Should anyone wonder, I am a proud owner of a Meade ETX-125 Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope and have (too) occasional access to a massive LX200. The AutoStar software is a great teacher of astronomy and enormously helpful in locating celestial objects.
Canon 15x50 binoculars with Optical Image Stabilizer offer brilliant panoramic view of the night sky and also greatly help in locating celestial objects.
My newest helper is Star Walk for iPad interactive astronomy guide from Vito Technology Inc. IMHO it is just amazing. The device is helpful also when using the telescope and is a wonderful companion on those star gazing night walks with only binoculars. iPad is easy to carry along and provides Star Walk with location and orientation data that allows it magically to display information about the part of the night sky iPad is pointed at or currently selected by touching the screen.
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Update Oct 2015: Star Walk 2 has been available for some time. Warmly recommended, it is even better than the excellent first version of Star Walk. Especially helpful is the "see through" mode that uses iPad camera to align the display with the part of the sky viewed. There are many educational add-on packages with wealth of information.
I watched youtube videos dedicated to the star walk app. I look forward to experiencing the real thing soon!
ReplyDeletewww.stellarium.org is also wonderful to see the heavens via computer. Its free and open source!
ReplyDeleteYes, Stellarium and other computer observatories are very helpful and educational and also beautiful to look at.
ReplyDeleteHowever, carrying even a small laptop out to the night is not as convenient as walking with slim iPad and the laptop does not know itself the direction it is pointing at.
thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks for this wonderful post. Those binoculars looked awesome and are so suitable for star gazing. I remembered my dad during our camping trips pointing out the North Star and the different constellations. That's the reason I love camping up to this day. With the right kind of binoculars, you can enjoy nature at its best! My dad and I also loved to go birdwatching and I remembered using a very heavy binocular which was not cool! Today, there's a lot of top-notch binoculars, see the reviews for the best ones here: http://backpackingmastery.com/top-picks/best-binoculars.html
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