My latest obsession...

I've been into astronomy since I was a kid. I saved up my money and bought a Sears telescope when I was about 10 or so. It was a super cheap 3" or thereabouts reflector with a cardboard tube (think shipping tube). The "mount" was a flimsy tripod that wasn't really good for anything. The secondary mirror was on a stalk that sort of looked like a dental mirror. It was pretty neat I suppose but it came with two eyepieces and I couldn't get the high power one to focus. Most likely there was an adjustment I could have made to fix that but I didn't know how so I ended up returning and getting my 26 bucks back.

In the seventh grade, I took two classes in an "Accelerated Learning" program during the summer. The classes were Astronomy and Astrophotography. We did a couple observations in the astronomy class...the one I remember was where we projected the image of the sun on a piece of white poster board through the eyepiece of a telescope so we could see sunspots. Pretty neat... The astrophotography course was mostly about how to develop film which was cool in its own right. This was of course before the advent of the digital camera (1977 or '78...somewhere in there), so film was the order of the day.

I took a semester of astronomy in college but even though it was a night class, I only remember one night that we actually looked through the telescope (which at Brescia was a rather big one: perhaps a 12" or maybe 16" Reflector set up in a nice rotating dome observatory). I remember our professor saying "what would you like to look at?" which is a strange question for a bunch of astronomy n00bs like us. I'm not sure why he didn't just start pointing the telescope at things for us to see.

A high school (and college) buddy of mine, John King, had a little Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain that he would bring out to the farm from time to time but it was a bit underwhelming. In 1986, when Comet Halley came through, we saw it but it was rather small and indistinct. I don't remember seeing anything in it that really impressed me.

So even with all those less than stellar experiences, my interest was maintained until now, when I can actually afford to buy some cool astronomy gear. Here's the stable as it stands now...




That's an Orion Skyquest XT8 8" Newtonian Reflector on a Dobsonian mount in the background. It's been pretty tricked out with some extra eyepieces, a very nice dual speed focuser, internal flocking to reduce extraneous light reflections and thumb screw replacements (Bob's Knobs) for the standard Allen head set screws for tool free secondary mirror adjustment. In the foreground are my new Orion Giantview 15X70 astronomical binoculars on an el-cheapo tripod. They're astronomical due to the individual focus oculars. This makes for more stable and accurate focusing than the typical central focusing wheel setup.

Of course I want more more MORE!!! I want a second telescope (a decent 5" refractor) and REALLY a third telescope: a 16" reflector, but that's mostly an 1900 dollar pipe dream at the moment. I'd also like to get several more eyepieces in the Baader Hyperion line. I have the 13mm and it's great. I'd like to supplement that with the 8mm, the 21mm and perhaps the 5mm...heck, I may have ALL of them eventually. They're awesome for the money.

So, what's so great about it? There's a certain serenity to be found sitting under the stars. I don't listen to music while observing. It seems to me that it would ruin the mood. The sounds of the night are enough. I opted for the manual, non-goto scope because I wanted to learn how to find things the old fashioned way. It's a decision I'm glad I made. As I found new things, I quickly learned that they were mostly indistinct blobs in the eyepiece. So really, the fun of this is in the hunt. Most globular clusters look about the same. Most galaxies are almost invisible at the aperture I'm working with and certainly don't display spiral arms. A computerized scope would be neat I suppose but after seeing 100 globular clusters that only distinguish themselves by the contortions I must put my body in to get my eye in front of the eyepiece, the newness would quickly wear off and I'd be asking myself "is this all there is too it?". It's a hobby that is very rewarding both when observing solo and in groups. I've found people are totally fascinated by the sky and have for the most part taken it for granted or not thought much about it. SO many people think the north star is the brightest star in the sky and are surprised when I point it out to them and they see that it's quite dim. It's great fun to attempt to impart my meager knowledge to my friends. Feels good to get them interested in the sky!

This is a hobby that will keep me going til REAL old age sets in. There are thousands of objects to find and they make small scopes that even old codgers can lift.

Oh, here's a video I took of the nearly full moon. I want to take another one when it's more like half full...much more detail to work with.