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> turns out most of them aren't that small

I haven't realized Andromeda is 4x bigger than the Moon until I tried to take a picture of it

https://mikkolaine.blogspot.com/2014/01/size-of-deep-sky-obj... (not my picture)

> just imagine if you could see all those galaxies and nebulae with your naked eye

I think I’d wind up buying the Vision Pro if it can realistically portray seeing the world in a wider spectrum than our eyes can. I don’t want cartoonish images of objects pasted into the sky. I want to see what I would perceive if we e.g. gene therapied a few extra cones into our eyes to see more of the EM spectrum.

Oh boy if you're willing to spend money to look at the night sky - but feel like AR falls short currently - I highly recommend looking into NODs, something like a PVS-14, you might be able to pick one up second hand for the price of a new vision pro. Unfortunately photomultiplier are still quite expensive even if they are only gen2 :( some really cool tech though.

Hmm, spending that much on seeing the stars vs. augmented reality... I might lean toward the stars

Definitely not arguing with you! Though I have a soft spot for analog tech in this area. I think AR might still have a very bright future, especially if you're learning about the night sky. I've spent many hours scanning the sky with an app I found that had an AR feature that allows you to point your camera at the sky and get an overlay on everything (including sattelites!).

I’m interested in that app if you have a link.

It's called Star Walk 2 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vitotechno... Just a FYI that if you choose to purchase the app you will still have to purchase the "all in one bundle" inside the app, I believe it's ~$5 and it gives you the sattelites, extended solar system, deep space objects and more. There's also a free ad supported version that offers the same base catalogue.

Night vision goggles have made immense improvements in recent years. Although the new technology in night vision is also very expensive. If they ever become accessible to the average consumer, they will change the world profoundly. Because you can walk during night as if it was day.

For astronomy, they probably won't make a difference, but it shouldn't be impossible to make goggle technology that converts astronomically interesting wavelengths to the visible spectrum.

It's not the wavelengths that are the problem but the exposure times; even with our best sensors we still need long exposures to capture compelling images of galaxies and nebulae. I don't think it will ever be possible in real time.

that's not a problem with displaying that information.

the post you replied to is not wanting to see like Geordi LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation; in real time. they're (at least I think they are) wanting to visualize already captured information, such as x-ray and radio emissions overlaid a view of the night sky.

> ...I want to see what I would perceive if we e.g. gene therapied a few extra cones into our eyes to see more of the EM spectrum.

Maybe I misunderstood this part then?

That’s incredible. Illustrates how incomprehensibly big galaxies really are. There’s a thing 2.5 million light years away which still appears 4x bigger than the Moon.

Very much incomprehensible, not only for outer celestial objects since we most probably will never fully discover our own physical earth planet or human body, let alone our thinking brain and our elusive consciousness.

Andromedia the closest galaxy to Milky Way (MW) is estimated to have one trillion stars while MW itself is estimated to have 250 billions. God really knows how many of them really exist and who's counting anyway? It's a blind faith at its worst to pretend we know the numbers since it's most likely that the earth and its sun bound astronomers (including the farthest distance ever Voyager spacecraft) are several orders of magnitudes off the marks.

It's also estimated that's more than a trillion number of stars inside the two galaxies (Andromeda and MW), not number of planets, not even the number of moons (the very title of this HN post).

Overall it's also estimated that there's more than a trillion number of galaxies (not stars) inside our universe.

To make matter even more complicated, all of these celestial objects are moving in very high speed relative to each others and none is static. These galaxy are millions or billions light years away from earth and by the time their EM signals has reached earth, they probably have already dissappeared or morphed into something else.

How about non observable part of the universe?

How about other parallel universes that physicists claim to exist?

My personal conclusion to this mind boggling facts is that to assume and conclude there is only earth that has living creatures is very much premature and naive.

For people thinking of getting into moon gazing try binoculars first!

Laying down on your back, plopping a nice pair on your eyes and just looking at the moon is a fantastic experience. Aside from much better UX, binoculars also have depth-perception which makes the visuals all that more engaging.

If you have really nice clear sky in your area you can easily do that with stars and some planets as well.

If you got good bins try looking at Jupiter as well. Typically on a clear night you can see several of the moons.

This blew my mind a few years ago when I got some decent binoculars. Depending on their positions you can see all four of the Galilean moons - even from a vantage point in a major city.

I saw them entirely accidentally. I was looking at the moon through bins and checked out The Other Bright Thing nearby and was shocked to see what looks like little dots next to the big one. As Galileo himself would have done, I immediately went on the internet and consulted a sky chart, which confirmed that I was seeing the moons of Jupiter.

I still occasionally drag my friends out to look at the moons on a clear night. It's my favorite bit of practical astronomy to share.

I was able to take pictures of them with a DSLR with a decent zoom lens! I used Stellarium to check the positions, waited for a very clear night, and was able to get a very nice photograph of that and of the Pleiades.

This is great advice! It's really amazing how much more you can see with a regular decent pair of binoculars. I treasure the memory of being able to see some of the star clusters that I could only vaguely make out with the naked eye for the first time, now I basically bring them every night walk :).

I think the problem is that I would like to have an image stabilized version of that. Even small ticks of you fingers amplify quickly into shaky images.

I think instead of an eyepiece (or in addition to one) most consumer telescopes should include a usb image sensor that can screw into where the eyepiece is.

A lot of binoculars have a mount for a tripod which I can definitely recommend trying out of you happen to have both, or at least consider if you are planning to pick up a new pair.

You can buy generic replacement electric eyepieces that fit

There are also image stabilized binoculars. I have an older Canon 10x30 that I absolutely love (enough to tolerate the plasticizer now breaking down on the rubberized exterior)

I have the same, about 10 yrs old and agree the image stabilization is awesome.

Depth perception? I would think objects as far away as the moon shouldn’t produce a meaningful difference between the left and right eye. But that does tell your brain they are far away, so perhaps that’s what you mean.

It's not really depth perception, but there is a significant difference in how objects are perceived when looking with both eyes. It's also applicable to binocular splitters used with a single mirror/lens telescope.

Your brain can also do 1+1 and end up with 2.5 or even 3 in the brain :) I have really bad eye sight on both eyes, one can not see enough alone but both together see much better than I would expect on the same distance.

I was a kid living in Botswana when Halley passed earth.

We watched it every night through binoculars.

Marvelous clean air - humidity around 0%, just some dust. No light pollution (there wasn't an electricity grid in some 100km around, just a handful of small diesel aggregates).

The binoculars were more than enough to see the comet, its tail. And even get a feeling of the tail arcing in three dimensions.

Any specific binoculars you can recommend?

The most important is that they capture enough light, for which the lenses must have a large diameter. 50mm is typical. Magnification around 10x is good. This is referred to as 10x50. I have a Celestron Skymaster 15x70 myself, which is specifically for night sky observation. The 70mm is very good, but the weight and the magnification make it difficult to hold still without a tripod, though you can still use it without, e.g. lying on your back

Try a good monopod. They're significantly more portable and give just enough stability in most cases to give good views whille allowing less restricted movement than most tripods.

I have a set of Vortex Diamondback HD 10x50s that are pretty affordable and do a good job with the moon (and hunting near dawn and dusk). The optics are definitely better than I expected for the price.

Some suggestions of mark/model of binoculars good for that? With a budget of 1000$ /€(I could stretch it a bit more if it's worth the extra money)

I have the Cannon 10x30 IS from a long time ago and they are the best binoculars I’d ever tried. I’m pretty shaky so the image stabilizing is game changing. I’m sure the more powerful pairs are incredible and in that case image stabilization is a must. https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/lenses/binoculars

Are binocular superior to monocular for that use case? I thought binocular were good for depth perception which I'd assume doesn't matter here?

It really is a great shot. I always daydream of showing today's technology to the great the great minds from centuries ago. Not sure why, but I do.

And I'm here for it! :D

I’m sure it’s different for everyone but I think it would just be the unbridled enthusiasm and love for the subject that they would show, the tidal dopamine surge of all the mysteries that have been unlocked, the validation of all the mysteries that remain. It would be amazing.

I have the same fantasy. I think it’s appealing because I imagine they’d be able to appreciate all the amazing things behind it more than most people, dead or alive.

Me too. Sometimes in big concerts I can't help but think about what would the avg roman say if he would just appear here?

"Wow so many lights" is the first answer I can think about right away

Similarly, I came to learn some selenography writing a "voxel" (well, ray-casting) web game ... where you shuttle about the moon from crater base to crater base.

I became kind of fascinated with the craters, names of the craters (and history of those names), the "dark-side" and all the wild topology there. (Although I think I have tiles for the entire Moon, you don't have the fuel to get there.

Did you publish it? Can we see?

I was curious too. GP's github is in their profile and it looks like this is what they were talking about:

https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000

What a cute game, loved trying it out!

if y'all only care about the game: https://mooncraft2000.com/

If you're curious about the naming of the Lunar craters, the first full English translation of the Almagestum Novum is being worked on here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1739314565?ref_=pe_3052080_3975148...

I really like that one, so sad that the framerate tanks after one or two flights. Tried all the settings on the debug menu but only reload helps as you stated in the documentation. Happens both in firefox, firefox developer without plugins and in chrome.

I remember playing another moon lander 35 years ago in school on the swedish computers "Compis". Was a very basic version but I still loved it, it's something with slow heavy objects where you need to plan ahead what, when and how much you need to do.

Welcome to the hobby (even if a few years late). Pretty much everyone has the same experience as you. You buy the telescope, and then realize you need to buy a telescope for your telescope to use as a guide scope for accurate tracking for longer exposures.

However, those long exposures are much more likely to get photobombed by an airplane or satellite. So you're really better off taking shorter exposures with the highest ISO you can get away with, and then just stacking them.

I have a much wider scope that I can do 30s exposures unguided before trailing starts to become noticeable. If you can get away with 15s, you'd be amazed at what you can achieve with newer sensors.

Just some hints to help the disappointment at bay and maybe get you playing with the toys

An 11" SCT is a commitment to use. Do you have it on a permanent mount?

No, but i did just get a wedge so I could start tinkering with polar alignment.

I also bought a Seestar S50 last year and have been having an absolute blast with it. Feels like a renaissance in astronomy is upon us.

What a beautiful photo! You have a good eye.

I really like the way you caught the craters along the terminator, including the one at the bottom where you see sunlight on one rim and the rest is visible only because of Earthshine.

The Moon is such a great subject that you can also get some nice shots with just a camera and a telephoto lens. Here are a couple of mine.

Moon over Menlo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/geary/24118398766/

Moon, Mars, Venus: https://www.flickr.com/photos/geary/16598905865/

Thank you! You as well!

The shadows are very much my favorite part of this kind of shot. It provides so much visual texture to the surface, showing not only how rough it is but how smooth it is. the 'scar' to the bottom right (aka Alpine Valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallis_Alpes) is always one of my favorites.

Thanks again!

Is there an information resource to find local telescope owners who give access to the public for viewing?

(startup/app idea!)

Just search for local star parties in your area. Although, be willing to bend the definition of local depending on how light polluted your area is. My local is 4 hours away. Also, some colleges have viewing nights available. Even in light polluted areas, you can still see things for public viewings. They just suck for anyone wanting to image.

There are tons of sites listing them, but I doubt there's an absolute exhaustive list as it's all self-reporting to each of the sites. Your app idea would just be another in a list of places, sort of like the xkcd app about yet another standard.

https://www.go-astronomy.com/star-parties.htm

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/annual-starg...

Good God, no.

Pretty much every telescope owner will happily show you the sky - after you've made an effort finding out where they gather, or if you just happen to walk by. The instagrammification of astronomy, with hordes of influencers rolling by without concern for the subject matter, just to insert themselves everywhere, is too horrible to consider.

It's not hard to find. Type "<city> astronomical society" into your search box. They have public websites, horribly outdated. Reach out to them, join the group, and you're more than welcome. But may there never be "an app for that"

Here in the EU you can look for "dark sky parks" which are basically parks or areas in nature designated for night sky viewing because of the low amount of light pollution and they are great spots to meet people, I'm pretty sure you have these in the US as well. I advise bringing a red light if you have to do some walking. Another recommendation would be to see if you have any actual observatories near you, some of them have events for the public every now and then. The people in this community are some of the friendliest I ever met and love sharing their interest and enthusiasm.

Sometimes the most meaningful connections are with what’s been right in front of us all along

Can you see Saturn in good detail? I'm interested in picking up a telescope.

An SCT11 should have no problem making out the rings of Saturn and maybe a band or two. But it's not a good beginner scope. Long focal lengths are hard to manage if you don't know what you're doing

i have the 6" celestron sct, and on a clear night this is pretty much the amount of detail i can make out directly:

https://www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/comments/pmlbne/jupiter_...

i'm sure with tracking and stacking it would be much more.

Just to clarify is that the detail you can make out with the naked eye or a digital censor? If you meant digital censor, how much of a difference with the naked eye would you say it is? I've had this telescope on my list for some time but am not sure if my expectations are realistic.

Yeah, naked eye, although with a 6” telescope, I’d expect it to be a bit fainter - certainly that is the case through my 9.25” scope. I can often see a band in its rings.

It also depends a lot on atmospherics, if there is a lot of turbulence in the atmosphere it makes things less crisp (well, “dancey”, like looking through a heat haze.)

Look up your local astronomy group and go along one night, and see for yourself before buying anything. Saturn isn’t great at the moment (assuming London-ish latitudes) but Jupiter is around all night and you should be able to see it through a variety of scopes and eyepieces if you went along to a sky party.

Honestly, the first time I saw Saturn through a telescope I nearly cried. Truly amazing.

Why everyone is taking black and white pictures of the Moon? It's 2024!

Fantastic photo - you made me think about getting a telescope

It’s a lovely shot.