Sunday, November 29, 2009

Exploring Orion

I am planning a comprehensive exploration of Orion this coming weekend, having recently purchased a UHC filter (the Orion Ultrablock Narrowband) - which should help in viewing the emission nebulae in this constellation.

I just took a look at Orion through my old 8 x 40 binoculars, and the view was amazing - so I am eagerly anticipating what almost 50 times more light gathering capacity will deliver! Not that Orion isn't a wonderful object to view through binoculars: Betelgeuse, the stars of Orion's belt (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka), the sword of Orion and the M42 nebula within it are all a treat through the binoculars.

The screen shot of Orion below is from Stellarium - a wonderful free planetarium application (download here) that I use for planning my observation sessions. One of my next telescope projects will be to hook a laptop up to the telescope, preferably wirelessly, and use Stellarium to drive the telescope. Stellarium has a "night mode" - which displays the screen in red and thus saves night vision. I can see this being a great tool for exploring the sky in a more interactive and expansive fashion than just relying on the handset.

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