Wesley's Tool-Box

While browsing on a shopping site, a telescope that costs only about US$45 including shipping caught my eyes. It was named simply as a "high-quality educational telescope", with the model number 90060, indicating 900mm focal length and 60mm diameter. It comes with a 5x finder scope, 20mm / 12.5mm / 4mm eyepieces, a moon filter, and two barlow lenses (1.5x erecting and 3x). Getting curious, I had to order one.

I did not expect much from such a cheap telescope, but having a ridiculously long focal length had some interesting results. One, the overall construction is taller than me. It's a pretty big thing. Another thing is that, even with a modest 20mm eyepiece, the Moon fills the entire view, since you get 45x magnification.

The Jupiter and its Galilean moons were brightly visible with the telescope. I could make out the bands on the planet, but it was actually too bright to clearly distinguish them. 4mm eyepiece was hard to use because the telescope was light and rather shaky. 12.5mm one seem to yield a good balance with the default setup. I should try to add some weight at the base.

City lights and lack of star tracker doesn't mean I couldn't try harder. Zooming in four times more, extreme ISO setting with shorter shutter speed was used to counteract the movements of the stars. Stacking more photos also helped.

In the end, the Andromeda Galaxy became definitely more visible. It now vaguely looks like an ellipse instead of a faint blob.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 192mm - ISO 6400 - 5s - f/5.6
Time: 2013-12-15 22:09 - 22:14 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
18 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

Taking photos of constellations with SX50 HS continues with Andromeda as the target. This one is next to the W-shaped Cassiopeia, so it's easy to spot. With the use of long exposure and filter, the stars making up the constellation nicely shows up in the photo.

Even the faint Andromeda Galaxy can be seen, although it's nothing like the spectacular photos you see in other places. If I were to try to duplicate that sort of feat, I would need to go out of the city and use a star tracker.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 48mm - ISO 1600 - 15s - f/4.0
Filters: Baader M&S applied
Time: 2013-12-14 23:51 - 23:57 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
8 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

When I look outside the window of my apartment in the city with a million people, stars are hard to spot. But the camera can see much more than that for me. Of course, the light pollution still prevents seeing really dim stuff, but it does capture what I would be able to see with my naked eyes in a remote place.

To make best use of the situation, I have to point the camera high up. The lower part of the sky simply drowns in ambient lights. The photo of the constellation Boötes here spans altitude from 34 to 56 degrees in the eastern sky. Even after adjusting the curves and levels settings, the sky below 45 degrees simply doesn't get dark enough. Meanwhile, faint stars all the way to magnitude 9 can be found here and there, but only up to magnitude 7 can be spotted consistently.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 48mm - ISO 400 - 15s - f/4.0
Time: 2013-12-13 06:07 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea

In testing long exposures with my SX50 HS, the camera caught something I didn't expect - an airplane taking off to the skies. The wings have blinking lights attached, and the streak left by the airplane ended up having periodic dots next to it. That's something you can't expect in the streaking stars. Speaking of stars, the brightest streak belongs to Jupiter.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 24mm - ISO 80 - 120s - f/3.4
Time: 2013-12-11 21:23 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea