Scattered Thoughts . . .

The past two mornings, we have had clear skies and the moon has been in the sky until late in the morning. This has allowed me to test the little telescope that I recently finished rebuilding with better parts.  I had to make some adjustments to the tripod mount after yesterday morning's quick test because the mount was a bit gummed up. I disassembled it, cleaned it up, re-lubed it, and reassembled it. This morning, I was excited to head back outside to test this little cheap telescope again. The primary advantage of this little telescope is that it is lightweight. My better telescope (which is far superior) needs to come outside in three parts... the tripod legs, the actual mount, and the telescope . Since this old cheap telescope (a Celestron 70az... converted to a 70eq) is so small and lightweight, I was able to set it up in a matter of minutes with minimal effort. The disadvantage of this little telescope is that it has a small aperture (diameter of the telescope) and the

When I looked outside this morning, it was sunny and clear. That's a rarity around these parts! I also noticed that the moon was still in the sky. It was getting close to the horizon and setting fast but, if I was quick about it, I could pull the small telescope outside and do a quick test by observing the moon.  I quickly set the little telescope on our stone walkway and pointed it toward the moon... I turned the focusing knobs... the moon came into crisp focus! So that means that all the upgrading and rebuilding I did in recent weeks produced a far better telescope. This was good news. As I mentioned above, the moon was setting quickly so I was attempting to use my slow motion knobs to constantly adjust the mount to keep the telescope pointed at the moon... it would track slightly and then when I let go it would spring back toward where I started from when I first started turning these knobs. This would happen over and over until the moon was too low in the sky.  My first

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