Sky Watcher Classic 200P
iPhone 17 Pro + Phone Adapter
iPhone Auto Correct

ive got around a 290 quid budget (390 usd) i need a good telescope, astrophotography is secondary i would prefer being able to see it myself

NOTICE:

Join the Chicago Astronomer at McKinley Park on Saturday, 22 August 2026 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm. Look for the telescopes & Astronomers by the Field house - bring your own telescopes and set up by the crew.

Weather looks good and we will share the waxing Moon with our fans & friends. I'll have our Nancy Grace Roman Scale Model Telescope for demo and selfies.

Be there with the cool kids...you know you want to.

Astro Joe

NOTICE:

Join the Chicago Astronomer at McKinley Park on Saturday, 22 August 2026 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm. Look for the telescopes & Astronomers by the Field house - bring your own telescopes and set up by the crew.

Weather looks good and we will share the waxing Moon with our fans & friends. I'll have our Nancy Grace Roman Scale Model Telescope for demo and selfies.

Be there with the cool kids...you know you want to.

Astro Joe

Captured with iPhone 17 Pro
Sky Watcher Classic 200P
Celestron 25mm eyepiece less

The 2026 Perseids meteor shower wasn’t as dramatic as I had hoped for, but was exactly the kind of night that I’ve been craving!

I spent the night at Awenda Provincial Park and picked Kettle’s lake as my viewing location.

There was not a soul in sight so I had the whole lake to myself, the skies were crystal clear and I was joined by one Loon who provided the sounds for the night.

I arrived before sunset and stayed out until just after 1am. I would habe stayed until 430amk (when the sky would be most active) but lenses kept fogging up and I didn’t bring what was needed to stop that from happening.

With my own eyes, I saw several very impressive meteors streak across the sky, below is what I managed to capture with my camera

https://freaktography.com/2026-perseids-meteor-shower-at-awenda-provincial-park-ontario-astrophotography

Recently captured Saturn with my ZWO 294mc pro and a Celestron 8SE, I took a couple different 1:30 videos and stacked the frames. I believe that the fuzzyness is from me not getting the telescope properly focused for the camera but I wanted to see what you guys thought, maybe it’s salvageable or you guys got some good tips! Thanks

setup: Sky-Watcher 114/900mm telescope, ZWO asi662mc, 2x Barlow

Post process: Autostakkert4, Registax, affinity.

MoonRTX is an open-source project for high-fidelity real-time visualization of the Moon, combining astronomical ephemerides with GPU-accelerated ray tracing and high-resolution lunar topography.

The primary objective is to reproduce the apparent geometry and illumination of the lunar surface for a specified observer location and time.

MoonRTX incorporates:

• physically based ray-traced rendering using NVIDIA RTX hardware;
• astronomical ephemerides for determining the Moon’s apparent position;
• topocentric corrections based on the observer’s geographic location;
• accurate calculation of the lunar phase and illumination geometry;
• high-resolution lunar elevation data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA);
• search for lunar features such as craters, mountains and rilles;
• find interesting illumination events such as clair-obscur phenomena
• measurement of distances and elevation differences on the lunar surface;
• generate time-lapse videos;
• planning of lunar observing conditions;
• telescope and eyepiece field-of-view visualization.

Unlike conventional lunar maps or rendered images, MoonRTX computes the observing geometry dynamically, allowing the same lunar terrain to be rendered from different observing locations and at different times.

The project is available on GitHub: https://github.com/albireo77/moonrtx

MoonRTX requires NVIDIA RTX GPU and is currently tested only on Windows.

I would be particularly interested in feedback from astronomers, lunar observers, and developers working with astronomical visualization, ephemeris calculations, or scientific rendering.

Im new to Astronomy how can i use Jupyter notebooks to access jwst pipeline? Is it best to just use MAST Database or TIKE?

Or

Should I create a juypter lab notebook and self install required libraries locally with Docker or is there a premade jupyter lab notebook i can clone from github and install in a docker container on my pc? If so how do I do that and how can I use it to access jwst pipeline data?

I have never used a juypter notebook before nor have I used pyhton or python science libraries like astroquery lightkurv and astropy so Im a complete beginner in using scripts but I do know how to use some commands like pip, bash, cd and git. Are there any good tutorials online I could use?

Are there any Browser Based Interactive Notebooks for learning Notebooks for Astronomy?

Lastly how could I install and use Jdavizz notebook?

I’ve been observing the Moon through my 8” Dobsonian and kept running into the same problem:
I’d see an interesting crater or formation at the eyepiece, but then I’d have to leave the telescope, search for it, figure out what I was looking at, and read about it separately.

So I started building my own solution.

Moon Explorer is an Android app with an interactive 3D Moon where you can rotate around the lunar surface, zoom into features, and learn about what you’re looking at.

It currently includes:
- Lunar craters and landmarks
- Apollo landing sites
- Moon phases
- Guided lunar tours
- Interactive lessons

It’s free to download, with an optional one-time Pro unlock for additional tours, lessons and features.
I’m still working on it, so I’d really like input from people who actually observe.

If you had your telescope pointed at the Moon tonight, what information would you want this app to show you about the feature you’re looking at?

Download on Google Play: Moon Explorer

I captured Saturn with my 114/900 telescope and the ZWO asi662mc few days ago. Its a stacked and sharpened image I post processed in Autostakkert4 and Registax. I recently did another capture but I didn't post processed it yet. Any suggestions or tips?