Hi there! New to the forum

[kida Asteroid]

Hej,

First of all, sorry for not writing in Danish, I sincerely hope is OK to write in English and of course feel free to answer in Danish or English 🙂

My name is José and I’m from Spain, I moved to Denmark two years ago. I have been always really interested in space and I always wanted to buy a telescope, for different reasons this has been possible only recently so I bought a quite simple telescope. It’s an achromatic refractor Bresser Skylux 70/900 I bought in a chain store for a rather low amount of money. I preferred to buy a not expensive telescope in the first place since I didn’t want to spend a rather high amount of money without knowing if I was going to use it a lot. For now I can say I’m really into it so it has been a well spent money.

I’m interested in participating in outdoor meetings (if there is any) with other people, I would like to learn and improve my use of the telescope, so please if somebody is interested in a ‘telescope night out’ just let me know. I don’t have a car but I think I can move the tube in its original box that I have improved with some plastic and foam, it’s not heavy at all.

So far I have only been able to see Jupiter and its 4 main moons, the Moon, M31 (I think although not sure) and a double star I don’t know either, so you can see I’m quite noobie 😀

I hope to learn a lot in this forum, thank you guys for reading me and I wish you all clear and dark skies.

[astrojensenDeltager Neutron star]

Hi José!

Welcome to our little forum!

Were in Denmark are you located?

I think your scope is a good, though perhaps not excellent, starter scope. It should be able to show quite a lot, when you get a little more experienced. Even if you live in a large city (which I assume, since most people do), you can see a lot of bright objects. The Moon, the planets, double stars, the brighter deep-sky objects, such as globular clusters, open clusters and even the brightest planetary nebulae, the Orion Nebula and the cores of a few galaxies (they will be difficult, but it’s doable).

First, you need to learn about what you can see and how to find it. This forum is excellent and so is CloudyNights. To find stuff with your telescope, you need maps and you can get free star maps on the web, which allows you to print your own customized maps. I use Cartes du Ciel and it is excellent. It does take a little getting used to, as it has many ways to tweak it and make it very personal.

For a general idea of what constellations are up and where the Moon and planets are, I use Stellarium, another free program. Highly recommended.

Cartes du Ciel: http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/

Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org/

CloudyNights forum: http://www.cloudynights.com/

Clear skies!

Thomas, Bornholm

[kida Asteroid]

Hi Thomas,

Thank you for your warm welcome.

I’m living in Vanløse with my girlfriend.

So far I have been observing from inside the apartment through the closed window, I know these are not the best conditions, but I don’t have a car so it’s complicated to move to a better place. Also the cold is not helping, as you can understand I’m used to warmer temperatures 🙂

There is a balcony in the apartment and one day I’ll put the telescope there, but there are some street lights that are not helping. Also I’m not sure how the neighbors are going to react if someone see a guy with a telescope in a balcony, any experience with this?

Other option I have been thinking about is to mount the telescope in a near park, it’s only 300m from my place, but I’ll wait until the weather is warmer.

You are completely right, I should try to get more familiar with the constellations in order to ‘navigate’ better in the night sky. With the telescope comes one sky map and one Lunar map. Also I have been using Stellarium and I have installed Star Tracker App in my iphone, quite helpful. I have Cartes du Ciel, but what’s the difference with Stellarium? I thought both were more or less the same.

BTW, two days ago we saw with the naked eye the International Space Station around 18:21. Today there will be another pass at 18:15 coming from W and ending SE and at 37 degrees (peak) over the horizon, this values are for Copenhagen of course. There is an app called ISS Spotter that give this great info.

[mortenDeltager Super Nova]

Hi José

Welcome to Denmark and to our forum. There are some events where the astro geeks meet in Denmark. In our area there is the club, KAF, that arranges meetings on Thursdays in Kroppedal, west of Copenhagen (bicycle distance from you). In September is what I guess most people would call the main event: the annual MAF gathering in Kompedal, Jutland. In between that there are gatherings at Avnø nature centre in southern Zealand, and at Stevns. All of these are usually announced here at the forum. It should be possible for you to find someone to drive with. Finally there are public displays at the Wieth-Knudsen private observatory in Tisvildeleje (there is a train connection).

Morten

[astrojensenDeltager Neutron star]

Hi José

Stellarium is a planetary program, which lets you view the sky as it is now, or many years in the past or future. It is extremely useful for the first stages of planning or getting inspiration on what to observe.

Cartes du Ciel can also do this, but not as visually pleasing as Stellarium. What Cartes du Ciel does better than any other freeware program is creating finder maps for using at the telescope (by printing them out). It can also control the scope directly, if it has motor drives on both axis.

Clear skies!

Thomas, Denmark

[edbbobDeltager Super Nova]

Hi José

Welcome to the forum.

Regarding putting your telescope on the balcony: No problem! I do it all the time. You are not allowed to watch your neighbours, but unless they live very far away, all you would be able to see is a nostril

Warm clothes, are important. A thermo coverall is the best accessory I’ve ever bought for my telescope.

Happy stargazing

Morten

[Søren HansenDeltager Giant]

Hi José

I do look at the sky from the street I am living in, just up to Rigshospitalet, so it can be done. If you are interested, we could go stargazing together (I’m also a newbee at 4.th day now). I have a car, where I can have my enherried 4.5″ reflector in the trunk, so the backseat is free 😀

[mstauningDeltager Black Hole]

And you are most welcome to come by me if you want some darker skies..

[kida Asteroid]

Hi all again,

Thank you all for your posts, is great to see people participating and helping in this nice forum.

I’ll keep in mind about Thursdays in Kroppedal, I assume is for observation so… what are the people doing during this terrible cloudy weather? Is it every Thursday? Is there any link to the KAF club page?

Also no problem then about using my telescope in the balcony, the only issue is some street lights, but I think I’ll manage that.

@sidewind: Ok, sure, we should meet one day if you want. Just let me know if you plan a ‘telescope night out’ and I’ll probably join you. It would be great!

@MStauning: I’ll let you know if I go to Holbaek, I can see that you are in the yellow region in the light pollution map, that would be a really nice night view.

[mstauningDeltager Black Hole]

Well a good bit outside of Holbæk (I’m a bit southwest of Brorfelde).

Skylimit here is somewhere between Mag 20 og Mag 20,5 (so look for the darkspots in DK and I’m at one of them)..

Should update my profile 😉

[Forfatter]

Indlæg