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TOPIC: Astronomy with Small Telescopes


L

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RE: Astronomy with Small Telescopes
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Finder Scopes: An Astronomer's Best Friend
On top of your main telescope, you may have a smaller wide-field telescope. This is your finder an essential tool to help you see and magnify faint stars and deep sky objects. But finder scopes can be a little confusing at first. If you're frustrated by your finder, here are some tips to help you get aligned and find your way around the sky.

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Spearheading the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the Japan Committee launched its first activity aimed at having children the world over observe stars by offering a small telescope for 10 dollars (1,050 yen). The telescope is similar to the small hand-made telescope Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) used to observe the universe in 1609.

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L

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Astronomy is one of those hobbies that almost everyone has an interest in, but few know how to get started. Of course, a lot of us have had the experience of getting a department- store telescope for Christmas and then spending the next few weeks struggling to make it work. Somehow, you can never see the wonders that are displayed on the box, and nothing seems to be as simple as advertised.
Perhaps the only target you were able to see was the moon. It is a difficult target to miss as it is so big and so bright. Unfortunately, you probably soon gave up trying to find objects in the sky with your telescope on its wobbly tripod that shook with every breath of air, and you soon gave up on dreams of seeing the universe.
Sadly, you are not alone in your experience of astronomy. There seems to be a whole industry devoted to selling crappy telescopes to the uninitiated. What is even sadder is that for not too much more than you would spend on a poor telescope, you could get a good instrument that would serve you well and give you a positive experience when you try to see the wonders of the universe.

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L

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Learning To See
The image of a distant galaxy or star cluster in your telescope will never rival the pro-quality photographs you see in books and magazines. But with a little practice, you'll learn to observe subtle detail and structure in faint objects that even the best cameras will never capture. Here's how to see more through your telescope or binoculars.

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L

Posts: 131433
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Learning To See
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In some ways, the image of a distant galaxy or star cluster in your telescope will never rival the pro-quality photographs you see in books and magazines. But with a little practice, you'll learn to observe subtle detail and structure in faint objects that even the best cameras can never capture. Here's how to see more through your telescope.

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L

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RE: Astronomy with Small Telescopes
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A great big telescope is indispensable for seeing faint deep-sky fuzzies. But on nights when you don't have the time or energy to set up a big telescope, it's handy to have a smaller scope you can quickly take outside for a short observing session. Here's how to choose a grab-and-go refractor to help you get the most out of every clear night.
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L

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Edmund Astroscan Telescope
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Of all the telescopes I own, I use my Edmund Astroscan the most. It usually sits in my living room floor, waiting for me to grab it and go outside for a quick look. It is small, inexpensive, with reasonably good optics.
It is also very durable. I had it in the trunk of my car for a couple of weeks where it would fall over and roll around, clunking into the side of my car as I made turns. It took the punishment and still gives me excellent views of the heavens. I have never treated this telescope well, I paid $350.00 for it back in the 80s. It has been dropped, man-handled by hundreds of school kids and checked in as luggage at the airport.


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L

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Astronomy with Small Telescopes
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Title: Astronomy with Small Telescopes
Authors: Bohdan Paczynski
revised v3

The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) is monitoring all sky to about 14 mag with a cadence of about 1 day; it has discovered about 10^5 variable stars, most of them new. The instrument used for the survey had aperture of 7 cm. A search for planetary transits has lead to the discovery of about a dozen confirmed planets, so called 'hot Jupiters', providing the information of planetary masses and radii. Most discoveries were done with telescopes with aperture of 10 cm.
We propose a search for optical transients covering all sky with a cadence of 10 - 30 minutes and the limit of 12 - 14 mag, with an instant verification of all candidate events. The search will be made with a large number of 10 cm instruments, and the verification will be done with 30 cm instruments.
We also propose a system to be located at the L_1 point of the Earth - Sun system to detect 'killer asteroids'. With a limiting magnitude of about 18 mag it could detect 10 m boulders several hours prior to their impact, provide warning against Tunguska-like events, as well as to provide news about spectacular but harmless more modest impacts.

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