Sorry everyone, I haven't posted anything lately. So on to the next types of Telescopes. The next kind in the lineup is called a Catadioptric. There are a few in this category, I will only touch basis on a couple. The first is a Schmidt-Cassegrain. The large blue telescope in my last post is a Schmidt-Cassegrain, from now on I will refer to this type as an SCT ( Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope). The Catadioptric designs are referred to as hybrids. The most common is the SCT. This Telescope works by light entering the front through a Corrector Plate into the perforated spherical Primary Mirror. It is then reflected to the Convex Secondary Mirror which acts as a Field flattener then out to the eyepiece, which is located at the rear rather then the front/side. Because of the design the light travels a long path which gives this telescope a compact package but a rather long Focal Length. This also results in a high Focal Ratio. Because of the higher focal ratio this Telescope is best used for very Deep Sky objects such as Nebula & Galaxies, such as you have seen in most all of my photographs. This gives this Telescope a very narrow field of view, however it also gives it a very high magnification with a normal range of Eyepieces. You can also get very good views of Planets as well. As an example of what I just stated though, the Reflector (The Grey Telescope in my photo of the last post), with a 20mm Eyepiece yields 32.5x Magnification. The same eyepiece put into an SCT the size I have will give you 102x Magnification. The Telescope itself is only 18" long or 457mm. Because of the design however it has a length of 2,032mm or about 6.7 feet. This is the length the light travels in the Telescope. One of the differences I noted was that the Eyepiece is located at the rear. Another is the focuser, it is also at the rear however, in this design it does not move the eyepiece. It actually moves the Primary Mirror forward or back.
   Another popular model of Cassegrain designs is the Maksutov-Cassegrain, also referred to as a MAK-Cass. There are three types of Maks, the most popular is a "Spot" Mak. I have never looked through one so I do not have any idea how they work but have read alot of good reviews on them. They are usually smaller in Aperture and very compact in size and work very similar the SCT. From everything I have read they are a great starter scope. Because I do not know much about them I cannot write a whole lot about them. If I ever have a chance to use one I will post my opinion here. In the next post I will get to what all these terms I have used here mean. Maybe even a little about accessories. If you have any questions feel free to post them. I have not posted any pictures as of late either. This is because I did some photography work at a wedding and have been doing alot of work processing so I have not been able to post here nor process any of my Astrophotos. As soon as I do they will be on here. I have also posted direct links to a couple friends Blogs. They are located in the right hand side tab on here. Check them out, they are pretty much doing the same thing as I am but, you will see different Images and some very good ones. One of them has alot about the sun and takes images of the sun himself. I hope you all are enjoying my journey. Again any comments or suggestions feel free to leave me anything.

   So I decided to write a post to those who are interested in Astronomy yet, don't have any idea where to start. This is a Photo of yours truly with my collection of Scopes the Good and Bad. But in this photo is the whole gamut of types of scopes on the market today. I have had a couple of People ask me about what type of Telescope to buy how much to spend etc. So here is as post just for you if you are one of those people.
   We will start from the top. First understand what it is a Telescope is and does. First, a Telescope is an instrument used for looking into the sky at the stars, planets, etc. It can also be used for terestial viewing as well, birds, plants etc. So what does a Telescope do? A telescope is used to gather light and focus it to a point for your eye to see. The first good advice I can give anyone is STAY AWAY from the Telescopes in the Department stores. They look similar to the one in the lower right of this photo. I too fell prey to the 600x Magnification on the box. Well that is a strech to say the least. Now if you have one you can probably get some decent views of the moon and thats about it.
   The telescope in the bottom right of the photo is what is called a Refractor. There are plenty of really good, even excellent Refractors, I do not have one of those. A nice new Refractor can be had for as cheap as $100, the price can sky rocket from there. I have seen them in excess of $5,000. With Refractors the Planets are just wonderful as well as the Moon. You can view some Deep Sky Objects such as Andromeda Galaxy etc. For Planetary Imaging the Refractor from my research is what you want. They are easy to use but, the price per inch of Aperture is alot more compared to the Reflector which we will get to in a minute. Now, how does a Refractor work? In a Refractor the light enters in the Objective at the end of the Telescope, then is bent and directed to the eyepiece for the person to view. It is a very simple design but like all of them have it's ups and downs to them.
   The Reflector Telescope. There are two in this Image, one to the direct right of me and a black one right in front of me standing upward on the ground. These are the cheapest dollar wise per inch of aperture. For an example a 2.5" Refractor will run you about $130 while a Reflector of the same brand at that same price is a 4.5". So almost twice the size as the refractor for the same money. In a Reflector you can see some amazing views of the planets as well as the Moon but, you will now be able to see some faint deep sky objects like distant galaxies and Nebulas. The Reflector works by Light entering the end of the scope and hitting the Primary at the bottom the reflecting to a secondary towards the fron of the scope then comes out the side of the tube through the eyepiece. Reflecting Telescopes can also be used for some very good Images as well with the proper setup.
   The next things I will go over in the next post so keep your eyes open for more.

   This is Messier 27 or NGC6853 or commonly referred to as The Dumbbell Nebula. This photo was taken with my T3 and Meade 8" telescope. Settings were at ISO1600 a total of 8, 30" images. The photos were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and processed using GIMP. Processing is my weak point but will get better with time like anything else.
   The Dumbbell Nebula is a Planetary Nebula that is around 1360 Light Years Away. This was the first "Planetary Nebula" Discovered, in 1764 by Charles Messier. The reason for the name Planetary Nebula, is in those days when vied through a telescope it was thought that they resembeled the Gas Giants of our Solar System.

                                               This is the processed image.

                           This is the original unstacked, unprocessed single Image.      

   I originaly had this in tab titled pictures but, decided to put it on the main page. This is a combination of about 10 images. I had help reprocessing this so I cannot take the credit for how wonderful it looks.
   This was my first image through my new imaging Telescope. This is The Great Nebula in Orion. Which obviously is in the constellation of Orion. The Catalog name is Messier 42 or just M42 as well as NGC1976. This Nebula is a region where stars are forming. It is approximately 1,344 +/- 20 light years from Earth. To put that in perspective a " Light Year " is how far light has traveled in one year. Which is about 6 trillion miles. so just multiply that by 1,344 and you get the distance. That comes out to 8,064,000,000,000,000 miles. To travel there in our fastest Man Made Spacecraft would take approximately 300 billion years. Also the picture I took was basicly Time Travel if you will. Because this object is 1,344 Light Years away, the image you are seeing is of light from 1,344 years ago. So it would have been around the year 668.

   Sorry it's been a week since I posted last been working third shift. I just took this photo this morning of Messier 17. This Nebula has many names among which are Omega Nebula, Swan Nebula, Lobster Nebula, Checkmark Nebula and The Horseshoe Nebula. I myself think Swan fits best. This is 15 images with my 8" Meade and my T3 at ISO1600 taken at 30" each image, with one Master Dark, One Master Flat and One Master Offset Bias, all stacked together with Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Gimp. I have alot to learn about processing yet but, that's part of the process.
   It is around 5,000 to 6,000 light years from Earth and has a diameter of about 15 Light Years. It is located in the Constellation of Sagittarius. It is embeded in a larger cloud that is around  40 light years in diameter. It was discovered in 1745 and catalogued in 1764. It was finally sketched in detail in 1833 by John Herschel, only to publish it in 1836. The Mass of this Nebula is about 800x more than our Sun.

   I took this photo last night/Wednesday morning. This is Messier 57, M57 or NGC6720. This is a compilation of 25 twenty second images stacked with Deep Sky Stacker then Processed with GIMP. I took this with my Canon T3 through my Meade LX90 8" SCT. Camera settings were as follows: ISO 1600, 20". The only kind of processing that I did was adjust Contrast, Brightness, RGB, and Value. I am very happy with this image will definitely be taking more to add to this for a more detailed photo.
   Messier 57 or The Ring Nebula is in the Constellation of Lyra. It was discovered in 1779 and catalogued the same year. It is 2,300 light years from Earth in miles that is 1,380,000,000,000,000,000. It has a radius of about 1.3 Light Years which is over 6 Trillion Miles. This object is referred to as a Planetary Nebula.

   This is an image I took the other night. Trying something new out. I have never observed nor photographed an object like this before. This is a Globular Cluster called Messier 13 or M13 also NGC 6205, referred to by it's common name as The Great Cluster in Hercules. This like many objects states in which constellation it is located, Hercules. The reason I chose this I think speaks for itself. It is a densly packed group of stars. This specific one was discovered by the one and only Edmond Halley, as you may have realized from the name, Halley's Comet got it's namesake from this great man. This object is about 145 light years in diameter. In perspective it is 852,382,475,284,091 miles in diameter. That's 852 Trillion Miles! It is located about 25,000 light years from Earth. In this cluster there are well over 100,000 stars. I believe upon looking at this then photographing it as well I have now found a new favorite type of object of mine.

   So not alot of Explanation needed here! I took this with my Canon T3 through my 8" Meade Telescope. Not really anything done to the picture itself. So with that said let's move on. Of course the Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is a 1/4 the diameter of Earth with only 1/81 of the mass. It is also as most know the only celestial body aside from Earth that man has stepped foot on. Of Course that being from the years 1969-1972. The Moon currently have two NASA satellites orbiting it called the Grail Spacecraft. Of which are studying the Moon and looking closely at the far side of the Moon. Remember there is no so called "Dark Side of the Moon". The Moon takes 27.5 days to orbit around the Earth, it is what we call Tidally Locked. Which means we only see one side of the Moon at all times. The distance of the Moon from Earth is about 240,000 miles. It is also said that the Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of about 4 cm( 1.5" ) a year. We know this precisely because when the Astronauts landed on the Moon they left some reflectors on it's surface. We now shine a laser at these reflectors and can measure the distance by how long it takes for the light to go to the Moon then make it back to us. That number is about 2.6 seconds for the round trip of the light.
   The Moon as many have noticed has phases. The phases start in the waxing phase called a Waxing Crescent. This is what you see in the picture. The next phase is the First Quarter, when half of the moon that we see is illuminated. The next Phase is the Waxing Gibbous, it is when more than 50% of the Moon is illuminated. Then the Full Moon. After the Full phase it then goes into the Waning Phase starting with the Waning Gibbous which is the exact same as the Waxing just in reverse. Then Second Quarter followed by the Waning Crescent. Then Finally the New Moon.

   So this is an obvious picture of the Planet Saturn. This was taken with my 8" Meade Telescope and is 25 images stacked on top of each other. Normally the method used is a webcam, alot of times it is one like you might have on your desktop computer. The webcam is attached to a Barlow lens which essentially doubles or sometimes triples the size of the image. While hooked up to the Telescope through the Barlow lens a video is taken. I have seen where some people have taken videos at 30 frames per second or so and put it into a program that extracted each individual frame and stacked them one on top of another. Doing so they have basically stacked 300 or more photos and the result is quite nice. Again, This was done with my Canon DSLR hooked up without a Barlow to my 8" Telescope and is only about 25-30 images stacked it was not taken as a video. I then processed it with a freeware program called GIMP. It is alot like Photoshop just free, I'm sure Photoshop gives you more things to play with but, it does the job for me for now.
   Now onto some science! Saturn is the 6th planet from our Star the Sun. It is also as most may know the second largest planet in our solar system.The planet not counting the rings is about 10 times bigger around than Earth. It is at it's closest 746 million miles away from Earth. It spins about it's axis in about 11 hours ( That's one day on Saturn ). It takes about 29 1/2 Earth Years to Orbit the Sun. Saturn is what we call a Gas Giant it's composition is primarily Hydrogen and Helium. The rings around the planet are just breathtaking. The rings were long thought to be a solid disk but, missions the Voyager flyby in 1980 sent back detailed images of the rings. They are composed of lots of small pieces of rock and ice. One of the rings is formed by one of Saturn's Moons, Enceladus. It is an Icy moon that spews Ice out of Volcanoes. Not that indifferent from the volcanoes we know about other than instead of molten rock it is Ice that it spews out in fact shoots out into space. Saturn is currently still being studied by the Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft. Saturn has over 60 moons to it, and is the farthest planet that is easily visible with the naked eye.

The Beginning

    I guess I'll make a first post to explain how I got into Astronomy. I have always looked up in wonder. I never took an Astronomy Class nor did I have any kind of training. Most of my observations were just that, looking up. I began to study the physics and science and immediately was hooked. I purchased a small "department store" Refractor Telescope. Training this on the moon I was enthralled by the views little did I know those views were actually horrible ( more on that later ). In early fall of 2011 I finally purchased a pretty nice Telescope. I was able to pick up a second hand 5" Reflector. The first time training it on the moon the feeling of awe came back this time much better. I could see the craters very, very clear. This was it I knew I had missed my calling. The only thing I could do with all this knowledge and passion for this area of interest was share it with anyone I could. Three people in particular, my Wife and Children.
    In February 2012 I decided to take it up a notch. I purchased an Astrophotography setup. I purchased an 8" Meade with GPS and a computer controlled mount. Let me say it is a long cry from the 5" Telescope let alone the first one I got. I also purchased a Canon T3 EOS Rebel DSLR camera to attach to the new telescope to begin taking photographs of outer space. The posts from this point forward will be of photos I have taken as well as how I took them. All of my techniques will be outlined in photographing as well as my learning curve through the processing phase. Anyone who has questions I would be more than happy to answer anything you throw at me. Also anyone with requests with photos they would like to see of something in the cosmos, I will do my best to take some of those as well. Thanks for reading I hope I can give you some knowledge and a love for Astronomy.