Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had written previously about finally finding a configuration of gear that makes full disk solar observing far more enjoyable than without this new configuration of solar gear.  The purpose of this blog entry is more about documenting this new and unusual configuration so I can duplicate it again each time I want to observe the full disk of the sun with my Quark solar filter.  Of course, I have this configuration documented in my notes too but I figured it would be good to document it here as well.   My larger telescopes provide more closeup views but I like to see the whole disk as well.  In order to improve my full disk view, I had to play around with a few ideas on how I could possibly accomplish this.  I kept going back to my assortment of astronomy components to assemble different configurations.  Then I had to play around with spacing.  It was a fairly long process of trial and error based upon the knowledge I had gained through experience but I eventually hit upon the right co

T he sky was clear this morning so I decided to do a little solar observing rather than woodworking.  I'd really like to get the two woodworking projects I am working on finished but I couldn't pass up the clear skies especially since I haven't really done any solar observing yet this year.   I had a couple of things related to solar observing that I wanted to try so it seemed like a good morning to do some experimenting with astronomy gear.  The weather should be nice for the next few days so I could easily put off the woodworking projects for a day so I could finally get to spend some time observing the sun. I had a lot of nice success with a larger telescope when using my new binoviewers while viewing the moon, Venus and Mars last night so I wanted to try solar observing with the same binoviewers for solar observing.  Viewing with two eyes provides far less eye strain than viewing with one eye and eye strain is something I have been experiencing lately.   Last night I wa

After I finished converting my old EXOS2-GoTo tracking mount into a fully manual mount, I went outside to check on the gardens around the house.  I noticed that the moon was in the sky!  I don't remember the last time I saw the moon in the sky and I know I haven't observed the moon through any of my telescopes since last fall.  I decided to head back inside to grab one of my grab-and-go telescopes...  a small telescope on a lightweight tripod.   This particular telescope is a Skywatcher 72mm ED refractor.  It is small and lightweight but has excellent optics.  I often use this same telescope for solar astronomy.  One of these nights, if we ever have a clear night when I am feeling well enough, I hope to do some nighttime imaging with it too.   When I stepped outside with the telescope, the first thing I noticed was a bird up high in a nearby tree so I pointed the telescope at this bird....  it was a dove and the view of this bird was surprisingly crisp.  I was actually hoping t