I am not an expert, I do not work for NASA, but I am someone that is learning as I go and presenting my findings to you. Trying your best to be updated on astronomy events like a solar eclipse, meteors or comets passing by, will allow you new cool stuff to try and see. The eye is much better at detecting the movement of objects rather than that of a static object. Once acclimated, make it a ritual to check that all caps and covers are removed for viewing. The sky is clearest in the winter nights because there is no humidity in the air.
Like Schmidt-Cassegrain scopes, they also take a longer time to cool down because of the large thermal mass of the mirror, tube, and corrector lens. After the Moon, Venus is the brightest natural object in the night sky. It is both the Earth’s closest neighbor in our Solar System and the planet most similar to Earth in size, gravity, and composition.
Discover the best telescope for beginners right here! will not be a walk in the park for first-timers, as you may fail on the first try. The key is to believe that you will be able to set it right with several attempts and adjustments. As you do this, do a test run on any object around you, for instance, a distant building or a tower. Once you are acquainted with the process, direct your finders to the object and try to center the crosshairs on it.
So you should have no problem packing it into a trunk and setting it up on location. Collectively, amateur astronomers observe a variety of celestial objects and phenomena. Common targets of amateur astronomers include the Sun, the Moon, planets, stars, comets, meteor showers, and a variety of deep sky objects such as star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae.
The respective scaled transmission curve of each instrument is also shown at the bottom of the panel. In the bottom panel, we show the modeled thermal profiles for a subsample of models together with the condensation curves of Mg2SЮ4 and CaTiO3 for different metallicities (color). The geometric albedos in the CHEOPS bandpass and Bond albedos are lower than 0.01 for metallicities lower than 200 times solar and increase to 0.45 and 0.75, respectively, for metallicities 400 times solar and higher. The presence of silicate clouds can be inferred from the spectra in all models with metallicities higher than 400 times solar by specifically considering the weak silicate absorption feature around 8–12 µm. We used the tool PandExo (Batalha et al. 2017) to estimate that the observation of five LTT 9779 b eclipses with JWST/MIRI would lead to a detection of this silicate feature at 10 microns. We carefully analyzed and detrended the light curves using three independent methods to perform the final astrophysical detrending and eclipse model fitting of the individual and combined light curves.
Find out what’s going to be in the night sky using a smartphone astronomy app or downloading free software such as Stellarium. First of all, have a go at setting up your new scope in the light of day, to get the feel for it and how all the parts fit together. The downside of all that thick cloud is that it’s impossible to see any surface features on Venus. What we can observe is the waxing and waning disc, which we’ll come back to in more detail, shortly. The positive side of this brightness, which can reach an apparent magnitude of -4.9, and never dimmer than -3.0, is that you can’t fail to find the planet when it’s out. Couple that enormous girth with an engaging surface and dynamic, bright moons and there is a lot for us to get excited about.
Now that you have practiced moving your telescope, its time to take a look at some of the accessories that came with it. Regardless of the telescope you purchased, you should have received at least one eyepiece, and it is the most important accessory in the box. A telescope’s job is to gather and concentrate the light emitted by celestial objects into a point.
As discussed in our Celestron Astro Fi 102 telescope review, it is not without its flaws. The finish is a bit plasticky, and the materials used are not the best quality. However, these flaws are outweighed by the telescope’s portability, ease of use, and good optical performance.