For All you Astronomers out there

Originally posted by roadgravel
10 inch Meade scope out here. Even getting out to a dark spot and looking at the night sky with binoculars is an eye opener. There are more stars out there than a person's eyes can see. The reality really starts to set in. Stars are everywhere...

Man you know it! I'm in the Navy, and I've been out on the Carrier cruising the seas at night - and let me tell ya. The stars out in the middle of the ocean are simply awesome. I can't explain how beautiful the night sky is out in the open ocean. Even better than that - if you ever get to a dark site, and have the opportunity to use NVG's - use them!!! I've never SEEN so many stars at night - the NVG's amplify the light so much!

Any of the blank spaces you see with the naked eye at night...you can stars there through NVG's. It was one of the coolest, eye opening experiences of my entire life. I can't emphasize how great it was.
It was the moment where I finally believed that we simply can't be the only life in the universe.

I can only imagine what the night sky is like out in the ocean. I live in a pretty dark area for the average US. Very rural so the pollution is not to bad. People seem to put up night lights even at places they do not stay around at night much. Bummer for stargazers. People are so afraid of the dark. It is amazing.

Good luck with the stars.

I'm another amateur astronomer here. I've even taken a college course in Astronomy with a lab portion as part of it. I got to observe some deep sky objects such as star clusters and a number of other interesting objects using some big expensive scopes. I don't remember what brand of telescopes they were since it was several years ago. I was surprised I could see that much in the middle of Raleigh, NC.

I've also taken a number of astrophotos. It's surprisely easy to do with the old style film but I haven't tried it with any of the new digital equipment. I was surprised to see the nebula in Orion show up on a pic I took. I believe if you leave the exposure time less than 30 to 40 seconds, you don't notice any star movement in the pic. I have a neat looking picture of a landscape with stars in the sky. Looks like daytime except for the stars overhead. One of these days, I'm going to stumble upon wherever I stashed those pics.

Good luck with your new hobby. My first experience with star gazing was way back in elementary school when someone came to school and showed some of us students via his telescope, Saturn, and a few other objects.

I'm not up to date on scopes, equipment, etc. but still have a 7 x 50 pair of binoculars useful for general star gazing. It's been awhile since I was in a really dark sky area but I'll agree the view was simply amazing. You can easily see the milky way galaxy. It's actually a bit hard to recognize normal stars since the whole sky is filled up with bright stars.

Good luck star gazing on your new hobby.