Scattered Thoughts . . .

W hen I was doing some solar observing last week, I was having some problems keeping my single eye focused and open while also keeping my other eye closed.  After about five or ten minutes of observing with one eye, my eyes were twitching and they simply were not cooperating anymore.  I am definitely getting old!   These types of eye difficulties are often related to typical weakness due to old age but it is also partially related to my primary illness.  If I am beginning to have difficulty seeing through my telescopes as I did the other day, then that is a serious problem and I need to find a solution to this problem.   I felt the best solution was to get a binoviewer made specifically for telescopes so I could view the sky with both eyes instead of only one.  This is known to alleviate the typical eye strain from viewing with only one eye for longer periods of time. So, a couple of days ago, I ordered a binoviewer to be used on my telescopes and it arrived in the mail today.  Natura

New telescopes and microscopes always seem to ship with almost useless eyepieces.  The crazy thing about this is that both microscopes and telescopes are far more enjoyable to use if you have decent and large eyepieces.  You'd think that new products would ship with accessories that make the product enjoyable to use so a new user isn't discouraged or turned off to the hobby but it seems the manufacturers are more focused on spending as little as possible.  The tiny eyepieces that ship with most microscopes and telescopes do not make the new product enjoyable to use... not at all...  and I've seen many beginners stop the hobby because of this.  This means they didn't spend any money on future accessories too which hurts the manufacturers. I, however, prefer to improve anything I own.  I care for everything I own, properly store everything, and properly maintain everything.  I don't even like seeing fingerprints on my stuff! I had already replaced some of my objective

Over the snowy Mother's Day weekend, I spent a little bit of time sorting out and organizing some of my astronomy gear indoors in this warmth.  The priority was to find a way to organize a bunch of eyepieces.   Fortunately, I have been sticking to putting together specific mini sets so it is not like I have a scattered selection of mismatched eyepieces.  I've been purposely purchasing eyepieces that will fit my specific needs...  including staying within financial limits.   I have stuck with a plan of putting together small cases for grab-and-go use.  It will be easy to grab one of these cases and a small telescope if I'm in a hurry to see something.  Each zippered case is approximately 6"x9" and 2" deep.   I put together a small set of GSO Plossls.  These are quite inexpensive but are pretty good eyepieces.  With each set, I included a 2.5x Barlow lens so I only included long, wide view eyepieces with long eye relief.  I wear eyeglasses so my prima

The weather has been lousy this week so I've been indoors.  As luck would have it, for a change, my health is also lousy as I continue to rebound from the side-effects of my last Shingles vaccine so not much has been lost solely due to the lousy weather this time around.  I'd be stuck inside anyway due to my poor health.  It's worth noting that it is rare when the weather and my health are in sync like this!  Regardless of the lousy weather and lousy health, I have managed to do some much needed organization of astronomy gear a little bit each day over the past couple of mornings.  I'd do a little bit...  take a break...  do a bit more...  take another break...  go back to it the following morning...  take a break...  etc.   My first priority was to find and purchase a couple of heavy duty cases for two of my mount heads.  I purchased a large sized case for my smaller mount head and an extra large case for the larger, heavier mount head.  I had also ordered some close

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