Scattered Thoughts . . .

W hen I brought my telescope and mount outside the other day to do some solar observing, a leg bracket broke on my tripod as I was opening up the tripod legs.  This bracket holds the leg in place when it is in use and the tripod is useless with a broken bracket.  My day wasn't starting out too well. I wanted to use this particular telescope mount because it has slow motion control knobs.  These slow motion controls make it easier to keep the sun in the center of my view.  As I slowly turn one knob, the sun stays in the center of my view.  Now I had to move the telescope over to another small mount.  I went back to my new-ish Alt-Az manual mount.  I really wanted to use those slow motion controls for this session though so this was a bit of a letdown.  Having another thing break and added to my to-do list was an even bigger letdown.   As you can see in the photo, the tabs that hold the spreader bar snapped off.  I had fairly recently rebuilt this mount with ball bearings and a bette

W e've done a lot of walking over the past week which has resulted in my ankle and knee swelling up again so I'm laying a bit low lately.  To recap, back in January, I first sprained my ankle badly enough that I could not put any weight on my left leg at all.  That required about four months to heal well enough to do some things again.  However, the four months of hobbling around with all my weight on my right leg only resulted in a sprained MCL (medial collateral ligament) on the side of my right knee.  The knee injury was mostly better until we did miles and miles of walking this past week.  Now my knee is painful and swollen again so I am now back to ice and elevation for a good chunk of each day.  My left ankle is a bit painful too but nothing like my right knee. Putting my health problems aside, I always try to accomplish something, anything, each day.  Mostly, I've spent my time at the piano lately but I have managed to squeeze in a few other little things too.  Time

A few days ago, while still recovering from mast cell symptoms, the sun had peaked through the clouds so I grabbed a lightweight telescope with a solar filter and headed outside.   I wasn't feeling well enough to do any solar imaging (that can get complicated and involves a lot more gear...  as well as a clear head) so I just grabbed one of my lightest scopes which happens to be my lowest quality scope too.  Even though this was my lowest quality scope, I knew it would be good enough for a few quick views of the sun.  Besides, it was still mostly cloudy and the sun was just peaking out in between clouds.  I knew the solar observing would be short-lived on this day so it would have been a waste to use up energy on my better, heavier and bulkier astronomy gear. The moment I peered through the telescope, I realized that the sky conditions were lousy too.  I hadn't noticed it before but it was hazy and the sun was veiled in thin clouds that I could see passing in front of the sun. 

I recently picked up a relatively inexpensive larger telescope to help improve my views of the sun.  I say "relatively inexpensive" because a little, cheap camera lens would cost more than this telescope cost.  This new telescope is significantly larger than my previous "large" telescope which should help to see more detail on the surface of the sun...  when and if the skies here ever allow for crisper viewing! Although this telescope is larger, the optical glass in the telescope is not nearly as good as the glass in my other telescopes.  For relatively narrowband viewing of the sun, however, this should not matter.  Since the glass in this telescope isn't "perfect" (to simplify things), it is considered more of a low-end telescope.   When this telescope arrived, I needed to replace the stock focuser.  Most low-end telescopes only come with a single speed focuser, however, it is far easier to focus fine detail when you have a dual speed focuser.

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