Just a little reminder that this Saturday 21st April is Astronomy Day!

I'm planning a private star gazing marathon starting at Saturday 10.00 pm till Sunday 7.00 am. Just going to put the Autostar on the Star Tour and let it take me on a trip around the universe.

I hope I'll survive it.......if not, adios, seņores, so long, thanks for all the fish....(from `The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy').

What's the scope you have now? By the way, 3 comets and 1 asteroid as well as 1 meteor shower are visible this week. (How's the contribution to our club?)

Still the same old Chinese refractor.....mounted on a old second hand LXD55 GEM with Autostar.

Astronomy on a tight budget.......

You didn't mention this equipment before. I would like to see how does a GEM operate. Do you mind to bring the setup to Kluang and share the knowledge of stargazing? Hehe~

Do a google on the internet and you'll see the hate-bashing this GEM gets. Shocking!

I don't think it's a good travelling mount.....heavy and bulky. Will put some dents in the car during sharp corners.

Haha, drift then~

Hi there, would like to pick up a new hobby, guess what?
Would like to quickly ask for a rough estimation of how much it would cost for stargazing.. I know got 3 ways, bare eyes, binoculars and telescope

~ how much for a beginner telescope? I searched on ebay.com.my and found these. Are these good enough? I mean really really on a tight budget but for ppl with tight budget like me, the answer provided here would be really good
http://www.ebay.com.my/listResults?browse=...archWorldWide=0
~ what are the specifications of binoculars we need in case the budget for above is not met?

Yeah I have been reading from beginning post till half way and I think I should try ask the questions already..

Thanks!

For me, I would top up my budget a bit to get a better telescope or just stick with binocular which is even better than telescope in this price range. We often call the scope you searched "Department Store Scope". They don't worth the price.

For binocular, 7*50 is a very suitable model for beginner hobbist. You may try to search around locally for it. If you want to get it from U.S., I have 2 sites bookmarked. http://bigbinoculars.com/ and http://www.garrettoptical.com/Default.asp?Redirected=Y. Other than a binocular, you need a star chart to locate objects. It can be easily found on internet, e.g. http://www.skymaps.com/ .

For tight budget, I strongly recommend a binocular. It often costs under RM400. March05 has a better idea at buying locally.

Thanks Mr.LKM
The answers u provided is really helpful for me. Guess I try settle for a pair of bino then

I guess there is no way I can get into astro photography yet with a pair of bino.

If I am not mistaken, you can actually do astrophotography using binocular but I forgot that website. What about you do a google search and show it here?

What about you save your earning for several months or up to years to get a good telescope? It will be your lifetime telescope. If I haven't digged out all the performance of my 8" LX90, I will not be getting another scope. By the way, my target is a 10" or 12" RCX400.

The moon's quite nice tonite. I'll try to shoot some pics through my old binoculars just for the hell of it. If they turn out better than through my fancy chinese refractor, I'll eat my hat.

BTW, Shoot@M3, binoculars are actually a matched pair of small refracting telescopes, so you can tell ppl you've got two telescopes......

Ok will try search for it later on if found will post here. Thanks

That is really funny lah.. haha, yeah saw the moon is quite nice here too tonite.. I actually asked the building security whether I can go way up to my building top to do some viewing and surprisingly the answer is 'yes'. Btw am in Kota Kinabalu here and our building is quite outskirt from the town so I was kinda itching to try out. I'll see how later then

Edit:Btw, the building is like 20 floors high on the top, dunno whether that is good enough, but then alone at the top at nite gives me some chill!

This post has been edited by Shoot@M3: Apr 30 2007, 09:23 PM

Just make sure that be aware of the environment, not to be fully attracted to the beautifulness of the night sky and back stabbed by people.

Now u really gives me the chill haha, hey come to think I don't think the top is a very popular place for our building, so ain't too sure of what might be lurking there..
btw, for the beginners try read here if wan have some ideas. yeah it's true that we should really save $$ to get better ones. The site also have articles on how to choose bino based one given ratios as well

http://www.r-clarke.org.uk/starting_astro1.htm

This post has been edited by Shoot@M3: Apr 30 2007, 09:32 PM

The Moon is really full but I can't do observing tonight. My hurt hand doesn't allow me to carry my telescope.

Actually, full moon is not a great observing night. Quite a lot of faint stars are invincible due to the moon's glow.

This post has been edited by Mr.LKM: Apr 30 2007, 09:59 PM

Okay, snapped off 19 shots before the mosquitoes attacked!

The best result:



well, at least I know I won't have to eat my hat........

Not bad, considering it's a pair of pasar malam 10x50 binos.

This post has been edited by March05: Apr 30 2007, 10:10 PM

March, how do you mount the digicam to ur bino?
so this is how 10x50 will roughly give out, hmmm...

I just held the camera up to the bino eyepiece and snap lah. Out of 19 shots, only 2 are in `focus' and with minimal camera shake. The rest can go into the recycle bin.

I guess it would be better if I used a proper adapter to center the camera lens and hold it steady, but I don't have one on hand.

icic, i just found out something about Digital Camera Binocular.. finally
But I guess the digital cam function inside these binos should have really limited functions

Will search some more, or otherwise will follow ur way hehe

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Added on April 30, 2007, 10:46 pmHere's something about digital cam bino
http://www.binoculars.com/specialty_v2/dig...binoculars.html

still can't seem to find one that is >32mm diameter

This post has been edited by Shoot@M3: Apr 30 2007, 10:47 PM

Please note that these digital binocams do not use the binocular optics to capture the image. Having a 32 mm or larger aperture is meaningless.