This could very well be the most important single piece of equipment in your arsenal. In many parts of the country, these voracious blood-sucking insects descend on unwary astronomers as soon as evening sets in.
Many people I know have achieved good results with the skin-so-soft formulas. There are also a great deal of new sprays, candles, and electronic devices to combat these obsessive pests. You will have to find out what works best for you. But make sure you have something. A swarm of mosquitoes can ruin an otherwise excellent night of observing the heavens.
Observing should be a relaxing experience. Be sure to bring along some good music to help the minutes click by. If you are making long exposure photographs through your telescope, you could be sitting at the eyepiece for up to an hour for each photo.
Music definitely helps to make the experience a little more enjoyable. Many astronomers seem to enjoy the spacey or celestial sounding music to enhance the observing experience.
You can find a lot of these tunes in the New Age sections of most music stores as well online and in some nature stores in the malls. Music by Ray Lynch and David Lange are among my favorites. Be sure to be courteous to others around you. If you are observing with a group, make sure everyone shares your taste in tunes.
Otherwise a good pair of earphones may be a wise investment. Although a lot of people don't realize it, the temperature can drop quite rapidly in the evenings after the Sun goes down. This is especially true on clear nights when there are no clouds in the sky to hold in the heat. Unfortunately these are the ideal nights when we want to be out under the stars.
You may be surprised to find out how chilly it can get after midnight on a summer night. Be sure to bring extra clothing such as jackets, sweat shirts, and sweat pants and be prepared for any changes.
During the winter months, be especially careful not to get too cold. Hypothermia can get you when you least expect it. Be sure to dress in layers of warm clothing to keep your body heat in and keep the cold air out.
Another reason to keep a jacket with you is for the humidity. Dew can begin to form in the early hours of the morning and you don't want it to form on you. Since dark sky observing sites take most of us quite a way from home, you may want to be sure to remember to bring along some food and drinks. If you are out on an all-night observing session, as are those in many astronomy clubs, this is especially important. Water is necessary to keep your body from becoming dehydrated in the dry, cool night air.
Iced tea or cola is particularly helpful for beating those sleepy urges. Snacks are also a must for satisfying those late-night hunger pangs that are inevitable when ever you stay up late past bed time.
To search this site, type your search word s in the box below and click the search button:. All rights reserved. Content from this Website may not be used in any form without written permission from the site owner.
Sea and Sky receives commissions for purchases made through links on this site. Visit Us on Facebook. Follow Us on Twitter. Glossary of Astronomy Terms. Messier Catalog of Deep Sky Objects. Astronomy Calendar of Celestial Events. Astronomy Meetings and Star Parties. Astronomy Clubs and Organizations. Astronomy Equipment Guide. Recommended Astronomy Software. Astronomy Photo Album.
Other Astronomy Resources. My Sky: My Astronomy Hobby. Return to top of page. Newtonian Reflector The reflector telescope also referred to as a Newtonian after the astronomer Sir Isaac Newton is the most common type of large-aperture telescope. Refractor Refractor telescopes can usually be distinguished by their long, narrow tubes.
Schmidt-Cassegrain The Schmidt-Cassegrain is a relatively new design that manages to catch the best of both worlds. Equatorial Mount The equatorial mount is the most common type of mount available with today's telescopes. Fork Mount The fork mount is really a modification of the equatorial mount. Dobsonian Mount The third type of telescope mount is known as the Dobsonian mount. Eyepiece Filters Several different types of filters are available for use with telescope eyepieces.
Solar Filters Solar filters are specially designed to allow safe viewing of the Sun. Star Charts You wouldn't go on a road trip without a street map. Flashlights Getting around in the dark can be difficult at best. Carrying Cases Carrying cases are a must for keeping your equipment organized and free of dirt and moisture. Batteries If will be are using a telescope with an electronic mount, or any other type of electric equipment, you are going to need a power source.
The tiny field of view means you now also need a way to precisely navigate and track your target as the Earth rotates. Such a mount costs as much as the telescope itself. For most scientific projects, a single point of view is all that is needed, so astronomers overwhelmingly use a telescope. But for exploring the sky with your own two eyes, the priority is a large field of view. To sweep the magnificent star fields of the Milky Way, or spot the eerie glow surrounding baby stars in the Orion Nebula, binoculars are a great choice.
They are compact, portable and need no mount. Get the biggest objective lenses you can 50 mm or more and keep the magnification low 10X or less. Telescopes are not inherently better at looking into space than binoculars. But it just comes down to size. Both tools rely on the same optical principles to do the job. For a long time, actually, we astronomers have been trying — and mostly failing — to use binoculars to look into space!
Merging the images from two separate telescopes is a real challenge. You need perfect images from each, with computers correcting for turbulence about 1, times a second. But a brand new observatory has just opened in Arizona, the Large Binocular Telescope. Magnification should get more attention than it usually does.
In fact, when it comes to determining how much binoculars will show in the night sky, power counts exactly as much as aperture. That, at least, is the radical conclusion drawn by Roy L. Bishop analyzed what's important in celestial binoculars, especially under today's light-polluted skies, and came up with an all-purpose "visibility factor. Just multiply the aperture times the power. That's the visibility factor.
A pair of 7 x 50s, for instance, gets a rating of This means 7 x 50s actually perform a little less well for astronomy than smaller 10 x 40s, which get a visibility rating of Such a claim flies in the face of decades of conventional wisdom. Nobody questions that high power helps on objects that demand fine resolution, such as close double stars, Jupiter's moons, lunar details, and resolving stars in open clusters. But as Bishop points out, it also helps on traditionally low-power objects such as very dim galaxies and faint, unresolvable clusters.
The reason is sky brightness, especially in light-polluted areas. Telescope users know that switching from low to high power will gain you a magnitude or more of faint stars. This works because high power reduces the surface brightness of the entire field by spreading out the light.
Doing this dims the sky background without affecting the total amount of light arriving from small, discrete objects. Stars appear so tiny that their surface brightness hardly looks changed at high power. But even an already dim, diffuse galaxy won't be rendered any less visible when its surface brightness is lowered at least within reasonable limits , because the galaxy's contrast with the sky remains the same.
You're actually likely to see it better, because your eye perceives low-contrast objects better when they are large. The neural network in your retina is smart enough to gather and correlate the galaxy's light from a wide area. Deep-sky vision is quite different in this regard from the behavior of "dumb" photographic film, which responds to surface brightness only. Several other factors also make high power good for astronomical binoculars. We do not sell, rent or trade our email lists. Login or Register Customer Service.
RISE —. PHASE —. Tonight's Sky — Change location. US state, Canadian province, or country. Tonight's Sky — Select location. Tonight's Sky — Enter coordinates. UTC Offset:. Picture of the Day Image Galleries.
Watch : Mining the Moon for rocket fuel. Queen guitarist Brian May and David Eicher launch new astronomy book. Last chance to join our Costa Rica Star Party! Learn about the Moon in a great new book New book chronicles the space program. Dave's Universe Year of Pluto. Groups Why Join? Astronomy Day. The Complete Star Atlas. Portable and relatively inexpensive, binoculars offer great views of the Moon, comets, Milky Way star fields, and large deep-sky objects.
A sk someone what equipment they need to start exploring the night sky and, 99 times out of , they'll fire back "telescope" as the answer. Although a telescope may seem the logical choice, there's an alternative that in many respects works better. Binoculars are highly versatile instruments that can reveal craters on the Moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, Milky Way starfields, and even other galaxies. In many ways, binoculars prove superior to a telescope for those starting out in astronomy.
They have a wide field of view and provide right-side-up images, making objects easy to find. They require no effort or expertise to set up — just sling them around your neck, step outside, and you're ready to go. That portability also makes binoculars ideal for those clear nights in the middle of the week when you don't have the time — or inclination — to get out a telescope.
And for most people, observing with two eyes open rather than one seems more natural and comfortable. If that still hasn't convinced you, maybe price will. Unless you have money to burn on image-stabilized models, binoculars offer a more affordable way to tour the heavens than a telescope.
0コメント