Astronomy - Goals for 2013

DubOnHoliday

What are your goals for next year?
Now that I seem to have more time on my hands, I will upgrade from my ETX 70 (which has been surprisingly decent) to a real scope, and invest in a nice camera. I'm lucky enough to be in Wicklow were skies are dark. Anybody got any goals, targets for 2013? Besides discovering the odd supernova!!!

hytrogen

Improve my error on calculations when navigating by celestial nav, closest was 1.5' furthest about 20' CTE

Zubeneschamali

DubOnHoliday wrote: »

What are your goals for next year?

I've seen Mercury, Venus, (Earth!), Mars, Jupiter and Saturn with the naked eye, and with binoculars, Uranus, Neptune, Ceres and this year, Vesta.

Next up: Pallas

ThatDrGuy

I hope to get my heavily customised mount working this year. Its been about 4 months since I managed to take any pictures. I want it to be vibration dampened, polar drift aligned and fully autoguided with capacity for at least 10 minute exposures. So far I have got auto guiding working for about 15 seconds and have got a 60 second drift align going. Once its going I think Pac-Man nebula will be the first target - if its still there

jfSDAS

Interesting thread, as it gives a nice idea of everyone's interests in the hobby, along with useful tips ... many thanks for starting it! :cool:

It's been a while since I've actually done any observing but the main goal is to fire-up the Astrotrac and get started on the astrophotography learning curve. Also, to catch an aurora in the current solar cycle! I saw a few from Ireland around the previous solar maximum but none in an awful long time

John

Glebee

This year im going to get out for more observing. Keep meaning to but just cant get out. Also will look about joing a club/society, seems like a good way to go.:)

Tzetze

This coming year I'd like to get some DIY projects complete (dew-control system, 110Ah powertank, upgrade mount bearings) and visit some of the darkest Irish sites (hoping to get 2 nights' supply from custom powertank).

ZeRoY

Astrophoto with guiding, get 5minutes + exposure and do at least 20 of the Messier objects. And more DIY

hytrogen

I would really want to make this happen: http://m.nydailynews.com/news/politics/death-star-petition-white-house-site-signed-17-000-article-1.1217817?localLinksEnabled=false

ThunderCat

I want to upgrade from my cheap 10x50's to a decent pair of 15x70's that I have my eye on and then I want to view Kembles's Cascade in more detail, amoung other things.

ps200306

Want to finally assemble the observing dome that is cluttering my living room, buy a CCD camera, and get the scope remote controlled from the house.

Calibos

I want to finish a scope rebuild that I started in early 2009. Fit the goto system to it that I bought in late 2009. Use the €5000 worth of Televue ethos eyepieces I bought for €2400 in 2011. Implement all the cool and functional mods that I have cogitators on for the last 3 years. Oh yeah, I want to start observing again too.

Damn work and family ill health and finances and a million other reasons.

I'll pull the plug and sell the lot if I can't get back into the game this year.