I realized recently that I’ve been a Meade LXD55 Schmidt-Newtonian telescope owner for just shy of two decades now. Wow! “That’s hard to believe,” I thought. It got me to thinking about the telescope, and it dawned on me to write about the LXD55 scope & mount.
Meade’s LXD55 line of scopes, and maybe more importantly, the GOTO German equatorial mount (GEM) was all the talk back in late 2001 and 2002 when the company began advertising it in the usual magazines. However, Meade had an issue getting the units to market and in the hands of eager amateurs chomping at the bit to have a GOTO mount that wasn’t going to break the bank.
I’m not entirely sure why the promised release date was pushed back. Maybe it was manufacturing delays or there was something else afoot but only a smattering of scopes and mounts were initially released. What I painfully knew at that time was my order had not been filled and the delivery date kept getting pushed back. If I recall correctly, (this was 20 years ago) I think I ended up waiting an additional 6 agonizing months before my shiny new telescope finally shipped. Receiving the scope was another tragic story entirely which you can read about here.
The camera’s that are now showing up in cellphones and action cameras such as GoPros have come a long way over the years. You’ve probably seen the TV commercials for the Google Pixel producing some amazing star-filled photos. In this article I’ll focus on using a GoPro rather than a cellphone to capture astronomical images and time lapse videos.
I have a GoPro HERO 8 Black and while it does have limitations it can produced some pretty cool astro images.
The HERO 8 Black at this writing is now a couple of years old and the HERO 10 is the latest model offered. If you are in the market for a GoPro I’d recommend the HERO 9 or 10. I have heard that the hot pixel issue discussed later in this article has been addressed or is not near as prominent in those newer models.
The HERO 8 is a waterproof (down to 33ft) action camera with HyperSmooth 2.0 video stabilization. It has a 12 megapixel camera that is capable of shooting 4K video at 60 fps. Other built-in features include Time lapse, Time warp and Night lapse modes. There are also digital lens options including Narrow, Linear, Wide and Super View allowing the user to select the best view size for the setting.
As August approaches so do the dog days of summer. This time last year Comet NEOWISE was blowing our socks off and cyberspace was a buzz as thousands posted their “dirty snowball” images . Fortunately for us northern hemisphere dwellers as the days heat up so do a few celestial objects and events that are not to be missed. This makes August a perfect time to dust off the binoculars, find a dark sky, set up a telescope and enjoy Jupiter and Saturn as well as the Perseid meteor shower.
Jupiter & Saturn Conjunction December 20, 2020.
Up first is the ringed planet Saturn. You may recall back in December 2020 that Jupiter and Saturn cozied up to each other in the evening sky. Well the pair has been slowly separating as viewed from our vantage point but they’re still relatively close to each other. You can watch Jupiter rise about 30-40 minutes after Saturn in the southeast just after dark. Continue reading August’s Gas Giants & Meteor Shower→
Early risers on Wednesday morning, May 26, 2021 will be treated to a total lunar eclipse hanging low in the western sky.
This lunar eclipse will be better situated for observers in the western half of the U.S but that doesn’t mean you should scratch it off your list just because you are in the eastern half of the county.
The upcoming eclipse is very reminiscent of the total lunar eclipse of January 31, 2018. Why? The timing for one. The 1/31/18 TLE started very early in the morning and was setting as twilight was coming on and totality was waning as is this one. Additionally, both eclipses happen around lunar perigee (the point where the Moon is closest to Earth in its orbit). At this time the Moon is slightly larger in the sky. You’ll sometimes hear this referred to as a “super moon,” a term I don’t like to use.
The Messier List is an exceptional list of brighter deep-sky objects primarily made up of open and globular clusters, galaxies, planetary nebulae and other nebulae. In my opinion it’s the perfect list to learn your way around the sky. I highly recommend this program for those new to the hobby. It’s a fantastic way to learn how to star-hop using a telescope in order to find all 110 Messier objects.
You’ll learn a great deal about the different objects that you locate, how to find those objects in the sky and since there are new objects on the list coming into view with the passing of the seasons, it helps maintain the excitement and anticipation of not only your next observing session but of new objects to observe over a calendar year.
Twas the night before the big Jupiter & Saturn conjunction and all through the sky not a creature was stirring except my Nikon clicking away!
Jupiter and Saturn Conjunction Dec. 20, 2020
I shot these two this evening from my heavily treed backyard. Photo settings were as follows: 100mm, F/5.6, 2.5 second exposure and ISO1600 with a Nikon D5100.
At first glance you might think there is not much to see here, and if you were expecting the festoons of Jupiter or Saturn’s rings you’d be right but looking closer you can definitely make out a few things. Jupiter is clearly brighter than Saturn and Saturn is more orange in color than Jupiter. You can just see a hint of the Galilean moons around Jupiter as well.
After a year that won’t soon be forgotten, of course I’m talking about the pandemic, there are a number of celestial events occurring this December that should peak your interest and get you out of the house in the cold morning or night air.
A pair of meteor showers, a pair of conjunctions (one of which will be epic), the December Solstice and a total solar eclipse for sky watchers in South America all happening in December. Throw in Christmas and New Year’s Eve and you have a busy month to be sure. So let’s run them down in a little more detail.
I’ve had a couple of visitors to my site in the past couple of weeks ask me “What’s the best way to sell my astronomy gear?” So I thought I’d relay the info I shared with them to you. I hope it’s useful to you.
Times have changed and that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Gone are the days of placing an ad in the local newspaper, and paying to do so! I guess you can still do that but I don’t know anybody that does these days. We have so many online outlets at our finger tips that can be used to buy and sell not only telescopes and astronomy gear but just about anything else you can imagine.
There are many free online resources and apps where all you need to do is to create an account to post your ads. Chances are you already have accounts setup on one or more of these outlets and so it’s just a matter of navigating to the place where you create your ad, select a title, add your asking price, input the details of the item or items you are selling, decide on the contact info options and location and add pictures. I’ll dive into more detail about these important selling points in a minute.
There’s some pretty fantastic astronomy related podcasts available out there for your listening pleasure. You can listen to them online by using your PC or laptop as many have web sites or just use a podcast app on your smartphone or tablet. Search for and subscribe to those podcasts you find interesting. You’ll find podcasts dedicated to astrophotography, cosmology, night sky events and observing, space exploration and missions, NASA, and the list goes on.
I like to use the Apple Podcast app that comes installed on most iPhones. It works great, has plenty of settings to manage all subscribed podcasts and allows me to listen with my AirPods (earbuds) hands free while I’m tending to other things like say mowing the lawn. There are other options like Spotify, Overcast, and iHeart Radio to name a few apps. All allow you to subscribe to podcasts and listen at your convenience.
Comet NEOWISE continues to perform well as it rises higher in the evening sky. Look for it getting higher in the NW over the next week just after dark. Check out my previous post for a finder chart.
I was fortunate enough to get to dark skies (Bortle Class 2) this past weekend and was able to image NEOWISE with my Nikon D5100. I also used a GoPro Hero 8 Black to get nightscape time-lapse footage of the comet as it set with Ursa Major, the big dipper just above it.
Current amateur astronomy information such as points of interest and events in the night sky, star party dates, educational information, telescopes buying tips and much more.
