But the sky is a big place! There’s plenty up there, it’s just imperative for me to know what is passing through my third and when.ĬDC allows you to customize your horizon by modifying a simple text file.
If you do the arithmetic I can only see 1/3 of the sky. And my own roof blocks the first 30° up from the horizon. From my backyard, trees, hillside, and houses block about 180° from the southwest to the northeast. But urban and suburban backyard imagers typically don’t have 360° views. If you’re bringing your scope to wide open fields, this isn’t that important. The first step to “power use” the software is setting up your observatory. Stellarium), that’s fine as long as you can gain good control over the features that I’ll emphasize below. If you prefer to use a different program (e.g. CDC is free and very robust, and can be downloaded for Mac, PC, or Linux. Although many great “Planetarium” programs are available, with varying degrees of connectivity to telescope mounts, I will only discuss the one that I know best, which is Cartes du Ciel (“CDC”, French for “Sky Maps”).
But astrophotography lets us explore things you can’t otherwise see, so sky charts are essential. But first let’s discuss how to find invisible targets in the city or suburban sky.įor a visual observer in the city, the starting point can be just looking up and aiming the scope at the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, or other bright target. Next month I’ll discuss a great piece of freeware that helps match equipment choices to specific targets. Two free tools are invaluable for addressing these questions.
When and where do I aim my telescope? And if I can find it, which equipment should I use to image it? I think this object is pretty cool looking and I don’t know if I can do it justice, but I’d love to try. Thor’s Helmet Emission Nebula (NGC 2359) by Martin Rusterholz.
Alternatively, I’ll see something like this as I browse astronomy sites and publications: Figure 1. “The weather will finally be good this weekend! What should I shoot at now?” For an intermediate imager like myself, this is one of the thoughts that leads to selection of a target.
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