Virtual telescope

https://telescopius.com/telescope-simulator

Telescopius is intended to allow astronomers to frame deep sky objects (nebulas, galaxies, and star clusters) for taking images. The images shown are long exposures with cameras made for astronomy. They do not usually look like you would see looking through a telescope, especially from light-polluted Miami skies.

Telescopius does not include the sun, moon, and planets and cannot be used to simulate daytime observations. Because of that, you should enter 9:00 PM EST or do the observation at night and record that time.

Fill in the table on the lab report with the information from the pictures below. In the first picture, the telescope on the top left shows the telescope make first, followed by the telescope type, the focal length, the focal ratio (which you don’t need to record), and the diameter. The same information is on the front of the telescope on the right but in different places.

Smaller Telescope. Make: Stellarvue, Type: Refractor, Aperture: 80 mm, Focal Length: 300 mm

The top image shows the focal length (FL) of the eyepieces. The bottom one indicates the field of view (FOV). The Hyperion eyepieces do not show (FOV); they are 68°.

Open the file observing list. These objects are all visible from the FIU Observatory this time of year. Choose an object from the list and enter its name (e.g., “M31, NGC 224 or Andromeda Galaxy for the second object) in the field at the top of the telescopius website where it says, “Go to object.” M and NGC stand for Messier and New General Catalogue, respectively, and are catalogs of astronomical objects. Any of the designations in the first four columns are valid names. If one object doesn’t work with Telescopius, try another one. Of course, you are welcome to look at other objects, including those not on the list, but please choose two objects from it for your report.

At the top of the object’s image, click on “eyepiece” to get a circle representing the eyepiece’s field of view. Click on the telescope icon at the top of the icons at the left of the image and enter the focal length of one of the telescopes above. Click on the eyepiece icon immediately below it and enter the eyepiece’s focal length and FOV. The telescopes in this file are what we usually use on campus for observations.

Indicate one of them on the form under observation 1 with the eyepiece and telescope number. Note the magnification shown, or you can calculate it by dividing the focal length of the telescope by the focal length of the eyepiece and entering it in the lab report. Enter the object name and object type. From the data at the right of the page, record the celestial coordinates; Right Ascension (RA) and Declination (Dec). Find the graph showing the altitude of the object above the horizon. It is blue and black with orange vertical bars, a pink curve, and a white dot. You should click on one of the icons on the left of the image to show it. Drag the white dot until the time displayed matches the time entered at the top of the lab report. Enter the altitude shown.

Repeat the process for a different object for observation 2.

Feel free to explore the Telescopius website further.

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