Hello From Melbourne

[Reiign (Brendan)]

Hey guys and girls. My name is Brendan. I live in Hoppers Crossing Victoria and do web development and quite a few other things to get by. I have always been interested in stargazing and space. I wanted to take some astro photos and got pointed over here from another forum. I currently have a nikon d60. It has the remote for bulb mode and i have programmed my arduino to trigger it for time lapse.

Unfortunately this is all i have at the moment. So tomorrow morning i have decided to go do some shopping. Now i am a complete noob at this. I have been fascinated by certain moving things in our sky the past few nights. And would love to be able to see them closer to identify them. I figure a telescope wouldn't be to good at this. (correct me if im wrong)

So i am realistically hoping you guys can point me in the right direction in Melbourne to buy some things to achieve this.

Even if you have something for sale that isn't to far. I may come grab it!

Thanks Brendan.

[byronpaul (Paul)]

G'day Brendan,

Welcome to the forum.

Your intro sounds like how a lot of us here started, and yes a telescope will achieve what your after.

Budget is a key consideration, and also your physical capability to move it around or transport it.

As you live in Hopper's Crossing, you have a fair bit of light pollution to contend with, like all of us that live in or near a CBD, so the ability to travel out to a dark site should be considered. What you'll see at a dark site far exceeds what you'll see from or near Melbourne.

Having said that, from home you'll still see some amazing things, even Comet C/2014 Q2 which is almost approaching naked eye capability at the moment.

Having been there done that, I suggest you bypass ebay, National Geographic and stores like that. Preference would be to head on over to Bintel in Camberwell where you'll see proper telescopes. This will give you a feel for what's available, sizes, and prices. You could also check out their website.

Keep you eye on the Classifieds here as well, there are some good scopes to be had an significantly cheaper than full retail price. A really good starting point would have been a 12" collapsible Dob available in Mentone, but that just sold. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...d.php?t=130005

Whilst you'd see a lot with a 12" Dob, they are quite big, and therefore something like a 8" might be more your liking. When is comes to what you'll see, basically the bigger the aperture, the more you see.

Whilst you're considering a visual instrument, you still be able to do a lot with your camera and wide field photography. Without a tracking mount, you'll be limited to 20~30 sec exposures. Just push up the ISO to 1600 or 3200 and click away. There are freeware tools available whereby you might take 20+ images and then stack them, the final image would have the detail similar to that if you'd taken an exposure of several minutes. Again lot of information on here or google about how to do that.

This forum offers a lot of information, so don't be afraid to ask.

Enjoy

Paul

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Brendan
Welcome to IIS!

Best advice I can give is twofold. Firstly, do your research. While good results can be achieved in expensively, imaging can very expensive and working out what you want to do and how much your budget will allow is critical.
Secondly, while there are a couple of astronomy shops, I would recommend Bintel in Camberwell, I have dealt with them a lot and always found them helpful.

Hop this helps. Astro imaging is about patience, persistence and planning to be successful. I have only dabbled as I am mainly a visual guy, but I have done a fair bit of reading and watched good imagers at work.

Malcolm

[niko]

G'day Brendan and welcome,

Can you clarify what you mean by "I have been fascinated by certain moving things in our sky the past few nights. And would love to be able to see them closer to identify them"

do you possibly mean satellites or are you talking about astro bodies? If it's satellites you might find a pair of binoculars useful and there are numerous phone/tablet/PC apps that can help identify which are passing overhead when.

cheers

niko

[Reiign (Brendan)]

Thanks heaps for all the replies guys! I have been looking at bintel and more than likely going to be going there. The past few nights i have seen a random flash of light. then the same one a bit further away. Its hard to explain but it was erratic. I have videos off my iphone 6, And going frame by frame you can see things that look like the are moving/ taking off. I also have a random blue light that flashes one for a single frame aswell as a red. Most people think im a nutjob for it but its fascinating. Also This was another thing i witnessed christmas night. It was one went towards tassie. Then another heading toward the city then one heading towards nsw. Span of 20 minutes. Would of been ideal to be able to get a better glimpse.

Also here is an image i took the other night. I also have skyview etc on my iphone.

http://i58.tinypic.com/juzix1.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8baznKAdfBk

[Reiign (Brendan)]

Also i was looking into one of these but im fairly certain if i decided i wanted to take a video or photo this wouldn't be to good for that. Am i right?

http://www.bintel.com.au/Telescopes/...oductview.aspx

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Brendan
Please don't take this the wrong way, but videos of moving lights rarely prompt a strong welcome.
If you are genuinely interested in astronomy, this is the place and you will get good advice.
The pic you posted is most likely a time exposure of the light on a plane flashing. The video is also most likely a plane, but posting a vid labelled as taken in Cambridge in 2010 when your first post talked about "past few nights" is a little sus?

Malcolm

[Reiign (Brendan)]

I took this video an hour ago. This hasn't been edited other than 30 seconds in to brighten the levels. This is what im seeing and i have no clue what it is. The orange orb thing in the video was one of the things i seen tonight then i videos this. I would love to know everyones honest opinons. Even an explanation. I started out taking long exposure photots etc. Then started noticing all these things. So the photos are on the back burn lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3wPTd2dfBs

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by Reiign

I took this video an hour ago. This hasn't been edited other than 30 seconds in to brighten the levels. This is what im seeing and i have no clue what it is. The orange orb thing in the video was one of the things i seen tonight then i videos this. I would love to know everyones honest opinons. Even an explanation. I started out taking long exposure photots etc. Then started noticing all these things. So the photos are on the back burn lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3wPTd2dfBs

Brendan
Most likely a satellite, if its is in the few hours after sunset and is moving slowly and steadily. Usually they will brighten or fade gradually as they move into or out of the earths shadow.

Satellites are nearly impossible to image as they are very small and move too fast to track effectively. The exception is the IIS which can be imaged with the right gear.

These are NOT ufos, and again if you wish to have astronomy questions answered and be taken seriously, probably best not posting this sort of thing.

Cheers

Malcolm