I don't have the scope out tonight but I was just star gazing getting to know my way around and saw a shooting star. Just wondering if anyone has ever had one go through their field of view or seen it before with a scope I'd love to hear what you saw
Never seen a meteor through the eyepiece but I would love to. A few years back one of the members of our local club was lucky enough to see a bright one through the eyepiece, confirmed by others who happened to be looking up at the sky and saw it flash across!
The International Meteor Organisation (IMO) actually recommends and has guidelines for telescopic viewing of meteors. http://www.imo.net/tele and following pages.
But they're a bit strange. They lose me when they say things like:
"A typical viewing diameter for a visual observer is at least 100°. Contrast that with 55° for the telescopic observer with a wide-field eyepiece. That's only 30% of the area."
What the hell eyepiece has a 55-deg FOV, in any scope??!!! Whoever wrote it has confused an eyepiece property with the actual viewing field dimension (you could maybe get it out towards 2-deg using a 40mm eyepiece in the 'smaller' say 8" dobs that many people use). Short refractors would be the go. Nonetheless I suppose if you wanted to increase your chances of seeing a meteor through a telescope you could do worse than follow their guidelines! Remembering of course that any meteor is going to flit across your telescope field in a tiny fraction of a second.
Yup I've seen aircraft, "shooting stars", satellites, Geostationary satellites you name it in my eyepiece. Not particularly rare to see satellites shooting thru your eyepiece. Had this happen many times. Looks like a quick bright flash usually.
I've seen a few meteors go past my eyepiece field of view. The most memorable one was in the eyepiece of my 14.5" dob, where the meteor wasn't that bright, it entered the field of view and split into two before exiting the other side. In other words, it seemed to trace out a Y shape.
I strongly suspect I was the only person on the planet likely to have seen it.
Regards,
Renato
I see 4 or 5 per year, through the eyepiece, usually at low power, not surprisingly perhaps. They are very fast, much faster than satellites, no surprises there, so there is little doubt when you see one. There and gone in an instant, so well done Renato observing a split. I suspect the likelihood of seeing one isn't all that low either, given the increased magnitude "reach" of the telescope helps compensate for the restricted FOV to some degree.
Satellites are a more common occurrence though, in fact I can't remember the last observing session greater that 1 hour when I did not see at least one. Usually it's perhaps a few per hour for satellites. But my most interesting object seen in the atmosphere was a descending research balloon payload, seen over Europe during the day. Took a while to figure out what it was.
I don't have the scope out tonight but I was just star gazing getting to know my way around and saw a shooting star. Just wondering if anyone has ever had one go through their field of view or seen it before with a scope I'd love to hear what you saw
If you stay in Astronomy and observe often enough you will see a few in your life time through the eyepiece,not common but could see a couple a year,some just quick streaks but others jump back from the eyepiece kind.
Enjoy your observing.
Cheers
Yes, lots of times. They're just quick streaks of light. Satellites are similar, but slower. The only time I think I've seen any detail from satellites is if they have been in front of the Moon or the Sun (using an appropriate solar telescope, of course). Interestingly I've also now picked up at least four satellites on video while recording for occultation observations (the most recent on Thursday night just gone) and in this situation they appear as a bar or streak of light moving across the field of view in a couple of seconds. So they do happen.
Yep, not often, but often enough. And have captured a few streaks on camera while doing DSO long exposures. Satellites, Geo amd LE are pretty common. A plane a few times also.
Before I got BYE going with it's automated exposures I used to just stay out and scan the skies with the binos during imaging sessions. Not quite so much now but thats the way to see stuff, time out under the stars.
you really would not see much adrian, naked eye is the thing for meteor watching
pat
Absolutely.
I have seen one quite by accident, through Binoculars and it was a bit of a let-down compared to my (two) other naked-eye 'catches'
One landed so close I could actually hear it!
A sort of 'fizzle-pop-pop-crack'.
Very exciting!
On one occasion as I was looking at my guide star in the PHD viewport it picked up a slow moving satellite that went through the green box. The guider picked it up and started following it so I pressed the stop button quickly.
Quite a few in the five times I have been out since getting the scope.
It's funny as they fly upwards, took me a little while to realize it was because the dob see's things upside down!
Back in 1986 while camping on the beach at South Ballina, I saw with naked eye, a meteor explode and break into two pieces and fall in different directions-that was amazing!
Whoever wrote it has confused an eyepiece property with the actual viewing field dimension (you could maybe get it out towards 2-deg using a 40mm eyepiece in the 'smaller' say 8" dobs that many people use). Short refractors would be the go. Nonetheless I suppose if you wanted to increase your chances of seeing a meteor through a telescope you could do worse than follow their guidelines! Remembering of course that any meteor is going to flit across your telescope field in a tiny fraction of a second.
