Heidi Crane

Remember when the moon was supposed to be eye-searingly bright, a couple of
years ago? yes, it was going to be closer, and so it would have more
brilliance, but not so much that we could actually tell the difference.

>The availability of Hubble and other very high-quality images of a wide
>variety of astronomical objects has made it all too common for a first-time
>observer to expect to see what they've found in books and magazines.
>You'll
>see many beautiful things through a telescope, and many will become only
>more beautiful as your skills improve, but you'll rarely get views that
>compare to the photographs.

I experienced this, when I viewed Saturn through a telescope. It was white.
On a black field. Nothing at all like the highly detailed, mult-striped,
dark brown and maroon and cream pictures I've seen from the Explorer space
craft. But it was still VERY cool. Awesome. Amazing. Seeing it live was
better than seeing the pictures of it, by a long shot, even though the
"live" view wasn't as visually exciting as the pictures.

blessings, HeidiC

>Message: 13
> Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 17:01:23 -0700
> From: "Lars Hedbor" <lhedbor@...>
>Subject: RE: UNSCHOOLING OPPORTUNITY: Mars as big as moon duri...
>
>Unfortunately, the original message is simply in error. This *October*,
>Mars will reach opposition with the Earth, and while it's a good
>apparition,
>August 2003 was quite a bit closer.
>
>And, to give you an idea of what all of this means in terms of observing
>Mars, I pushed my telescope with a 16" (40 cm) wide mirror to several
>hundred power (I don't have my logs in front of me, so I'm not sure what
>the
>exact power was), under PERFECT conditions, and I was able to discern a few
>of the most prominent of Mars' features.
>
>Bear in mind, too, that observational astronomy is very much a learned
>skill
>-- so where I could pick out features on Mars, a novice stepping to the
>eyepiece for the first time might have seen little more than a smeary
>orange
>disk.
>
>I don't say this to discourage folks from observing Mars this fall -- but I
>always hate to see people terribly disappointed when they are pumped up by
>claims such as these, only to learn that, as is so often the case, there's
>no easy shortcut to the most rewarding of experiences.

>The availability of Hubble and other very high-quality images of a wide
>variety of astronomical objects has made it all too common for a first-time
>observer to expect to see what they've found in books and magazines.
>You'll
>see many beautiful things through a telescope, and many will become only
>more beautiful as your skills improve, but you'll rarely get views that
>compare to the photographs.

>
>
>Hope this helps -- and please feel free to ask me any questions that may
>come up about astronomical matters; I relish the experience of seeing
>people
>come to understand just how incredibly grand our universe is, and how much
>they can learn about it with their own eyes.
>
>- Lars D. H. Hedbor
> Oregon City, Oregon