2020 March 29: A 212-Hour Exposure of Orion

(mouse over, with brightness / contrast change ?)

i have no avatar wrote:2020 March 29: A 212-Hour Exposure of Orion

(mouse over, with brightness / contrast change ?)

Nice, but some people will rush out and buy a telescope (probably a piss poor one) and expect to look through it and see something like this, and quickly lose interest. Then they form a bad opinion of astronomy. Even if one had a 12” Dobsonian of the highest quality the visual results won’t be anything at all like this. Yes, they will ignore the years of data accumulation, and mosaic composition. I’d loved to see a side by side of this and a single short exposure scaled to match.

RS

Yes, absolutely correct. Especially since they won't know to go to a dark sky location and/or use an appropriate filter.

Their only hope, in my opinion, is if they turn their telescope (even a piss-poor one) towards the moon and look at the lunar terminator (as you know from anywhere, even in a city). Then, they may be hooked, and strive for a deeper understanding of what can (and cannot), reasonably be observed.

Or not.

2020 March 30: The Colors of Saturn from Cassini

2020 March 31: The Galactic Center from Radio to X-ray

Note: Click on the image for a much larger field of view.

2020 April 1: Asteroid or Potato?

2020 April 2: Venus and the Pleiades in April

2020 April 3: The Traffic in Taurus

2020 April 4: Venus and the Sisters

2020 April 5: Color the Universe

2020 April 6 - NGC 1672: Barred Spiral Galaxy from Hubble

Oh bugger! Latest Astronomer's Telegram:
Possible Disintegration of Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)

Associated annotated imagery


Heigh ho.

Damn it! I had hoped this one would survive and brighten.

RS

Yep, me too. Coming hot on the heels of comet Borisov's* break up announced a couple of days ago things is looking dire for comets at the moment.

*The interstellar visitor comet.

Crud! (But still pretty cool).

2020 April 7: A Path North

2020 April 8: Country Sky versus City Sky

2020 April 9: A Flow of Time

2020 April 10: Full Moon of Spring

2020 April 11: Venus and the Pleiades in April