Category: Guides
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A Beginner’s Guide to the Stages of Twilight
Here’s something most people never think too deeply about: the sky doesn’t go from “day” to “night” with just a single twilight in between. It eases into darkness — slowly, in stages, like a dimmer switch being turned down over the course of an hour or more. In fact, we’ve recognized three different types of…
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The Ecliptic: Your Secret Weapon for Reading the Night Sky
Learning the night sky doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. The key is breaking it into chunks. Learn a few foundational concepts that, once they click, start making everything else make sense. The ecliptic is one of those concepts. And once you get it, you’ll wonder how you ever tried to navigate the sky without it.…
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SeeStar S30 Pro Capture: M44 (The Beehive Cluster)
The Beehive Cluster is a great target, and it turned out to be one of the better fits I’ve found for the SeeStar S30 Pro so far. It’s elegant, large, and you can get some good practice capturing colorful stars. Here’s how the session went. Photo Details About the Target M44 sits about 600 light…
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What Beginners Need to Know About the Zenith: Your Neck Will Thank You Later
If you’ve done some stargazing you probably know the feeling. You’re out in the backyard, it’s dark, it’s quiet, and you’ve just spotted a target overhead. So you tilt your head back. Then a little further back. Then further still, until you’re basically staring straight up at the sky with your mouth hanging open. Three…
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SeeStar S30 Pro Capture: M81 (Bode’s Galaxy)
I finally got a proper (well, mostly proper) long session in with the SeeStar S30 Pro — eight hours pointed at M81, Bode’s Galaxy. Not perfectly executed by any means, but enough time to push the scope harder than I had before and learn a few things in the process. Here’s what came out of…