Stargazing
You can see galaxies with a telescope as small as 4 inches, but an 8-inch or larger aperture from a…
Stargazing
Star clusters split into two fundamentally different families: open clusters of young, loosely-bound stars in the Milky Way’s disk, and…
Stargazing
Nebulae split into three observable types — emission, reflection, and planetary — and each rewards a different combination of aperture,…
Stargazing
Charles Messier built his catalog as a list of fuzzy patches he wanted to ignore — objects he kept mistaking…
Stargazing
Deep sky objects include galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and planetary nebulae located beyond our solar system. Amateur telescopes with 6-inch…
Stargazing
A backyard chicken coop with bright white security lighting can wash out 80-90% of the visible-magnitude stars from a backyard…
Astrophotography
Remote astrophotography means controlling your telescope, mount, camera, focuser, and filter wheel from inside the warm house — or from…
Stargazing
A moon garden surrounding an observing patio solves a problem most amateur astronomers don’t realize they have: the 20-30 minutes…
Equipment
For most astrophotographers, a 12V 30Ah LiFePO4 power tank (around 384 Wh of usable capacity) runs a typical equatorial mount,…
Astrophotography
Best cameras for deep-sky astrophotography. Sensor properties, full-frame vs APS-C, stock vs astro-modified vs cooled cameras, pixel scale, and integration math.