Scattered Thoughts . . .

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

The eyepieces I had ordered last week for our little cheap telescope for the kids to use arrived yesterday afternoon... finally! These are relatively low-cost eyepieces but far better than the cheap, useless Celestron eyepieces that came with this telescope.  Since the moon was still in the sky this morning (again), I tested these new eyepieces by viewing the moon. These eyepieces looked great and are a tremendous step up from the original Celestron eyepieces so this was a good, low cost solution. They are not as good as my larger Baader Hyperion eyepieces but they are just fine for this cheap little telescope. The view of the moon this morning was quite nice. The three smaller eyepieces to the right, below... Orion Expanse eyepieces... are the eyepieces to be used with this small scope. The larger Baader Hyperion eyepieces to the left are for my better telescope and are quite good! I'm now looking forward to some clear night skies!