Beginner Astronomy – Part XV – Deep Space Observing I’ve taken my telescope out to show friends the night sky a few times now, and the conversation usually goes one of two directions when I ask what they’d like to see; “I don’t know, you’re the astronomer,” or “What about that horse-head thingy?” Thanks to the Hubble telescope, we have all seen fantastic, dramatic, high resolution, false-colour images of strange and beautiful things way out in space. The problem for us is that the HST is out in space, freed from all atmospheric degradation of its resolution and imagery, as well as the failings of the human retina. The images we’ve seen have mislead us. The Horsehead is only a small part of a tiny, faint bit of the sky. Its angular size is about 16 arcseconds… about 1/120th the size of the moon. To see it as an image that takes up half your viewing area, you would have to magnify it several hundred times. Then there’s the faintness of it to contend with. How, then, can we see these so-called “Deep Space Objects”? Why, with better equipment, of course! Now, I’m not advocating buying a 20” Maksutov-Cassegrain with an EQ-6 Go-To mount and a 3mm superachromat eyepiece as your first telescope. It would be so bulky, heavy, and time consuming that you’d never bother to take it anywhere, and the learning curve would be so steep that you’d quickly lose interest. If you’re getting as much out of your current telescope as you can, why not consider moving up from your 4” to a 6”, or maybe an 8” if you’ve got a dark sky in your neighbourhood, or a car to go find one? Even better would be to go out with other astronomers and talk to them about their equipment, and find what will work for you. Hubble Space Telescope Gallery: hubblesite.org/gallery/album/
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 20:53:00 +0000
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