Hey, what's up, everyone, Mack Murdock here with OPT, and today we're going to be talking about
Galaxy Season and going over the top five telescopes that we recommend for it. I'm
going to be going over some great suggestions for telescopes and point out why they're useful
and some fun stuff that you should know. So first, what is Galaxy Season? Galaxy season
when we're looking out into our universe, away from the center of our galaxy, allowing us to
see tons of distant galaxies out there. Galaxy season goes from about mid-March to late May.
Unfortunately, there aren't very many nebulas that come high enough in the sky.
But if you stay up late enough to watch the Milky Way rise, you can start picking.
So let's go over some of the basics. There are four major components that
you need to do astrophotography in Galaxy season. You need a good mount, a camera,
a telescope or a long focal length lens. And finally, you need to smash that like button!
Before you get started, hover your mouse over the thumbs up and just give it a click. The mount will
be one of the most important parts, not just of galaxies, but of your astrophotography journey.
The mount is the heart of your rig, and without a quality one,
you're going to have a hard time capturing faint galaxies. I'm not going to get into a big list of
mounts right now because the only thing that you need to know as far as this video goes
is that you want an equatorial mount and not an Alt-Az mount. If you're doing astrophotography,
you can use an Alt-Az mount, but you are very limited to as far as exposure time
and it creates problems down the road and editing due to field rotations. I'll cover
that later on in this video. So pick yourself up an equal amount if you don't already have one.
And check out our video right here on our EQ6r pro and why it's the perfect
mount for anybody from beginner to expert. So before we get into my top recommended ones,
I want you all to know that you could still have a lot of fun and galaxy season with a shorter focal
length. Watch to the end of this video and I'll show you some examples of galaxies shot
at one hundred and eighty millimeters and two hundred and seventy five millimeters.
The first telescope on our list is the Celestron Edge HD series. The Celestron Edge HD series comes
in for telescopes and eight inch at twenty and thirty two millimeters of focal length, a nine and
a quarter at two thousand three hundred and fifty millimeters of focal length and eleven inch at two
thousand eight hundred millimeters of focal length and a 14 inch at a whopping three thousand nine
hundred and sixteen millimeters of focal length. And all four of them are either f 10 or f11.
Most galaxies are tiny and these long focal length
really help give that extra reach. For the same reasons that they are at Galaxy Season,
they are also perfect for planetary as well, getting up close and personal with your favorite
planets and really capturing the details. Same thing can be said about the craters on
the moon or even if you want to zone in on a specific feature of your favorite nebula.
Another great thing about the Celestron Edge series is that they are ultra versatile.
If you find F10 to be a little too slow and you want a little bit more of a field of view,
you can always put on a point seven reducer on any edge. In case that wasn't enough, you can modify
it with a Hyperstar attachment which allows you to take off your secondary mirror and replace it
with a camera. This takes your F ratio and focal length down. For example, your three
thousand nine hundred and sixteen millimeter f/11
edge 14 inch becomes a six hundred and seventy five millimeter F/1.9.
Here's some amazing images taken by Trevor from AstroBackyard
and Jason from TheVastReaches taken on the Celestron Edge. Speaking of which,
let me cut in here really quick and let you know that we made a video talking about the
best galaxies and targets, their locations, their focal length suggestions and a lot more. So if
you guys want to check that out, click the link right over here. Second on the list, we have one
of my personal favorites that I use myself, my Explore Scientific 127 Triplet refractor.
Refractors can be easy telescopes to use due to its plug and play nature.
And there's no confirmation required like you do with telescopes that have mirrors.
The Explore Scientific 127 has nine hundred and fifty two millimeters of focal length, which is
great for a huge array of targets and enough to keep you busy all season long. It's 7.5 F ratio
and it's one hundred and twenty seven millimeters of aperture. Makes it for a pretty fast refractor.
Here's some images that I've taken of my favorite galaxies on the Explorer Scientific 127.
Our next telescope is the Celestron NexStar series. It's different sizes are the 4SE at one
thousand three hundred and twenty five millimeters of focal length at F/13, the 5SE at one thousand
two hundred and fifty millimeters, but at F ten, making at a slightly faster scope the 6SE which
has one thousand five hundred millimeters of focal length at F/10. And finally the 8SE
which has a big eight inch aperture at a focal length of two thousand thirty two millimeters at
F/10. These scopes are very popular for beginners, for they come with an assignment
and a hand controller allowing you to jump from whatever target you want with the right alignment.
And it's going to feature what makes this telescope a favorite is that it's portable,
easy to use and set up, comes with the mount and is relatively cheaper than many
other telescope bundles out there. That being said, there is a major drawback. The Alt-Az
mount that it comes with is great for visual, but not deep sky astrophotography.
Like mentioned earlier in this video, you can use it for astrophotography,
but you are very limited. The reason is because all Alt-Az mounts move and up, down,
left and right movements with the scope always staying in the same orientation.
Unfortunately for Alt-Az mounts, that's not how our sky moves. Deep space targets
move equatorially throughout the sky and the targets rotate as it moves from eight p.m.
to nine p.m. to 10 p.m. and so on. Equatorial Mounts fix this issue by keeping your object
in the same orientation and moving in the same direction. There are two fixes for this. Option
1 is to get the Celestron wedge, which turned your old Alt-Az mounts into an equatorial mount.
Or option 2, which we highly recommend - get yourself an equatorial mount.
Check out this incredible shot that I got
of the Like Button Galaxy using the 8SE and the EQ6r Pro. Wow.
If you think this shot is epic and deserves an APOD award,
just tap that wonderful looking like. But if you're looking for an amazing budget
Newtonian telescope with great quality, that's amazing for Lunar, Planetary and Galaxy season,
the TPO Newt series is a great option. Giving you F4 focal ratio with a focal length of
eight hundred to twelve hundred millimeters gives you a lot of depth and light on your target.
Make sure that if you pick up this telescope that you grab yourself a laser collimator to make sure
that all your mirrors are in tune, to make sure that you have the best image that you can have.
Up next, I can't forget about visual astronomers and those who wish to just view the targets with
their own eyes, sometimes bringing out Dobsonian leaving all the rest of the high tech camera
gear and mount to just sit, view and enjoy the universe is the most relaxing thing in the world.
Dobs are also perfect for sharing the view with friends and family. We would recommend just about
any Dobsonian, but the ones with an eight inch aperture or larger are particularly great for
resolving galaxies. The SkyWatcher 14 inch has a hand controller that allows you to program in
your favorite target, helping you find where you are in the sky and where you want to go.
Now, like I said in the beginning, Galaxy season can be enjoyed by so many different telescopes at
different focal lengths. For example, I started off deep space astrophotography myself during
Galaxy season with a four hundred and eighty millimeter scope, the Explorer Scientific
ED80. Here are my very first galaxies I ever shot. And to zoom out even more.
Here's Brian Fulda with his image taken on the Radian Raptor
at two hundred and seventy five millimeters of the Markarian's Chain.
Anyways, that about wraps it up. I hope you enjoyed watching this video and learned something
fun. And by the way, every scope mentioned in this video is listed in the description below.
If there are any telescopes that you recommend to people out there,
leave it in the comments below to help one another learn and grow with different suggestions.
As always, if you enjoyed this video and want to support the channel, please like and subscribe.
My name is Mack Murdock here with OPT and thanks for watching. Clear Skies.