Scattered Thoughts . . .

I really hate having to collimate any telescope which is just one reason why I prefer refractor telescopes.  I have a few refractor telescopes at different focal lengths, however, I do have one Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope that does require occasional collimation.  It doesn't require collimation nearly as often as a typical Newtonian reflector telescope but it does require it occasionally.   I have the tools and the skills to collimate any telescope but having to align mirrors just to view the sky simply grates on my nerves.  I feel like it is a waste of precious time.  I have other telescopes that are ready to go at a moment's notice but I have one telescope that requires time and effort to simply view the sky...  so, I find that having to spend time and effort collimating this scope is frustrating.  It is much easier and satisfying to just grab one of my refractor telescopes to view the sky without any other pre-requisites.  Collimation is the act of aligning mirrors in an

T he moon was shining brightly through our living room window as we headed to the bedroom so I figured I would take a quick view through that new little Orion 102mm Mak-Cassegrain telescope I evaluated recently.   Sheila was in the bathroom getting ready for bed so I had a few minutes to kill.  I went to retrieve a lightweight mount and the telescope and set it up at the window to take a quick look...  I easily found the bright moon in the sky and saw nothing but out-of-focus mush.  I again repeated what I had been saying all along about this little Mak-Cass telescope...  "what a piece of junk." This prompted me to go retrieve my Skywatcher 72mm refractor which is equally as small but with a much short focal length.  I brought that out to the living room and I was immediately treated to a stunningly sharp view of the moon.   Viewing through a window with optics is a no-no because glass will cause all sorts of problems.  Heat escaping the house through an open window is often

A fter a mostly sleepless night the night before last with some health issues that kept me in the bathroom and seriously cut into my sleep, I managed to get some sleep yesterday afternoon for about three or four hours in preparation of a clear night last night.  Clear nights around here are few and far between any time of year but especially in the November through March timeframe so I don't like to waste these rare nights, if possible.  This meant a relatively rare opportunity for viewing some objects in our solar system.   As the sky darkened to a deep dark blue, I set up a new telescope of mine that I have been evaluating as an option for beginners.  I had three eyepieces on hand;  a low power wide eyepiece, a medium power eyepiece, and a high power eyepiece.  I also had my Sony a6000 camera ready to go with a nosepiece on it so I could slide the camera into the diagonal in place of an eyepiece when I felt the view was worthy of recording.  Facing the back end of our backyard in

Introduction T his blog entry is a little different than my usual entries.  Then again, my thoughts are often a bit scattered so there isn't really a consistent theme to this blog.  I do sometimes write about my hobbies including astronomy but this blog entry is not one of my typical short blog entries about viewing this or that or about some small astronomy project.  This is more along the lines of a casual review of my thoughts about a telescope.  If you are more interested in some astrophotography images rather than read about a boring telescope evaluation, then just scroll down to the closing of this blog entry (about halfway down this page). Quite often, people who are wanting to get involved in backyard astronomy for the first time ask other astronomers which telescope would be best to purchase as their first telescope.  This is a very common question that is asked at least once a day.  As a result, I find myself trying to provide advice to astronomy beginners a few times eac