• YouTube Tutorial

• Celestron 8SE telescope and NexImage 10MP deep space camera

• We recorded no more than 500 frames, approximately 1 minute

  • keep in mind that Saturn is not stationary in this video and moves within the view field of the camera; some of the frames might be less clear than others because of clouds or other aberrations

• We used PIPP - a planetary imaging tool that takes the 500 frames, aligns the planet in each frame and stacks all frames to convert it into a stationary object

• We then used Autostakkert! to select the highest quality frames - it is an automatic process in which about 50% of the frames are dropped - the ones with most noise, lack of clarity etc; the rest of the frames are combined into one single image

• We then use Registax - applies various filters to sharpen planet features; in our image below you can see the rings and the line where the rings go over the planet body

• Finally, I added a starry night background and a filter on Instagram

And this concludes another successful deep sky experiment.

As luck has it, we happen to experience the “harvest Moon”, the full and waning moon this week is so bright that it keeps the crop fields lighted through the night! We set out a project to take simple photos of the moon and identify the main geographical areas and, to my surprise, it turns out the dark patches on the moon, called “maria”, are actually made of basalt resulted from frozen lava in a time when the Moon had volcanic activity or when during impact lava started flowing from the core. It’s not just a simple rock in the sky after all! The various shades also denote the distinct age and chemistry of the basalt flows formed on the surface.

Another interesting project to do is to take photos during the moon phases and explore how various features are lit or are in a shadow depending on the direction the light comes from (waning moon is lit from the east and a waxing moon is lit from the west). Features running from north to south are specifically influenced by this. The moon photos taken below are through the Celestron 8SE telescope, 32mm eye piece, with an iPhone 15 Pro Max camera and some basic image editing.

While waiting for the Moon to rise, we decided to warm up our telescope and just take some photos of Saturn because our attempts last year, while laudable, left us wanting. What I found interesting is that, from Earth, we will actually see Saturn’s rings at different angles every year! This will make a fun exploration year over year! In the last photo below you can also spot some of Saturn’s moons.

That’s all for a night’s sky. Excited to explore more and hopefully capture a couple more interesting sights this season!

In any case, the question is how much more could we see with a more advanced technology stack that...

• can align itself and find stars and objects for you

• can track the objects moving in the sky

• can record and capture high quality videos and photography

Albeit Santa Clause is a "myth" and we all know parents buy presents, wrap them and place them under the tree, Boris decided a new and better telescope should remain at the top of the wish list for Father Christmas.

And here comes our Celestron NexStar 8SE Computerised Telescope! More buttons, knobs and software to understand. The joy! It is a very popular scope in the “backyard astronomy” groups and it is designed to look at planets, stars and space events. A couple of observations:

1. Focal Length

   1. Old Telescope: 700mm focal length.

   2. New Telescope: 2032mm focal length.

   3. Magnification with a 20mm lens: 101.6.

   4. Translation: 3X boost, making object-finding a breeze.

2. Essential Accessories

   1. Deep space camera for mesmerizing astro-photography

      1. e.g., Celestron 93708 NexImage 10MP [Link]

      2. but there are a couple even more popular that hobbyists are using (the ZWO ASI series) - we will put this on the list for one of our upcoming birthday wishes

   2. Eye piece and filter kit for enhanced visuals [Link]

   3. an AC/DC adapter to power the scope

3. Exposure Headaches

   1. Exposure: Amount of light reaching the camera's sensor.

   2. Factors: Aperture (diameter control), shutter speed (motion capture), and ISO (light sensitivity).

   3. Translation: Mastering these will definitely be a challenge to get high quality imagery

4. Star Alignment & Software

   1. the telescope comes with a couple of alignment modes - in a nutshell, it needs to know its coordinates and time of day and then it can find and track objects in the sky

   2. the star alignment is critical to recording longer videos because due to the relative motion of the Earth, the objects in the sky start trailing within 30 seconds! By the time you change a filter, the star / planet is gone!

   3. hobbyists the use multiple software programs to align all the captured video frames, select the best quality ones, de-noise, amplify and highlight through a series of image filters. We played a bit with RegiStax 6 and AutoStakkert

Enough with the tech talk, Boris enjoyed putting the telescope together and then we waited for clear skies. Which in North of London turns out it is VERY rare! We got ourselves acclimated with the tech stack and were able to gradually improve our Jupiter imagery! We started to see the cloud bands quite well defined! We had one chance to capture Saturn and made a mistake with the video size - the file was too big and any kind of processing was incredibly slow, but you can still see the rings and the shape of the planet quite well. We also looked at the moon and seeing all the craters still gives us goosebumps!

An astro hobbyist was saying that his social calendar goes by the weather - a clear sky will automatically cancel everything else and I start to related to that :).

Cheers!

"We brought it for our 8 year old son on Christmas who was asking for it for a year now. But this telescope was very complicated and not only him my husband and I tried very hard to see. But unfortunately we could not see anything. Thus it disappointed whole family especially my son as we decided to return it."

Turning Your Gaze Up

Just gazing at the stars and contemplating the mysteries of space can send shivers down your spine. It's natural to want to delve deeper and explore, and a telescope promises to provide just that. However, operating a telescope is a highly technical and, at times, humbling experience. Remember studying optics in high-school physics? Yep…

We got our first telescope almost by mistake. I had a ton of Lufthansa Miles that were about to expire and from all the products in the World Shop, the Thames & Kosmos telescope seemed interesting - I was as naive as the parents above - what a cool thing to do with my then 6 year old! Put it all together, point to the sky et voilà, let the mystery of the universe unfold. Well, about that...

Luckily, Alex found the telescope intriguing and started reading the manuals. The moon was an easy target. Start with the bigger eye pieces, easy to find and focus and you know what to expect. Move to a small eye piece, refocus, now you see a smaller section of the object but in greater detail. Add the Barlow lens, woah! Add the colored filters and it is a spectacle.

While Boris observed the endless experiments and setup, we enjoyed together the gazing. He excitedly shared his findings in a show-and-tell at school describing Jupiter’s moons!

A year later, we brought out the telescope to show the moon to my in-laws. They got goosebumps when seeing the moon craters, valleys and details. It makes it all very real and while we are inundated with astro-photography, experiencing the viewing by yourself is absolutely sensational. So that's when Alex wondered if with a bit more technology we can get to the next level of astro-viewing...

Thames & Kosmos [Link] - October 2022

• D=60mm

• F=700mm

• refractor

  • A refractor's magnification is calculated by dividing the focal length of the objective lens by that of the eyepiece.

• eye pieces

  • 20mm

    • magnification = 700mm/20mm = 35

  • 10mm

    • magnification = 700mm/10mm = 70

• 2X Barlow Lens

  • multiplies the magnification by 2

• various color filters [Link]

  • sun, moon, red, yellow, green, blue

  • used to filter wavelengths and certain details of planets / moon can be better observed

• Celestron Universal Phone Adapter [Link]

  • used to attach our phones to take photos

• Star gazing mobile app to easily find constellations and planets

Observations

• easy to explore the moon in great detail

• price is a plus (and we basically got this one for free 🙂)

• amazing photos recorded using just our phones and an adaptor

  • had to use our watches to remotely take photos, any movement would break the star alignment

• spotted Jupiter and some of its moons and Saturn

• we learned a lot on how to set up the telescope, the eyepieces and how to find the relevant bright spots on the sky

  • starts with smallest magnification and make your way up

• in general it is very hard to find relevant objects in the sky - especially for a beginner

• hard to track moving objects in the sky

  • you'd be surprised how quickly planets disappear from view especially when you use a lot of magnification

• everything is manual, no computerized guide or tracking

• it can get tedious after a while, so we kept our sessions short at about 1 hour give or take

• best viewing sessions in the Northern Hemisphere are during the fall-winter season

  • long dark nights, but it gets cold, so a flask of hot tea or mulled wine is advisable!

• this is not a toy, it is a telescope, an optical instrument that cannot just be given to a child, but it can make a lot of fun nights once you understand a bit what you are doing

P.S. A just noticed a funny tag on Instagram - “back yard astronomy”, so there is a name for this family hobby :D [Link]

As seasoned technology executives, Flavia and Alex have left their mark on prominent projects spearheading their own technology company for the past 15 years. Leading a team of hundreds of skilled engineers, they've cultivated innovation and excellence times and again.

Flavia, Alex, and Boris are the perfect blend of professional success and a family bonded by shared interests and a love for the extraordinary. Join them on their journey through the cosmos and beyond on their family blog.

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