An astronomy blog from the middle of Manhattan . . . and Denver
“Okay, now WTH is he talking about?” It’s an analogy I use to explain the differences between different scopes, and why there’s no one perfect scope that does it all. You have different shoes for different purposes: sneakers, dress shoes, boots, slippers. Yes, even Crocs. They each serve their purpose, and you don’t wear one […]
Read More January 10, 2019: Telescopes Are Like Shoes – One Scope Can’t Do It AllPart three? What happened to part one and part two? Oh, there they are. The tl;dr version of those posts from last year is first that I had the wrong power supply for this mount, and then when I got the right power supply, the mount worked very well with my little 8-pound Mak on […]
Read More December 12, 2018: Orion Sirius Pro AZ-EQ/G, Part III – Customer ServiceNo, no, this isn’t yet another anti-dob rant; longtime readers will know that I actually do like dobs. No, this is more of a heads-up as to the differences between these two popular sizes of dobs, the 8 and the 10, and why, unless you’re a gym rat, you might not want to buy a […]
Read More August 11, 2018: Don’t Buy A 10-inch Dob Over An 8 . . . Yet! Magnitudes ExplainedThe three longtime readers of this blog might recognize the title of this post; I wrote another post about the shortcomings of my local observing site just short of two years ago, right after I moved into my apartment in Glendale, a tiny little independent city completely surrounded by Denver. Up until now, I’ve basically […]
Read More July 14, 2018: My Local Dark Site Ain’t So Dark, Redux; and No-Detail Mars, ReduxI just flew in from the Rocky Mountain Star Stare in Gardner, CO, and boy are my arms tired. Ba-dum-bum. It was great! Well, except for the absolutely lousy stinking cloud-covered skies. It was sort of like, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” Yeah, it was cloudy – all four […]
Read More June 22, 2018: The Rocky Mountain Star Stare! . . . Or Not.Well, I’m getting super-psyched to be going to my first star party, the Rocky Mountain Star Stare, on Wednesday! My car is gonna be pretty full for the trip to sustain me for all 5 days. I’ve already packed all my astro stuff, my camping stuff, my clothes, books, and am now planning my meals. It’ll […]
Read More June 12, 2018: RMSS Observing Lists!Ugh. Just ugh. As the eight long-time readers of this blog may remember (although they probably won’t), one of my absolute pet bugaboos is the complete and utter inability of weather forecasts to get it right. They just can’t. Not even frickin’ close. But they give the illusion that they can, this illusion of supreme […]
Read More February 20, 2018: Dark Site Disappointment and Mount MasteryWell, I’ve finally done it! I’ve finally bought my long sought after Celestron 9.25-inch optical tube assembly (OTA). I had been very patient, waiting and waiting for a used one to come up for sale at a reasonable price with the newer Starbright XLT coatings, as they have about 10-15% greater light transmission than the […]
Read More January 8, 2018: The C9.25 Of My Dreams Is Here! And the Trapezium Falls to its Might!I have pretty much made up my mind as to what I’m going to do in terms of my jump up in aperture. Well, to be more grammatically correct, I had pretty much made up my mind. As I discussed in this blog post a couple of months ago, I was basically looking at using […]
Read More May 15, 2017: Celestron or Meade? PC or Mac?
Light-Polluted Astronomy 