The Astronomy Thread
- Thread starter Araxen
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Found this today, removed the doxxing bits. My MIL reached out to Scott Kelly (without my knowledge) during the time he'd just come back from doing the year long stay in space. He sent me the signed photo and mission patch which I framed along with the letter. Didn't come in time for Christmas but he also didn't have to do it at all. I really thought it was sweet.
I also wish I was still 'approaching' 50 , that shit has come and gone !
I also wish I was still 'approaching' 50 , that shit has come and gone !
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what are the odds this happens again in our lifetime? Or Mars? Sure seems like we cannot get done changing the goal to figure out how to get it done.
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oh yeah you said you shot astro with film cameras, how does that work? Just leave the plate open while it's tracking? Seems like a ton of work.
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I no longer do it. That was before digital, before a lot of goto mounts. You found your target and use a guide scope adjacent to your main scope with a lighted crosshair you looked through and opened the shutter (OM-1 ollympus camera would stay open manually) and self guided your mount to keep whatever in the crosshairs of the eyepiece of your guide scope. We used slide film. There was no get it lined up and walk off, you sat there and guided it until you were done and closed the shutter.
Something like this. Dark ages now. But in the early 80s that was pretty high tech, up until reall bad digital cameras came on the scene and got better with time, and the mounts that tracked much better and had goto.
agenaastro.com
This pic was done with slide film. Not mine.
Something like this. Dark ages now. But in the early 80s that was pretty high tech, up until reall bad digital cameras came on the scene and got better with time, and the mounts that tracked much better and had goto.
Agena 1.25" Wireless Illuminated Reticle Eyepiece with Focusable Dual Crosshair - 20mm
Premium quality, 20mm 1.25" centering / alignment / tracking eyepiece 5 lens elements in 4 groups with blackened lens edges provide bright views with a wide 70° apparent field of view Comfortable 16mm eye relief Wireless LED-illuminated reticle has adjustable focus and brightness Dual crosshairs...
agenaastro.com
This pic was done with slide film. Not mine.
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It was either that or a polaroid back in the day. Kids now days have it easy. You also most likely used a reflector telescope. Slow refractors that were ED Enhanced Low Dispertion of light were like the price of a house or more (flourite scopes were in the NASA price range) and even expensive mounts needed to be manually guided. Cats and cass scopes were semi affordable from Celestron but were so long focal length they were uselesd doing anything but lunar or planets and after a C5 was on some of the space missions they weren't cheap either. Things get better over time, now it's all made in China or Taiwan obviously.