Mastodawn

AI6YR Ben Mar 3

LOL true Mastodon verification:

YOU MUST VERIFY YOURSELF ON MASTODON BY:

- Posting a picture of a cat in your lap
- Random photos of flowers
- Wax poetic about your favorite episode of Star Trek TNG (or your hate of the series)
- Random, undecipherable technical blabbering about ham radio electronics
- Mention something about your favorite Linux command line
- Say hello to your many LGBTQ followers/friends here, just because you're glad they're here
- Toot a picture of some mushroom you ran into while walking in the forst
- Something something astronomy
- Random gadget/device/bicycle post
- Post a random picture of a tree or window
- Photo of your sewing/mending project!
- Hand drawn art post

@ai6yr You forgot ham radio and sewing machines

Paul_IPv6 Mar 3

i think any hardware/toys you can geek about count. i follow folks talking about musical instruments, fiber crafts, jewelry, woodworking, calligraphy/fountain pens. you just have to be well beyond sanely interested in whatever it is and overly willing to share technical details. ;)

David Nash Mar 3

@paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr Hardware/toy geekery pairs nicely with "Something something astronomy".

Current bit of precision-ground glass in a tube: 12.5"/320mm f/5 Dobsonian reflector on a cart for easy transport. It breaks down into smaller components so it's possible to take it on a road trip to darker skies.

Jacob Something Mar 3

@dpnash @paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr Wow, you made that? Do you also have a photo in disassembled state? I've been wondering, when there's light pollution anyway, does a bigger lens help?

David Nash Mar 3

@jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr

I didn’t make it myself. I bought it from someone who was a woodworker who’d also gotten into amateur telescope making. No good photos of it though in the disassembled state, unfortunately.

If there is a lot of light pollution, the larger mirror does help: it won’t fish really diffuse faint objects like galaxies out of the murk, but it does make it easier to see fainter stars and clusters of stars. Larger optics also translate into higher optical resolution, so you can see finer details in bright objects like the moon and planets.

Jacob Something Mar 3

@dpnash @paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr
Some weeks ago, on a clear night, I tried to see the pinwheel galaxy. Took me a while to find the exact spot, but what I saw was exactly dark blue on a dark blue background. I could make out nothing. Not even a faint difference. That was with a six-inch reflector, near a big city. You've probably seen it?

@jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr

I have, from a very dark sky with a 10” scope some years back. With a 6” it should be possible to see all the Messier catalog galaxies, but you’ll need a dark sky to have a reasonable chance at it.

Galaxies are, without a doubt, *the* toughest things to see with significant light pollution. You can snag fairly faint stars by cranking up the magnification a bit, and many nebulas can be made more visible with narrowband color filters, but galaxies are only visible when the sky background light level is low enough.

AI6YR Ben Mar 3

@dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME One year, I accidentally ended up at Death Valley during the "Dark Sky" festival, where there were a whole array of massive telescopes set up and I got to see so many things!!!

(Off topic, we had set up a "Star Wars" themed outing there to get some scouts enthusiastic about going to Death Valley, and it was ENTIRELY SERENDIPITY that it was the same weekend as the festival.. We also walked into the Visitor's Center very quickly and the only reason we knew about the festival, was an off-duty NPS ranger from our local park recognized me and told me to take all the scouts to the airport in the evening. IT WAS AWESOME)

@ai6yr @dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME

Congratulations! You just verified your Mastodon profile! ✅

AI6YR Ben Mar 3

@nellie_m @dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME lol

glasspshr Mar 3

@ai6yr @nellie_m @dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME

Star parties at dark sky sites are fabby

glasspshr Mar 3

@ai6yr @nellie_m @dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME

Also, the Crab Nebula is tough to see from suburban skies

David Nash Mar 4

@jkanev @paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr

For context, Mr. Messier observed many of the 110 objects in the Messier catalog with a 4”/100 mm refractor. This is a reasonable starting point for seeing them distinctly under a completely dark sky, which he (and pretty much everyone else in the 18th century) had. Keep in mind that in many cases, what he saw was “faint fuzzy blob that looks kind of like a comet”. Seeing details in galaxies (in particular) requires a larger scope along with genuinely dark skies.

@dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 @ai6yr My failure to see it could have many factors-my own eyesight, the quality of my instrument, the darkness of my dark sky. As well, as you say, galaxies simply don't look like pretty spirals in naked eye views.

AI6YR Ben Mar 4

@W6KME @dpnash @jkanev @paul_ipv6 The telescopes I got to see galaxies through in Death Valley were all big (dunno how big) but it was amazing....

Jacob Something Mar 4

@dpnash @paul_ipv6 @W6KME @ai6yr
Mmh, my thoughts went along those lines a bit too. If he could see them, why can't I, my telescope's better than his. I've red records of people who observed stars in broad daylight using telescopes, so I thought maybe a bigger lens might help? The pinwheel has magnitude 7.8 which doesn't sound too bad. But like I said, there was nothing, not even a slight hint of anything. Uniform blueness. That's why I was curious whether you'd seen it with your very nice setup. A dark sky, unfortunately, isn't an option for my any time soon.