Questions tagged [amateur-observing]
Questions about the observation of celestial objects by non-professional astronomers.
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Noble gas analysis on meteorite
Why is it not possible to get a noble gas analysis (mars signature test) done on a rock sample commercially?
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How fast is Andromeda approaching in miles per hour
Apparently Andromeda is going to get here in 5 billion years and is 2.5 million light years away. I tried to work this out myself but I'm not sure I believe the answer..
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Should you include aberration effects during low Earth orbit observations?
I am working on calibration of some observations of low Earth orbit satellites and I am wondering should I include aberration effects? My logic is that diurnal aberration would have neglegible ...
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sideways crescent moon but also no moon somewhere else?
I live in Sumter, South Carolina and the moon looked like a crescent moon but sideways like a bowl. But when I told my friend to look at the moon they couldn't find it and they live in Buffalo, New ...
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Space-based radio telescope array
I’m wondering about the abilities of a technology: You may have heard of the Square Kilometer Array. The array is focused by adjusting the timing of the individual antennas.
Q: Could this array be ...
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Astro-filters for the solar system
I’m looking for set of filters for my telescope. Something for the solar system. Can you say me what is the best choice?
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Can telescopes under $200 help you see saturn clearly by eye without editing the image on a computer?
I had a telescope that only cost 50 dollars for viewing the moon and it was good for that but the planet's were always badly out of focus. I am thinking of getting a better telescope for up to $200 ...
user52488
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How to spot Andromeda in a 130mm telescope?
I have no problem to spot orion nebula, I mean the blue splash caused by the gas on my 130mm reflector telescope but I can’t see the same on Andromeda, what I am missing?
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Calculating intensity of moonlight per unit area
I have a photodiode that can measure intensity in picowatt to milliwatt range.
I have a telescope of 5 inch diameter. I want to calculate the intensity of moonlight received by this area? This will ...
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Formula to calculate time of day from shadow direction on Earth and latitude?
Web search found how to calculate shadow length and others but not my specific question. I have a photo. I found location on a map (so I know directions to objects: north/west/... and latitude). There ...
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Why do planets just look like a dark ball in my telescope
I bought a Matsukov Cassegrain many years ago and now wanted to dust it off and use it. I had two young kids at the time so couldn't really find the time. Last night Jupiter and Saturn were both ...
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Recurring flying object near the Big Dipper
This evening I was watching the Big Dipper when I noticed a bright-enough object (it looked either like a satellite or a really slow shooting star) a little above the line that connects Dubhe and ...
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How is parallax really measured?
I understand the basics of how parallax is measured (i.e. two measurements 6 months apart), but I also understand that, in reality, it would have to be more complicated than that, because stellar ...
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How plausible is it for legends about the Pleiades to be this ancient?
There's a tangent at the beginning of this video on the Epic of Gilgamesh briefly talking about an oddity where most ancient cultures have stories about the Pleiades star cluster, often describing ...
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Space telescope spectroscopic data for stellar classification using Wien's law
My goal is to make a simple project which consists of classifying stars by applying Wien's displacement law.
I need public spectroscopic data about different stars from a space telescope, so that I ...
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Measuring Expansion Rate of Crab Nebula with Radio Spectrum Scan
I am a high school student who is into radio astronomy, and I have the opportunity to use Green Bank’s 20m radio telescope for a practice research project. I would like to use my observations to very ...
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Multiple very small, very low visibility moving stars?
I've been seeing these very small star like objects cross the sky for a couple months now. I notice that I see the them in clusters, for instance I see 2 one day and then another the next, and then I ...
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Do all the planets travel along the same constellations?
If humans ever moved to another planet in this solar-system, what constellations would the sun meet from that perspective? What constellations would the sun look like it is meeting from the ...
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Creating a small data pipeline
I wanted to create a small data pipeline such that it consists of images of sky in the filters F125W, F160W, F606W and F850LP. The 4 images for a single object should be in a single FITS File which ...
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How can someone take narrowband data from an OSC narrowband filter
To those who aren’t aware, an OSC narrowband filter is a filter with multiple band passes, for different emission lines. These can include a combination of Hα, Hβ, OIII, SII, and other emission lines. ...
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How to mount a 2" filter to a DSLR or mirrorless camera?
I'm considering using a 2" filter for astrophotography with DSLR and mirrorless cameras. Filters are typically measured in mm, but I understand that a "2 inch" filter is really a 48mm ...
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Apart from higher costs, drawbacks of catadioptric telescope vs Newtonians?
From what I've read, catadioptric telescopes seem to be superior to reflectors. They tend to require less frequent collimations, are generally shorter in physical length, and the combination of lenses ...
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Solar-winds: public NOAA data
I was searching for interesting data from space recently, and stumbled onto https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/.
The long and short is that they offer some interesting solar wind data
Of particular interest to ...
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Trouble seeing Mars and Venus more than specks of light
Finally been breaking out the telescope to get a better look at things recently, and have been attempting to take advantage of Mars's and Venus's positions in the sky, but I haven't been able to see ...
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Where can the public stream live astronomical data from?
I am looking to find some resources on public streaming of astronomical data. Does such a thing exist? In my explorations so far, I came across lots of nice answers linking to data in archives, but no ...
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What stars are brighter than any more distant stars?
Which stars have a greater apparent brightness (lower apparent magnitude) than any stars that are further away? (i.e. the only stars that appear brighter than them are also closer)
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How do I find out when sidereal time was 13:30 on a certain date and location?
I live in Lehi, Utah, USA and I want to know what time of day it was on sidereal time on February 25th, 2023. Someone said it was 3:32 AM and I wanted to check and see if that was true.
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What was the formation of three blinking dots, looking back using Stellarium [closed]
On February 28, 2023, we were watching the stars around 19:45 from the ground in central Netherlands when we saw three bright blinking dots moving along the sky.
The dots were arranged in a triangular ...
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Small bright constellation on the photo
I did a photo of the night sky and wanted to find a constellation on it. I've suggestion that it is Delphinus constellation. Could you please help me figure it out. Also, I'm curios about good way to ...
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Right ascension of a star and local sidereal time
If I'd like to watch star like Betelgeuse that has coordinates - right ascension 05h 55m 10.30536s and declination +07° 24′ 25.4304″.
If my local sidereal time is 05h 55m 10.30536s does it mean that ...
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Telescopes with equatorial mount and "catching" stars
I have a misunderstanding of principles behind using telescopes with equatorial mount (I don't have it yet, only trying to grasp the idea). For example, I would like to watch Betelgeuse in the ...
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Identify T-shaped constellation
What is this T-shaped constellation? Never seen it before and it’s not on the map. The photo is made from south-west London facing west at 23-15 on 25.02.2023.
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Did anyone else see this in the sky Thursday Feb 9 about 18:50 PST? [duplicate]
My location is Cottage Grove Oregon, and last night in the sky just south of directly overhead I saw an absolutely straight line of moving lights, each light passing my eye at 3 second intervals, ...
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Are the 2 planets in this image Venus and Saturn? And is this a fireball shooting star in top right of picture?
I took this picture with my iPhone on January 23, 2023 @6:01pm CST. I am in West Central Alabama very close to the Tenn-Tom Waterway a few miles from the MS state line. I was facing west-southwest.
I ...
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Feasibility of detecting earth-like exoplanets with amateur telescopes
An approximation of the dimming of exoplanet transits can be obtained by dividing the areas of the disks of the exoplanet and star by each other.
Taking the radii of Jupiter and our sun results in an ...
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What would be a good telescope to buy for amateur practice? [ Specifications in description ]
I'm a beginner in Astronomy in general and would like to have something like this with which I could do amateur photography and generally practice.
What would be a good telescope to buy with the ...
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What stars are brighter then any star nearer to the south celestial pole [closed]
What stars are brighter (apparent magnitude) then any star nearer to the south celestial pole?
I know that there’s no bright star within a few degrees of the south celestial pole.
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Metonic cycle observation & display [closed]
I'm unable to locate physical display observatories for the 19 year Metonic cycle. How do I display this information & calendar detail on a concrete floor near the tropic of cancer?
I seek a floor ...
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Star identifier needed
Like other apps such as PeakVisor for identifying mountains, I was hoping there was an app with which I could upload a photo to identify stars in the night sky. I’m not finding one so thought I’d try ...
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Can a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ2000 be attached to a Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ
We recently bought a Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ for our children and we like to take some pictures of what we are seeing through the telescope. We know that's a beginner telescope and not ...
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iphone & remote control tripod & stellarium
I am curious if anyone has success using one of those (relatively) inexpensive remote controlled (motored) tripods designed for iphones, and astrophotography.
These little iphone tripods and motorized ...
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How does one convert between Modified Julian Date (MJD) and a standard (mm/dd/yr, hr:mm:ss)
I looked online and couldn't see an actual formula or anything, so I figured I'd ask here.
If I had an MJD like the following: 59145.6678
How would I convert that to a month, day, and year with the ...
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space programs/projects/competitions/courses ..etc? [closed]
My name is Meryem (or Meer), I'm 15 years old and I've been fond of space and astronomy since two years.
I read books about astronomy, love to search and write reviews about astronomy topics and ...
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How Well Can I See the Surface of Jupiter Using Natgeo 76/700 EQ Telescope?
I have been trying to see surface features on the disk of Jupiter with my Natgeo 76/700 EQ1 but it does not appear to be too clear. So I was wondering:
What kind of image I should expect from this ...
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Has "crescent-twinkling" even been demonstrated or at least calculated/predicted? Any "twinkleometer" data for Venus out there?
My new answer to Why does Venus flicker? addresses something that I find particularly interesting; Venus can be an incredibly thin crescent at times, and even a 1 arcminute large thin ring with an ...
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What was this shooting star that I saw 2 nights ago that traveled south to north at approximately eye level? [closed]
For about 2 weeks I have been observing the night sky hoping to see shooting stars. I have seen many during this 2 weeks but 2 nights ago I saw what I believe was a shooting star but it traveled from ...
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How do astronomers calibrate the intensity scale of their spectrometers?
Discussion on Strange bump in solar spectrum taken with home-made spectrograph made me wonder: How do astronomers calibrate the intensity scale of their spectrometers? I mean, how to take in ...
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Strange bump in solar spectrum taken with home-made spectrograph
I am an astronomy teacher, and made some kind of spectrograph with a difraction grating, a 3D printed slit, water pipes and a reflex camera. With a group of students we got this picture of the solar ...
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Which are some little known catalogues whose objects can be observed during the night sky?
We all know about the Messier catalogue. Little know or have heard about the Melotte catalogue. I am in search of those rare catalogues apart from Messier, NGC and IC with objects/sources that aren't ...
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We are making a 5 meter diameter radio telescope dish by using metal mesh and need some advice and/or reference designs [closed]
We are making a 5 meter diameter radio telescope dish.
What metal should we use and what must be the size of the mesh if the targeted frequency is 1430 Hz?
Also what might a simple but stable ...
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