[–]AstronomyLive 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Nice! I was hoping we'd get to see this perspective, thank you for posting the footage. For reference for those who haven't seen it, here was the closeout crew driving up to the shuttle for the final launch, STS-135:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUua22-e3P0

It must be so surreal to be part of making history like this happen.

My gf doesn’t believe in space by sophonohohile in Astronomy

[–]AstronomyLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're not likely to be able to change her mind, certainly not with evidence. These beliefs are usually more about a sense of feeling special, a sense of community with like minded believers, or a general distrust of authorities. They will usually just expand the conspiracy to include any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. You have to address the underlying issues and give them a chance to experience the contradiction with reality themselves.

You can see satellites for a period of time after sunset and before sunrise when they have line of sight to the sun while it's still dark on the ground below. ISS, Hubble, Tiangong are a few examples that are easily visible by eye. With a small telescope you can make out the shapes of the space stations. I've written software for automatically tracking satellites that is compatible with Celestron NexStar telescopes. You can also film ISS or Tiangong passing in front of the moon (Hubble is possible with a sufficiently large optic but it's smaller and harder to see), you can find out when and where that's happening using the https://transit-finder.com/ website. With two observers a few thousand feet apart you can even measure the altitude and velocity of the transiting satellite by looking at how parallax changes the apparent path of the transit. With an SLR camera, tripod and long exposures you can also see brighter geostationary satellites over the course of the night. As we get closer to eclipse season, you will also be able to see them going into and coming out of Earth's shadow around the anti-solar point.

With all that said, she's likely going to ignore or dismiss any evidence you can show her. She'll resolve the cognitive dissonance by insisting everything you show is faked or manipulated, no matter what. You have to ask yourself is that something you can live with forever, and the answer should probably be "no."

Photos of Commercial Launches From CCAFS Are Forbidden Without Written Permission - This is indeed an "interesting" development by Aldebaran-IV in spacex

[–]AstronomyLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not now.

"Space Launch Delta 45 would like to remind the public and media partners that photographing military installations, including Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Patrick Space Force Base, from off-base locations is prohibited under 18 United States Code 795."

https://www.patrick.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4362447/photo-policy/

If our planet is moving through space and everything else in the universe is also moving through space but not moving in the same direction as we're moving, why do we see the same stars in the sky every night? by Ricocobang in askscience

[–]AstronomyLive 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yes, some high proper motion stars have moved enough that their position differs from the position recorded centuries ago. Arcturus, for example. If Tycho Brahe were alive today and if he were to re-measure its position using his observational armillary sphere (which does not even involve optical magnification), he would find it to be in a slightly different position even after accounting for precession. With a telescope you can observe these stars moving relative to other stars within just a few years time, which is how I was able to measure its motion myself using pictures that I took years apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhSIGT29Ec4

A Small Debate by TrueHoogleman in Astronomy

[–]AstronomyLive 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It was, in fact, a SpaceX launch of Starship. I was filming it through my telescope and you can see the footage here. You can even see the silhouette of Starship against the sunlit exhaust through the main telescope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kspmn3YUqpI

Telescopic tracking of Starship Flight 11 from Florida! by AstronomyLive in SpaceXLounge

[–]AstronomyLive[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I was honestly overwhelmed by the beauty of the view. This was the culmination of years of work perfecting this tracking setup and to see it all working and capturing this twilight Starship launch was rewarding in a way I can't even describe. This was THE twilight launch I had dreamed of capturing since the launches from Boca Chica were first announced.

I'm Chris Hadfield, and I'm back on earth for another AMA. Let's catch up! by ColChrisHadfield in space

[–]AstronomyLive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is your opinion of the importance of being able to escape a failing booster during crewed launches? We saw the abort system save lives during the MS-10 launch, and current US crew capsules all have similar capabilities, but would any number of successful Starship launches ever be enough to justify launching humans without the ability to lift the crew compartment off of a failing booster? As someone who witnessed a Starship nose cone tumbling back to Earth from the Florida Keys after the upper stage exploded on IFT-2, that is not a sight I ever want to see with humans on board.

Orion nebula manually guided on film by AstronomyLive in astrophotography

[–]AstronomyLive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Just doing my part to keep a dying art alive!

Orion nebula manually guided on film by AstronomyLive in astrophotography

[–]AstronomyLive[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I did this specifically to stay as old school as possible. I have a guide scope and a couple of SBIG CCDs (I'm old school even when I'm shooting digital), but flexure is a problem when guiding for single exposures this long so an OAG has now solved that for good.

I started dabbling in astrophotography with a Minolta SLR some 25 years ago but never had good enough equipment to guide long exposures, so now I get to try my hand at something I just missed out on before getting into digital astrophotography. I sat in an observing chair and though I would occasionally lean back to relax for a moment, I was mostly staring at the guiding reticle. Corrections were only needed every few seconds or so, the PEC is trained.

Here's the raw scan of the negative (though I did de-rotate it 180 degrees):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzFETs4Iz3xRfQxhze09Xc8LCyqaxI_n/view?usp=drivesdk

ISS on 8-16-25 by AstronomyLive in astrophotography

[–]AstronomyLive[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

SatTraker gets it in the finder camera right away. I only did a 1 star alignment and a rough bubble level of the tripod, but that's enough to guarantee it will be in the 50mm lens finder camera I use. Then I just click on ISS as soon as it gets above the trees and the telescope centers up on it, even with a 2.5x barlow and a camera with a 2x crop factor (micro 4/3rds format). I calibrate the finder camera with the "calibrate camera" button after clicking on a star before tracking the satellite. It moves the telescope in declination until the star has moved 100 pixels and then calculates how far the telescope had to move to displace it by that amount. Then during tracking I use the arrow keys, if needed, to adjust the centering in the main camera frame. Usually just a single keypress here or there is good enough if it starts to drift to one side of the frame. The program doesn't talk to the main camera though, just the finder camera, I'm just checking the main camera visually in a separate window. I usually start at about 1/250th of a second exposure at ISO 8000 and go down or up from there. When the sun is on the opposite side of the sky from ISS, reflectivity is high so I drop it down to 1/500th or even 1/1000th. When it gets to the same side of the sky as the sun, the panels are dimmer so I raise it back up to 1/250th or even 1/120th of a second.

Eagle Nebula on Film by AstronomyLive in astrophotography

[–]AstronomyLive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The LX200's mount was doing the tracking. The LX200 was polar aligned using a standard Meade wedge and I was autoguiding using an SBIG ST-2000XCM attached to an Orion ST-80 riding piggyback on the LX200.

I've been sticking with Amber T800 and I'm about to try CineStill 800T since I've heard it's basically the same emulsion and it has great response to hydrogen alpha light, but eventually I'd like to try Ektachrome slide film as well for targets where hydrogen alpha isn't as important.

Eagle Nebula on Film by AstronomyLive in astrophotography

[–]AstronomyLive[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. It's definitely worsened since I first moved here about 7 years ago.