Lunar Astronomy for beginners software
Lunar Phase Pro is the perfect starter package covering all aspects of Lunar astronomy for beginners. It's a fully interactive Moon atlas, encyclopedia and source of invaluable predictions. Whether you have binoculars or not, see if you can't find an immediate use for Lunar Phase Pro.
Astronomy for beginners
Within a few weeks or months of taking up astronomy for beginners you will probably decide that you wnat to keep a permanent record of some of the sights which you've managed to identify in the night sky. That usually means getting involved in the world of photography. You may already have a digital of film camera and tried to take pictures of the moon or Venus, with disapointing results. Don't worry though, it can be done. I'm going to explain how to take pictures through a telescope because even if you don't have a telescope of your own yet, you will probably get an opportunity sooner or later to use somebody else's equipment. The amateur astronomy community is nice and sociable in that respect.
So there are several ways to take photographs through a telescope.
One way is to simply hold the camera up to the eyepiece. Results from this method can be perfectly acceptable for a beginner. The next stage is to buy an adapter that attaches the end of a camera lens onto the eyepiece of the telescope. That's called "afocal imaging". This technique works well for things like the moon or even the brighter planets.
f you are more of a serious amateur photgrapher and have a Sinle Lens Reflex (SLR) camera with interchangable lenses, then you can remove the eyepiece from the telescope and join the camera body directly to the focuser on the telescope. This turns your telescope into a large manual focus camera lens. That techique is called 'prime focus 'and it is the most popular among astrophotographers currently. Your telescope should have the focal length listed, and if you know how big the primary lens/mirror is, you can calculate the F/number just like any other lens.
The other method I want to mention is called "eyepiece projection". This is where the eyepiece is attached to a tele-extender which is attached to the SLR camera body without a lens. This allows for very high magnification, but requires longer exposures just like any other time one would use a tele-extender.
The subject of astrophotography is one which astronomy for beginners will be returning to in the coming weeks.
