My latest leisurely pandemic activity: Amateur Astronomy!

[Shermann]

So I bought a Orion 10282 STARBLAST 90mm Altazimuth Travel Refractor Telescope a couple weeks ago. I've never owned a telescope before, or really spent any time with one. I'm in the suburbs and there is an unfortunate amount of light pollution, which makes the refractor a better choice than the reflector.

I've gotten a pretty good look at Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and even Uranus. The moon too.

I found Messier 22 (a globular cluster). Damn hard to find even knowing right where it was. Really just a ghostly blob, no color at all.

I found the Orion nebula eventually, really difficult as well. Another nearly invisible ghost.

So light pollution is a bummer. It's a travel scope so there are options. It would be nice to be able to see more from my patio, though. I haven't seen the Milky Way in forever. But it's really a lot worse than that. Many of the constellations are being washed out. There are only two stars from Ursa Minor visible with the naked eye. Constellations like Sagittarius are totally gone.

The scope was pretty reasonable and I've been enjoying it despite the inherent limitations.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Congrats ! I've always wanted to do astronomy, but I'm not in a good location ...

... more because of too many trees, than too much light pollution.

You might try clicking on this Googlon: https://www.google.com/search?q=astrophotography+near+city+lights& With appropriate filters, you can remove much of the offending radiation and greatly increase contrast. The classic book on this is https://www.amazon.com/Astrophotography-Near-Lights-Joseph-Cocozza/dp/B0006WMH3K which dates from the days of film, not CCDs.

Are you doing 'star hopping' or relying on setting circles ?

Um, are you sure you got the Orion Nebula right ? It's one of the easiest finds -- I photographed it with a 35 mm camera and telephoto lens as a teenager. It DOES NOT look like a big puff of pink & purple cotton candy, that's only with big scopes and long exposures. You should see a green glow, and short exposures will show the same. Of course I had a clear FL night sky!

[Shermann]

4. OK I had to look up those terms

I'd say I'm star hopping. My scope does not have setting circles. I'm also not into the photography aspect, just direct observations.

I'm pretty sure I found the Orion Nebula. It's in the middle of Orion's sword.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Well, you must have pretty bad light pollution, as you say. And even a little haze can kill viewing.

Do you use tools like ClearDarkSky to find good viewing times ?

A nice book to find some interesting objects is Turn Left at Orion, which teaches how to star-hop. You might want to check your local library first -- after picking out a few favorite objects, you'll probably get the hang of it well enough to move on to more advanced sources.

[Shermann]

8. Thanks, I threw that one in my Amazon cart

That website looks pretty comprehensive. I'm not to the point of venturing out past my patio but I'll add this to my tool chest.

[3Hotdogs]

2. Try to attend one of the Dark Sky festivals.

Where do you live?

[Shermann]

5. The Greater Charlotte area nt

[William Seger]

3. Very cool

If you haven't seen it yet, www.lightpollutionmap.info has a light pollution map that will help you plan any trips.

I'm planning a trip in a week or so (around the new moon) to try to take some wide-angle photos of the Milky Way, to be processed in a freeware "stacking" program called Sequator. I took some long-exposure photos last summer in Chaco Canyon, NM, where it's amazingly dark and the Milky Way almost hurts your eyes, but stacking a few dozen shots should be much better. And, I just learned from that map that only about an hour-and-a-half west of where I live in Colorado Springs, the sky is almost as dark as Chaco Canyon.

[Shermann]

6. My home is 19.40 mag./arc sec2

Not good. Not good at all.

That trip sounds great!