"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
09/08/2020 at 08:04 • Filed to: None
3
12|
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
09/08/2020 at 08:04 • Filed to: None | 3
| 12 |
My son wanted a telescope for his birthday, so we got him a relatively inexpensive beginner’s model. On the first night, he learned that there really isn’t much to see from our back yard. There’s just too much light pollution in our area.
Clearly, we needed to go to the great dark north. So, we packed the telescope into the truck and took a little drive. Fortunately, we didn’t have to travel too far north to get to a dark area. The trick is finding an opening in the trees.
We arrived at the wildlife management area (WMA) while there was still some daylight so we could find a clear spot and had some light to get set up. We never found one. So, we compromised by setting up in a small church parking lot on the other side of the WMA.
It’s been a while since we’d been deep in the country. It was nice to see the stars and the Milky Way again. I’m not sure my son ever paid attention when we went camping. He was shocked at the number of stars in the sky. Shocked and excited.
Now t his is where I should be posting a bunch of pictures of the things we saw. But this is actually where I realized that I forgot the “good” camera and discovered that my iPhone’s camera has performance issues in low light.
That, my friends, is Jupiter as captured by holding an iPhone up to the ocular of a telescope. Looking through the telescope, we could see Jupiter and all four moons. We could also see Saturn’s rings. If you’ve never seen these things in real time, they are amazing.
After a couple of hours of stargazing, it was time to head home. We still had another hour and a half of driving ahead of us. While we could have taken a more populated route back home, my son opted to go through the WMA again.
Slowly driving through a dark forest on a moonless night on a one-lane gravel road is a lot more fun that it seems. We can’t wait to find an even darker spot for the next trip.
Nom De Plume
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/08/2020 at 08:14 |
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Are there any observatories near you?
Echo51
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/08/2020 at 08:17 |
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What telescope is it? The line about seeing jupiter with moons and all has me hooked on trying that now :D
Just Jeepin'
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/08/2020 at 08:17 |
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Good parenting! That’s great, I have surprisingly few childhood memories, but the telescope my father got for me looms large from that era. If we had some dirt roads to drive to get a dark spot, that would’ve been even better.
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> Nom De Plume
09/08/2020 at 08:36 |
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LSU has an observatory which we’ve been to a couple of times. They are located just south of Baton Rouge, so they have major problems with light pollution. The times we’ve gone have been with large groups (Scouts) or on open-observation nights. There’s usually too many people to make it worthwhile.
After seeing his excitement, I’ll be looking for other opportunities for him to get some telescope time and meet with like-minded folks who can teach him a lot more than I.
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> Echo51
09/08/2020 at 08:41 |
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We ended up with a Celstron Astromaster. I’m not terribly impressed with the build quality (my standards are probably too high) , but it got decent reviews and seems to work well.
onlytwowheels
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/08/2020 at 08:54 |
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I live in the sticks, darkness is easy to come by just walking out the door. Usually for a few 3 or 4 day stays in the summer, my nieces from the city are here visiting and love stargazing from my deck. More than once I have been asked if it would be okay to sleep out there. It has just occurr ed to me that they have a telescope, I see it every time I visit them. I’m going to suggest they bring it, next time they are able to visit. Thanks for the idea.
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Echo51
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/08/2020 at 08:59 |
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Modelnumber? the 130EQ runs 260$ which wasn’t the pricerange i thought when i heard inexpensive beginner range lol. thanks for reply!
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> onlytwowheels
09/08/2020 at 09:01 |
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I lived in the sticks when I was in high school. Even so, we lived close enough to Oklahoma City for light pollution to be an issue. I didn’t realize it at the time, because we lived in the woods and it could be really, really dark out there. Even where we were there was enough light reflecting off a few clouds for us to realize that even though it was a lot darker than at home, we could find a place that was even darker. We just have to drive farther north.
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> Echo51
09/08/2020 at 09:06 |
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I’m not sure which model we bought . My wife did th e research and made the purchase. I think $200-300 is the beginner range. A friend of mine spent over $1, 000 for his son’s first telescope. That thing is automated. Pick a star with the app and the telescope will find it and track it for you.
I was humbled when my son told me Galileo observed Jupiter and its moons with a telescope that had a lower resolution than a good set of modern binoculars.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/08/2020 at 10:33 |
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This is good dad-ing.
MiniGTI - now with XJ6
> TheRealBicycleBuck
09/09/2020 at 00:31 |
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Very nice. I think Our local library has some automated telescopes for loan, I should try one sometime when my son gets a little older. We’re close enough to the edge of Chicagoland I think I can get to some moderately dark areas without going too far.
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TheRealBicycleBuck
> MiniGTI - now with XJ6
09/09/2020 at 07:25 |
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That’s a great service! To find a really dark location, visit https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html#4/39.00/-98.00