AN OBSERVATORY FOR THE GARDEN

No, I don't think so, Sheal, due to the position it will be in, there will be a foot or more of concrete around the Observatory.

 

Do a bit of reading and research on some of the astronomy sites, Rad, and get an idea of what other guys do by deciding on what they want to try and find on a particular evening. You might not even find the target you're looking for.......but it makes you think as to why and how to figure out a way to finally see it.
Have a look for Altair, it's quite a bright star and looks white but with a light pollution filter you'll see it's a stunning electric blue.

"Altair is only 16.8 light-years away from Earth, making it one of our nearer stellar neighbors. At least two features of the star Altair make it distinctive.
First, Altair rotates rapidly. This star requires only about 10 hours to spin once on its axis, in contrast to 24 hours for our Earth to spin or roughly a month for our sun. In other words, this mighty star spins on its axis more rapidly than Earth! This rapid rotation tends to flatten the star a bit, much as a pizza crust flattens as it spins. Estimates are roughly that Altair’s flattening is about 14 percent. The sun also is an oblate spheroid, although its flattening is difficult to measure due to the low rotation rate."

There's so much stuff to look for.......but if you just point the scope at the skies, without any idea of what you're looking for, you'll have a disappointing evening and soon get bored. The more you see, the more you'll learn about the stars, galaxies and nebula's.........when you realise the distance they are away from us it'll amaze you.
I don't know if you've got it, but if not download Stellarium. It's a free real time star map. You just have to enter your longitude and latitude and it will show you your skies in any direction and name and show all the Planets, stars in real time. So using it you can see what is in the direction you're looking at right then and there!!
You might see something prominent in what Stellarium is showing you and you can go straight out and looking up you can track it down......really helpful.

One last question, Rad, do you set the longitude and latitude [declination and right ascension] on your scope while trying to line up Polaris??

 

The cobbles are looking really good and will make an excellent finish to the base. If you can't grow plants up the sides (maybe in pots) you could paint pictures of plants and hedges and camouflage it.

That takes me back to when they launched Telstar . We used to watch it scooting across the sky when I was in the merchant navy. In the first year it was certainly a novelty to watch and the captain used to put out an announcement when it was visible, by eye, at night. Everyone used to rush on deck to watch it. There was no light pollution in the middle of the ocean

 

You definitely need to use both longitude and latitude"


"From Earth to Sky
Whenever you want to specify a point on the surface of a sphere, you'll probably use what geometers call spherical coordinates. In the case of Earth, these are named latitude and longitude.

Imagine the lines of latitude and longitude ballooning outward from the Earth and printing themselves on the inside of the sky sphere, as shown at right. They are now called, respectively, declination and right ascension.

Directly out from the Earth's equator, 0° latitude, is the celestial equator, 0° declination. If you stand on the Earth's equator, the celestial equator passes overhead. Stand on the North Pole, latitude 90° N, and overhead will be the north celestial pole, declination +90°.

At any other latitude — let's say Kansas City at 39° N — the corresponding declination line crosses your zenith: in this case declination +39°. (By custom, declinations north and south of the equator are called + and – rather than N and S.) This is the declination of the bright star Vega. So once a day, Vega passes overhead as seen from the latitude of Kansas City.

Lines of both right ascension and declination stay fixed with respect to the stars. That's why they can be permanently printed on star maps. (This does mean that the one-to-one connection between right ascension and longitude is broken the moment after you imagine the lines ballooning out from Earth and printing themselves on the sky; the two systems rotate with respect to each other."

 

Same here, Rad I have to read stuff several times, to be honest, to really understand it and analyse it all. I hate the books where they assume that everyone understands all the technical terms and methods, [and insinuate those who don't are numpties], I like the KISS principle, "Keep It Simple, Stupid".

 

Speaking of Tutorials, have a look at Astroshed. The Webmaster, Dion, has done a string of tutorials that are in laymen's language, he talks to you and not at you, and his way of explaining stuff is really commonsense, simple and often humorous. You'll notice that he always starts the tutorial with "'ello again" But a brilliant way to learn and get even more interested.

 

I've always wondered why they bothered to use the word "right" in those terms!

 

Well, you couldn't call it "wrong ascension" could you??!!