Scattered Thoughts . . .

The upgraded Celestron 70mm telescope.           I've already written a few times about rebuilding this particular little telescope but I added another part recently so it is worth writing about again.  As purchased, this scope was a hunk of junk. Celestron should be embarrassed by all their sub-$400 telescope packages because they are all worthless as sold. I suspect a lot of people end up getting turned off to astronomy as a result of being disappointed by purchasing a lousy, frustrating telescope. Only the very determined will continue this hobby after becoming frustrated beyond belief. I bought a Celestron 114EQ for our son a number of years ago. We quickly realized that this particular scope was not ideal for a beginner and we never got any decent views out of it so, the next Christmas, I purchased a simpler Celestron 70AZ. This telescope wasn't much better than the 114EQ but I felt it had potential for various reasons not worth explaining here.  This telescope

I've mentioned in a previous blog entry that I've been working on getting some telescopes ready for nighttime viewing in the warmer weather. The grandkids are getting old enough to enjoy viewing the night sky so this gave me a good reason to play with some telescopes. I have a background in aerospace so this has always been an interest of mine but it is always nice to have another reason like grandkids. It makes it easier to justify the hobby. Naturally, it seems it has done nothing but rain (and snow) for all but one day since I assembled these telescopes in our living room a few weeks ago but this has given me time to decide what to do with one or two scopes that have been terribly frustrating to use. One of these telescopes in question was a Celestron   AstroMaster  114EQ reflector telescope. This telescope has been nothing but frustration since we bought it quite a few years ago. Nothing looked even halfway decent through this scope. I've collimated it (aligned the