Sunday, June 28, 2009
ETX Love
I’m surprised. Not that last week’s blog turned out to be controversial and generated quite a few comments on this website and even more emails, but that that traffic was so danged nice. Almost all of it was supportive and thoughtful. In fact, a grand total of two comments (posted on the blog) were anything less than, uh, “complementary.” Not that everybody else agreed with me, you understand; that’s somethin’ I wouldn’t want, anyhow. What’s the fun in that? If nothin’ else, your interest shows y’all don’t want me to steer clear of controversy. So, when the occasion arises, I just might pull out that ol’ soapbox again. This week, though, back to amateur astronomy, and that part of amateur astronomy so many of us follow with such fervor: gear. New gear.
Another problem always suffered by the ETX, and in recent times also by Meade’s more expensive telescopes, is poor QA (quality assurance). Far from getting better over the years of the ETX’s run, it seems to have gotten worse in the second half of this decade, perhaps because of the company’s exacerbating financial problems. My own ETX 125 PE, Charity Hope Valentine, is an example. As delivered, she worked pretty well, but it took some work from me to put her exactly right. Two of the three problems she exhibited out of the box were minor. The “Meade” label on the tripod head had been applied upside down. Not a big deal, but it looked bad and made Meade look bad at a time when they needed all the customer goodwill they could garner. Yeah, I understand the Chinese person who assembled the tripod (likely a young woman) probably couldn’t read English and didn’t know if “Meade” was right-side-up or upside-down. A means could have been found to make it easy for a non-English reader to put the nameplate on right-side-up if anybody had cared, however. In addition to the nameplate, I found the RA setting circle (a metallic strip) was mis-applied, its ends being glued solidly to the base, making it impossible to adjust and thus impossible to use. Yeah, I know, who’s gonna use an analog setting circle on a go-to telescope? But, like the nameplate, it looked bad, cheap, and a little pathetic.
Given the title, I reckon that unless you’ve been snoozin’ under a rock for the last year you know what I am talkin’ about, the ETX LS. Before I express my preliminary thoughts on this new SCT (yes), though, let’s quickly review where the ETX has been. Where it’s been in the thirteen years since Meade gave birth to the small wonder is in a lot of amateur astronomers’ backyards. Particularly beginning amateur astronomers’ backyards. I’m statin’ the obvious when I say many of y’all got your start on the road to Obsession 20s and C14s when a little ETX 90 on the shelf of the (late, lamented) Discovery Channel Store caught your eye and your heart. It’s hard to believe, but the youngest amateurs among us can’t remember a time when there wasn’t an ETX. Not that the ETX is respected and admired by everybody. Hardly.
The ETX 90 and her follow-on sisters, the 125 and the (now discontinued) 105, have never been perfect telescopes for beginners. The 90, especially, is limited by a small aperture that makes it ill-suited for anything much beyond casual looks at the Moon and planets and brighter deep sky objects. ‘Course that deficiency is also shared by the Questar 3.5, which is respected and admired by just about everybody. Otherwise, though, there’s little comparison between the two scopes. Well, except maybe for the optics. Like the Q, the ETX has and always has had exquisite optics fully competitive with the Questar’s J.R. Cumberland marvels. The catch is that when you have to keep the price way down (the ETX 90 is currently $599 and the 125 is $899) and the optical quality way up, and throw in a fully functional computer-go-to system, somethin’ has to give somewhere.
Where it gives with the ETX is almost everywhere beyond the optics. The scopes’ fork mounts, as you would expect, are plastic driven by plastic gears. Backlash? Yeah, a lot. Gears that can strip in gear mounts that can break away with even a minimal amount of abuse? Yes ma’m. That’s never been all, either. Many early 90s were afflicted with the Sliding Baffle Syndrome. The baffle around the secondary mirror on the inside surface of the corrector was originally affixed with glue that tended to let go in warm temperatures. What you’d notice first would be that the baffle was slightly off-center compared to this Gregory Mak’s silvered-spot secondary. Eventually, if you didn’t take steps, the baffle would go ker-plunk on the primary. Tighten down the altitude lock a wee bit too much? You might find it would never work again, leaving the tube droopin’ sadly in its little fork. Quite a few excited amateurs received pretty new ETX 125s that had dead drives. The problem stemmed from a connector in the scope’s base that inevitably came loose during shipping or soon thereafter. Oh, I could keep goin’ on about the Small Wonder’s many faux pas, but you get the picture.
Which don’t mean Meade ain’t taken steps to improve the scopes over the years. They have, upgrading the mounts and electronics and software continually. For example, the original 125’s fork was a completely plastic affair that was incapable of holding the surprisingly heavy 5-inch MCT steady. Eventually, Meade replaced the plastic with metal (though still plastic covered). The Autostar hand controller the ETXes have used since they went go-to not long after their birth has lots of features, but it took years to get the software right. For the longest time, for example, the Autostar was prone to “rubber-banding”—you’d center an object with the hand control, and the Autostar would resolutely reposition it at the edge of the field as soon as you let up on the buttons. Meade exterminated this and many other bugs via software updates (often a couple a year); it just took a long time.
Where it gives with the ETX is almost everywhere beyond the optics. The scopes’ fork mounts, as you would expect, are plastic driven by plastic gears. Backlash? Yeah, a lot. Gears that can strip in gear mounts that can break away with even a minimal amount of abuse? Yes ma’m. That’s never been all, either. Many early 90s were afflicted with the Sliding Baffle Syndrome. The baffle around the secondary mirror on the inside surface of the corrector was originally affixed with glue that tended to let go in warm temperatures. What you’d notice first would be that the baffle was slightly off-center compared to this Gregory Mak’s silvered-spot secondary. Eventually, if you didn’t take steps, the baffle would go ker-plunk on the primary. Tighten down the altitude lock a wee bit too much? You might find it would never work again, leaving the tube droopin’ sadly in its little fork. Quite a few excited amateurs received pretty new ETX 125s that had dead drives. The problem stemmed from a connector in the scope’s base that inevitably came loose during shipping or soon thereafter. Oh, I could keep goin’ on about the Small Wonder’s many faux pas, but you get the picture.
Which don’t mean Meade ain’t taken steps to improve the scopes over the years. They have, upgrading the mounts and electronics and software continually. For example, the original 125’s fork was a completely plastic affair that was incapable of holding the surprisingly heavy 5-inch MCT steady. Eventually, Meade replaced the plastic with metal (though still plastic covered). The Autostar hand controller the ETXes have used since they went go-to not long after their birth has lots of features, but it took years to get the software right. For the longest time, for example, the Autostar was prone to “rubber-banding”—you’d center an object with the hand control, and the Autostar would resolutely reposition it at the edge of the field as soon as you let up on the buttons. Meade exterminated this and many other bugs via software updates (often a couple a year); it just took a long time.
Another problem always suffered by the ETX, and in recent times also by Meade’s more expensive telescopes, is poor QA (quality assurance). Far from getting better over the years of the ETX’s run, it seems to have gotten worse in the second half of this decade, perhaps because of the company’s exacerbating financial problems. My own ETX 125 PE, Charity Hope Valentine, is an example. As delivered, she worked pretty well, but it took some work from me to put her exactly right. Two of the three problems she exhibited out of the box were minor. The “Meade” label on the tripod head had been applied upside down. Not a big deal, but it looked bad and made Meade look bad at a time when they needed all the customer goodwill they could garner. Yeah, I understand the Chinese person who assembled the tripod (likely a young woman) probably couldn’t read English and didn’t know if “Meade” was right-side-up or upside-down. A means could have been found to make it easy for a non-English reader to put the nameplate on right-side-up if anybody had cared, however. In addition to the nameplate, I found the RA setting circle (a metallic strip) was mis-applied, its ends being glued solidly to the base, making it impossible to adjust and thus impossible to use. Yeah, I know, who’s gonna use an analog setting circle on a go-to telescope? But, like the nameplate, it looked bad, cheap, and a little pathetic.
Miss Valentine’s final problem was decidedly more serious. The first couple of times out, I noted some pretty severe reflections when bright objects, especially the Moon, were in the field. Given the ETX’s reputation for good optical performance, that didn’t seem right, but I could not figure out what the problem might be. Till one afternoon when I’d set her up indoors to take her portrait for one of my books. As I was focusin’ my DSLR on Charity’s rear cell, I was stopped right in my tracks: “Aw for cryin’ out loud, MEADE! You suckers!” A close look indoors had revealed the eyepiece tube was crooked. It had been screwed into the (plastic) rear cell at an angle. What to do? Given the turnaround times for repair from Meade, I decided to take a chance. I retrieved a small strap wrench from the toolbox, gently but firmly unscrewed the focuser tube a bit, and then reversed directions. It popped right in and was suddenly perfect. Subsequent use showed the weird reflections had been banished. But I don’t mind tearin’ in to any telescope; what about the person who does? A long repair wait or the hassle of an exchange. And the person who didn’t notice the focus tube misalignment (I didn’t at first, remember)? They’d just assume their telescope’s optics were lousy.
Moreso than the design missteps and the QA fumbles, one thing has kept the ETX from being the perfect novice scope. It is small and cute, sure, but it can also be fussy and frustrating. Don’t do things the right way, or don’t do them regularly, and you’ll want to stomp the little thing into the dirt of the observing field. That’s well-illustrated by my recent trip to my dark site with my 125. It looked like a perfect ETX night: hazy, occasional clouds. Not the kind of evenin’ that inspired me to drag out a big CAT or even a C8. It was also at the end of a very tryin’ work week. Still, I wanted to hang out with my bubbas and see something, and that, my friends, is the classic ETX Night. I can have Charity setup in ten minutes, and back in the car just as quickly.
In fact, setup was so quick and easy on this evenin’ that I found myself with time on my hands before sundown: “I ain’t used the scope in months; better power her up to see if that dadgummed battery is still good.” I didn’t mean the battery that powers the 125. I eschew AA cells in the drive base (usually) an’ hook her to a hefty jumpstart power pack. No, I was worrying about the button battery used to power the LNT. The ETX PE is equipped with Meade’s “Level North Technology” finder, a red dot job that incorporates a real time clock, an electronic compass, and level sensors. It’s like GPS without the GPS. Unless you move to a substantially different geographic location, all you have to do to get the scope aligned is place it in a simple “Home Position” and power up. The PE levels, finds north, and gets date and time from the LNT. Great feature, but it has an Achilles heel. The small CR2032 cell (that Meade misidentifies in its manual as a “2023”) that holds date and time in memory lasts for about six months at most despite Meade’s silly claims that it will last for years. It had easily been six months since I’d been able to use Sweet Charity, and I expected the battery to be dead or nearly so.
Which it was. The Autostar’s time and date were way behind. If I’d just said to myself, “Self, we’ll need to change that soon; tonight we’ll enter time and date manually,” all would have been well. Maybe I’d forgot how difficult it is to change this battery on my early-model LNT, or maybe I was just bored, but I foolishly decided to replace the cell while I waited for dark. First problem? I immediately dropped one of the two screws that hold the LNT halves together. Hunting around in the tall grass easily ate up a good ten minutes. Screw located, I managed to change the cell without rippin’ out the delicate wires that run from the top of the LNT to the bottom and got it back together. In Meade fashion, the act of changing the battery necessitates more work. First, you’ve got to realign the red dot finder, since the screws that hold the LNT together also adjust finder alignment. Second, you have to do something called “Calibrate Sensors” because changing the battery causes the telescope to forget where true north is compared to the magnetic north it gets from its compass.
Readjusting the red dot is a pain, but since our dark site is adjacent to a private airfield, I was able to use runway lights to get it dialed-in with just a little cussin’. I then proceeded to Calibrate Sensors, but had to stop halfway through. It wasn’t quite dark enough to see Polaris, which is needed for the calibration, so I had to wait until the sky darkened some more. By the time I finished fumblin’ with the Autostar following Polaris’ appearance, hordes of stars had appeared, but I was in somethin’ of a snit. What good does it do to have a scope that’s quick to set up if you have to waste an hour playing with it? Why couldn’t Meade have made the battery easily accessible? Why couldn’t they have designed a circuit that would keep the LNT memory fresh, if not in CMOS, at least long enough to change a cotton-pickin’ battery? Sheesh!
Oh, well, at least I could now do an alignment and get down to observin’ with my girlfriend. Ha! Charity wasn’t done demanding attention. Alignment went smoothly as it almost always does, Miss Valentine pickin’ two stars and slewing to them and me centering each in the main scope. Bein’ that my girl is a little on the high-maintenance side, howsomeever, I was a mite suspicious when we was done. Trust But Verify. M3 was in a good spot for lookin’ at, so I mashed the Autostar buttons to send Charity there (on my Autostar, due to either defect or because I don’t use it that often, I really have to push them buttons hard). Miss Valentine made her usual coffee grinder noise, beeped, her way of saying, “Unk Rod, we have arrived,” and I jammed my eye to a 20-mm eyepiece. Anonymous starfield. No big star ball of a globular did I see it. Dadgummit! Time to Train Drives.
All inexpensive go-to rigs exhibit some backlash—gear “slop”—and if go-tos are to be accurate, that has to be taken into account. Celestron does that by having you do final centering of alignment stars using the up and right keys only. Meade takes a different path with something called “drive training.” It’s pretty simple to do. Center an object, execute the training routine, and the scope slews away from your target. You then use the Autostar buttons to put the object back in the center of the field. Do that with both altitude and azimuth axes, and the scope will know how much backlash is present, and go-tos will be right-on. Trouble is, you have to do this every once in a while. Why, I don’t know, but I have to retrain drives maybe once or twice a year. I’ve sometimes thought the need to re-train coincides with changing the LNT battery, but I’m not sure why that would be. Anyhoo, on this particular evening I couldn’t use a terrestrial target (which for some reason seems to be better for training than a star), since the runway lights were now off, and had to use Polaris instead. Nevertheless, when I sent Charity back to M3, that great glob was now reassuringly centered in the field of the 20 Expanse. Takeaway? If you are an ETX owner, be prepared to continually have the truth of two laws affirmed: Murphy’s Law (“Anything Bad that Can Happen Will”) and Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law (“At the Worst Possible Time”).
Despite the occasional irritations, I come here not to bury the ETX, but to praise her. How’s that? Start with the optics. They are dead sharp and also high in contrast despite a sizeable central obstruction brought-on by the secondary’s baffle. Yeah, aperture rules, but under the conditions that comprise an ETX Night, that rule can be bent a bit. My 5-inch ETX doesn’t give up much to a C8. Sometimes I even think planets look better in the ETX than they do in the eight-incher. One thing’s sure; the edge of Charity’s field is sharper than that of an SCT. Yes, the ETX’s f/15 focal ratio means you won’t be takin’-in the whole of the Pleiades in one go, but it also means even an humble Orion/Synta Expanse performs more like a TeleVue than the bargain basement eyepiece it is. Go-to? When you’ve got the drive training sussed, it’s fairly impressive. On the night under discussion, I observed about 35 objects before incoming haze and clouds shut us down about midnight. With only an exception or two, all were in the field of the 20-mm Expanse (66 degree AFOV), and often in the field of the 15 or 9-mm Es. All in all, go-to performance was similar to that of the NexStar 8i set up next to me.
Yep, despite the occasional headaches, I still think the ETX is a wonderful telescope. I love my Sweet Charity very, very much, and I will never, ever stop using her or sell her. Oh, shortly after Celestron re-released the NexStar 5, I’ll admit I toyed with the idea of turning her in for one of them new Orange Tubes, but a little thought and a couple more times in the field with Charity banished that idea. Her images are at least slightly better than those of a C5 (I’ve done a shootout between the two scopes), and, while very nicely built, the Celestron has its warts, too. Yeah, as I’ve said before, I occasionally fear Charity is gonna collapse on the observin’ field in a self-pitying neurotic heap, but she never has after nearly four years. One thing I will say for sure, the ETX is definitely a scope with personality, even if it’s not always a normal personality.
No matter how much I love Charity, though, I’ve sometimes wished for a just slightly better ETX. One with less plastic, especially in the gear train, better QA, and better build-quality. Surprisingly enough, about a year ago Meade, at the time in the throes of daunting financial woes, announced we was to get just that with something called the “ETX LS.” First thing I heard about the LS made me real happy: this was to be a 6-inch instead of a 5-inch. The second thing I heard made me come back down to earth jus’ a little bit. This was to be an SCT, not an MCT. Hell, y’all know how much I like SCTs, but I actually prefer MCT optics in small apertures. The small ones seem real easy to make very well. SCTs? Meade’s record with little ones is not stellar. The old 2045 4-inchers had good build quality, but their optics were nothing to write home about. On the other hand, Celestron is making waves with a 6-inch SCT of outstanding quality, the new C6, so I figgered I’d take a wait-and-see. The third thing I heard just made me sad. Meade would be discontinuing the two remaining MCT ETXes.
Further details about the LS in the form of full-color ads were soon bein' scrutinized by me and my CAT lovin' brothers and sisters. What was being made the most of in the spreads was the fact that the new ETX would incorporate what Meade called “Light Switch” (LS) technology. The user would set the scope up on its tripod, throw the (nice, big) power switch, and the scope would north and level with the aid of a real GPS. That the ETX had gained a GPS was not the big news. What stopped the presses was that Meade said the LS user would no longer have to center go-to alignment stars. The new ETX would feature a built-in camera that would enable the telescope to center the stars itself. Yep, you’d plunk the scope down, turn it on and that would be it, or so Meade’s marketers said. In short order, the ETX would be ready to go-to go-tos without you havin’ scratched your head about which o’ them stars in the finder was “Alderamin.” The Quick Start Guide Meade released shortly before the LS’s debut was composed of a mere 18 short steps, many of which were things like “place telescope on tripod,” “remove aperture cover,” “plug in Autostar.”
What caught the interest of Astromart and Cloudy Nights cognoscenti at the beginning was the telescope’s built-in camera, which Meade called the “ECLIPS CCD.” At first, quite a few folks figgered this camera would shoot through the main scope. Admittedly, the wordin’ in the ads was vague, but it seemed self-evident to this old boy that the only way to take in a big enough swath of sky to be of help during alignment would be to shoot through a short focal length camera lens, not the main scope. As Meade’s ads and manuals issued shortly before the LS began shipping made clear, that was indeed the case. The CCD could be used for informal short exposure imaging of constellations, but this small-chip uncooled camera, which was slung under the tube, not unlike the Quester 3.5’s built in finder, would never be practical for long exposures of small objects. Hints by Meade that it might be possible to run one its DSI cameras with the LS’s Autostar III without a PC in the loop didn’t do much to mollify those who thought they’d been misled. These people were also P.O.ed (so was I a little bit) that the original quoted price, $1299, it turned out, would not be for the ACF (aplantic SCT) version; instead, it would be for standard SCT optics, with ACF LS being 200 bucks more. The good news for me? Apparently Meade’s new CEO, veteran Steve Murdock, decided the MCT ETXes would live on.
What else was evident about the LS? That there’d be plenty of glitz, startin’ with something Meade called “Astronomer Inside.” What this was, according to the ads, was not just text descriptions of objects ala’ the Autostar and Autostar II, but oodles of multimedia. Audio. Video. Animations. Stills. How would you see this video? What would have been cool would have been for a small color display like that used by the ill-fated MySky to have been incorporated into the Autostar, but that was not to be; instead, the scope would be equipped with audio and video outputs (and a built-in speaker), allowing a user-supplied video display to be attached.
This all sounded OK to us old-timers. Most of us, anyhow. The usual crew of curmudgeons were outraged the LS would free novices from havin’ to identify and center alignment stars. All I can say is they must not have helped many newbies work through their go-to problems. When the new scope won’t go-to its go-tos, the most likely culprit, even more common than insufficient power sources, is misidentification of alignment stars. Hell, that’s even stumped me a time or two, since most go-to systems identify stars by proper names rather than Bayer letters. I know dadgummed good and well where Beta Ophiuchi is, but where is “Cebalrai”? In my humble opinion, anything that helps beginners is a Good Thing. A good thing for them and a good thing for us. If we can keep them in our avocation, they may even go on to learn them bright stars and constellations. But they will only do that, most of them, if they have a good initial experience. Sounded to me like this little scope could be just that experience, with decent aperture and the promise of a foolproof alignment system (as if there can ever be such a thing). This system work have to work well and consistently, though. If the LS turned out to be as fussy and QA challenged as the other ETXes, novices would be more hurt and dismayed than helped and elated.
If there was one thing that indicated the ETX LS might be a success, it was what I saw at NEAF. No, Unk wasn’t there. Someday I will make the pilgrimage to that astro-gear Valhalla, but I was on the sidelines again this time. I did see videos and stills of the show thanks to the Cloudy Nights crew. One of which was a shot of the LS undressed, with the cover off its (single) fork arm. Not only was it apparent how undersized the OTA is compared to the mount, but also how much better the metal gears inside that fork arm look compared to the plastic, grease-slathered 90 and 125 gear trains. So impressive did this mount appear that I opined Meade might even have an entire LS series in the offing, including maybe even an 8-inch that would nudge-out the LX90. Only time would tell, of course, and we had plenty of that, with winter morphing into spring with still no ETX LSes in the hands of users. I had been hearing rumors that Meade was pushin’ the Light Switch back again, to fall, when my good buddy Bob Black (of the excellent dealership, Skies Unlimited) told me he had received one.
His verdict? Bob didn’t have the skies to run the scope through all its paces, and did not get to try many of its features, but he assured me the LS seemed as well-built as the pictures indicated, and, most of all, that the alignment procedure worked:
Moreso than the design missteps and the QA fumbles, one thing has kept the ETX from being the perfect novice scope. It is small and cute, sure, but it can also be fussy and frustrating. Don’t do things the right way, or don’t do them regularly, and you’ll want to stomp the little thing into the dirt of the observing field. That’s well-illustrated by my recent trip to my dark site with my 125. It looked like a perfect ETX night: hazy, occasional clouds. Not the kind of evenin’ that inspired me to drag out a big CAT or even a C8. It was also at the end of a very tryin’ work week. Still, I wanted to hang out with my bubbas and see something, and that, my friends, is the classic ETX Night. I can have Charity setup in ten minutes, and back in the car just as quickly.
In fact, setup was so quick and easy on this evenin’ that I found myself with time on my hands before sundown: “I ain’t used the scope in months; better power her up to see if that dadgummed battery is still good.” I didn’t mean the battery that powers the 125. I eschew AA cells in the drive base (usually) an’ hook her to a hefty jumpstart power pack. No, I was worrying about the button battery used to power the LNT. The ETX PE is equipped with Meade’s “Level North Technology” finder, a red dot job that incorporates a real time clock, an electronic compass, and level sensors. It’s like GPS without the GPS. Unless you move to a substantially different geographic location, all you have to do to get the scope aligned is place it in a simple “Home Position” and power up. The PE levels, finds north, and gets date and time from the LNT. Great feature, but it has an Achilles heel. The small CR2032 cell (that Meade misidentifies in its manual as a “2023”) that holds date and time in memory lasts for about six months at most despite Meade’s silly claims that it will last for years. It had easily been six months since I’d been able to use Sweet Charity, and I expected the battery to be dead or nearly so.
Which it was. The Autostar’s time and date were way behind. If I’d just said to myself, “Self, we’ll need to change that soon; tonight we’ll enter time and date manually,” all would have been well. Maybe I’d forgot how difficult it is to change this battery on my early-model LNT, or maybe I was just bored, but I foolishly decided to replace the cell while I waited for dark. First problem? I immediately dropped one of the two screws that hold the LNT halves together. Hunting around in the tall grass easily ate up a good ten minutes. Screw located, I managed to change the cell without rippin’ out the delicate wires that run from the top of the LNT to the bottom and got it back together. In Meade fashion, the act of changing the battery necessitates more work. First, you’ve got to realign the red dot finder, since the screws that hold the LNT together also adjust finder alignment. Second, you have to do something called “Calibrate Sensors” because changing the battery causes the telescope to forget where true north is compared to the magnetic north it gets from its compass.
Readjusting the red dot is a pain, but since our dark site is adjacent to a private airfield, I was able to use runway lights to get it dialed-in with just a little cussin’. I then proceeded to Calibrate Sensors, but had to stop halfway through. It wasn’t quite dark enough to see Polaris, which is needed for the calibration, so I had to wait until the sky darkened some more. By the time I finished fumblin’ with the Autostar following Polaris’ appearance, hordes of stars had appeared, but I was in somethin’ of a snit. What good does it do to have a scope that’s quick to set up if you have to waste an hour playing with it? Why couldn’t Meade have made the battery easily accessible? Why couldn’t they have designed a circuit that would keep the LNT memory fresh, if not in CMOS, at least long enough to change a cotton-pickin’ battery? Sheesh!
Oh, well, at least I could now do an alignment and get down to observin’ with my girlfriend. Ha! Charity wasn’t done demanding attention. Alignment went smoothly as it almost always does, Miss Valentine pickin’ two stars and slewing to them and me centering each in the main scope. Bein’ that my girl is a little on the high-maintenance side, howsomeever, I was a mite suspicious when we was done. Trust But Verify. M3 was in a good spot for lookin’ at, so I mashed the Autostar buttons to send Charity there (on my Autostar, due to either defect or because I don’t use it that often, I really have to push them buttons hard). Miss Valentine made her usual coffee grinder noise, beeped, her way of saying, “Unk Rod, we have arrived,” and I jammed my eye to a 20-mm eyepiece. Anonymous starfield. No big star ball of a globular did I see it. Dadgummit! Time to Train Drives.
All inexpensive go-to rigs exhibit some backlash—gear “slop”—and if go-tos are to be accurate, that has to be taken into account. Celestron does that by having you do final centering of alignment stars using the up and right keys only. Meade takes a different path with something called “drive training.” It’s pretty simple to do. Center an object, execute the training routine, and the scope slews away from your target. You then use the Autostar buttons to put the object back in the center of the field. Do that with both altitude and azimuth axes, and the scope will know how much backlash is present, and go-tos will be right-on. Trouble is, you have to do this every once in a while. Why, I don’t know, but I have to retrain drives maybe once or twice a year. I’ve sometimes thought the need to re-train coincides with changing the LNT battery, but I’m not sure why that would be. Anyhoo, on this particular evening I couldn’t use a terrestrial target (which for some reason seems to be better for training than a star), since the runway lights were now off, and had to use Polaris instead. Nevertheless, when I sent Charity back to M3, that great glob was now reassuringly centered in the field of the 20 Expanse. Takeaway? If you are an ETX owner, be prepared to continually have the truth of two laws affirmed: Murphy’s Law (“Anything Bad that Can Happen Will”) and Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law (“At the Worst Possible Time”).
Despite the occasional irritations, I come here not to bury the ETX, but to praise her. How’s that? Start with the optics. They are dead sharp and also high in contrast despite a sizeable central obstruction brought-on by the secondary’s baffle. Yeah, aperture rules, but under the conditions that comprise an ETX Night, that rule can be bent a bit. My 5-inch ETX doesn’t give up much to a C8. Sometimes I even think planets look better in the ETX than they do in the eight-incher. One thing’s sure; the edge of Charity’s field is sharper than that of an SCT. Yes, the ETX’s f/15 focal ratio means you won’t be takin’-in the whole of the Pleiades in one go, but it also means even an humble Orion/Synta Expanse performs more like a TeleVue than the bargain basement eyepiece it is. Go-to? When you’ve got the drive training sussed, it’s fairly impressive. On the night under discussion, I observed about 35 objects before incoming haze and clouds shut us down about midnight. With only an exception or two, all were in the field of the 20-mm Expanse (66 degree AFOV), and often in the field of the 15 or 9-mm Es. All in all, go-to performance was similar to that of the NexStar 8i set up next to me.
Yep, despite the occasional headaches, I still think the ETX is a wonderful telescope. I love my Sweet Charity very, very much, and I will never, ever stop using her or sell her. Oh, shortly after Celestron re-released the NexStar 5, I’ll admit I toyed with the idea of turning her in for one of them new Orange Tubes, but a little thought and a couple more times in the field with Charity banished that idea. Her images are at least slightly better than those of a C5 (I’ve done a shootout between the two scopes), and, while very nicely built, the Celestron has its warts, too. Yeah, as I’ve said before, I occasionally fear Charity is gonna collapse on the observin’ field in a self-pitying neurotic heap, but she never has after nearly four years. One thing I will say for sure, the ETX is definitely a scope with personality, even if it’s not always a normal personality.
No matter how much I love Charity, though, I’ve sometimes wished for a just slightly better ETX. One with less plastic, especially in the gear train, better QA, and better build-quality. Surprisingly enough, about a year ago Meade, at the time in the throes of daunting financial woes, announced we was to get just that with something called the “ETX LS.” First thing I heard about the LS made me real happy: this was to be a 6-inch instead of a 5-inch. The second thing I heard made me come back down to earth jus’ a little bit. This was to be an SCT, not an MCT. Hell, y’all know how much I like SCTs, but I actually prefer MCT optics in small apertures. The small ones seem real easy to make very well. SCTs? Meade’s record with little ones is not stellar. The old 2045 4-inchers had good build quality, but their optics were nothing to write home about. On the other hand, Celestron is making waves with a 6-inch SCT of outstanding quality, the new C6, so I figgered I’d take a wait-and-see. The third thing I heard just made me sad. Meade would be discontinuing the two remaining MCT ETXes.
Further details about the LS in the form of full-color ads were soon bein' scrutinized by me and my CAT lovin' brothers and sisters. What was being made the most of in the spreads was the fact that the new ETX would incorporate what Meade called “Light Switch” (LS) technology. The user would set the scope up on its tripod, throw the (nice, big) power switch, and the scope would north and level with the aid of a real GPS. That the ETX had gained a GPS was not the big news. What stopped the presses was that Meade said the LS user would no longer have to center go-to alignment stars. The new ETX would feature a built-in camera that would enable the telescope to center the stars itself. Yep, you’d plunk the scope down, turn it on and that would be it, or so Meade’s marketers said. In short order, the ETX would be ready to go-to go-tos without you havin’ scratched your head about which o’ them stars in the finder was “Alderamin.” The Quick Start Guide Meade released shortly before the LS’s debut was composed of a mere 18 short steps, many of which were things like “place telescope on tripod,” “remove aperture cover,” “plug in Autostar.”
What caught the interest of Astromart and Cloudy Nights cognoscenti at the beginning was the telescope’s built-in camera, which Meade called the “ECLIPS CCD.” At first, quite a few folks figgered this camera would shoot through the main scope. Admittedly, the wordin’ in the ads was vague, but it seemed self-evident to this old boy that the only way to take in a big enough swath of sky to be of help during alignment would be to shoot through a short focal length camera lens, not the main scope. As Meade’s ads and manuals issued shortly before the LS began shipping made clear, that was indeed the case. The CCD could be used for informal short exposure imaging of constellations, but this small-chip uncooled camera, which was slung under the tube, not unlike the Quester 3.5’s built in finder, would never be practical for long exposures of small objects. Hints by Meade that it might be possible to run one its DSI cameras with the LS’s Autostar III without a PC in the loop didn’t do much to mollify those who thought they’d been misled. These people were also P.O.ed (so was I a little bit) that the original quoted price, $1299, it turned out, would not be for the ACF (aplantic SCT) version; instead, it would be for standard SCT optics, with ACF LS being 200 bucks more. The good news for me? Apparently Meade’s new CEO, veteran Steve Murdock, decided the MCT ETXes would live on.
What else was evident about the LS? That there’d be plenty of glitz, startin’ with something Meade called “Astronomer Inside.” What this was, according to the ads, was not just text descriptions of objects ala’ the Autostar and Autostar II, but oodles of multimedia. Audio. Video. Animations. Stills. How would you see this video? What would have been cool would have been for a small color display like that used by the ill-fated MySky to have been incorporated into the Autostar, but that was not to be; instead, the scope would be equipped with audio and video outputs (and a built-in speaker), allowing a user-supplied video display to be attached.
This all sounded OK to us old-timers. Most of us, anyhow. The usual crew of curmudgeons were outraged the LS would free novices from havin’ to identify and center alignment stars. All I can say is they must not have helped many newbies work through their go-to problems. When the new scope won’t go-to its go-tos, the most likely culprit, even more common than insufficient power sources, is misidentification of alignment stars. Hell, that’s even stumped me a time or two, since most go-to systems identify stars by proper names rather than Bayer letters. I know dadgummed good and well where Beta Ophiuchi is, but where is “Cebalrai”? In my humble opinion, anything that helps beginners is a Good Thing. A good thing for them and a good thing for us. If we can keep them in our avocation, they may even go on to learn them bright stars and constellations. But they will only do that, most of them, if they have a good initial experience. Sounded to me like this little scope could be just that experience, with decent aperture and the promise of a foolproof alignment system (as if there can ever be such a thing). This system work have to work well and consistently, though. If the LS turned out to be as fussy and QA challenged as the other ETXes, novices would be more hurt and dismayed than helped and elated.
If there was one thing that indicated the ETX LS might be a success, it was what I saw at NEAF. No, Unk wasn’t there. Someday I will make the pilgrimage to that astro-gear Valhalla, but I was on the sidelines again this time. I did see videos and stills of the show thanks to the Cloudy Nights crew. One of which was a shot of the LS undressed, with the cover off its (single) fork arm. Not only was it apparent how undersized the OTA is compared to the mount, but also how much better the metal gears inside that fork arm look compared to the plastic, grease-slathered 90 and 125 gear trains. So impressive did this mount appear that I opined Meade might even have an entire LS series in the offing, including maybe even an 8-inch that would nudge-out the LX90. Only time would tell, of course, and we had plenty of that, with winter morphing into spring with still no ETX LSes in the hands of users. I had been hearing rumors that Meade was pushin’ the Light Switch back again, to fall, when my good buddy Bob Black (of the excellent dealership, Skies Unlimited) told me he had received one.
His verdict? Bob didn’t have the skies to run the scope through all its paces, and did not get to try many of its features, but he assured me the LS seemed as well-built as the pictures indicated, and, most of all, that the alignment procedure worked:
“We started the automatic alignment process at 9 PM when the moon, Arcturus and Vega were visible, but not much else. The LS selected Arcturus as its first alignment star, slewed to that general area and began taking CCD images. After evaluating those images the scope slowly corrected its position, bringing Arcturus near the center of the standard 26mm Plössl eyepiece. The LS then automatically selected Eltanin as its second alignment star. This star was just barely visible at the time, yet the telescope found it and successfully completed the alignment. Yes indeed, the automatic alignment works as advertised!”
Bob’s experience is only part of the story, of course. What remains to be told? It will be a while before we know whether QA will be good enough to ensure all LSes do as well as the one Bob tested. The initial reports I’ve had from the small number of amateurs who’ve received ‘em thus far are mostly (though not all) encouraging. Me? Would I, based on what I know now, buy one, or replace Charity with one? Like I said, I will never part with my Sweet Charity. Could I see having an LS in addition to Miss Valentine? Maybe. It still remains to be revealed just how good Meade’s 6-inch SCT optics are. Much also depends on the things Meade (and third parties) do with the scope in the coming months and years. All the audio and video and processing power the scope possesses and the fact that it is equipped with an SD card slot makes it sound like it ought to be possible to do some amazing and innovative stuff with it. We shall see. In other words, “Naw, I ain’t gonna run out and buy no LS at this time (even if I sorta want to),” but if I get my hands on one otherwise, you-all will be the first to hear about my experiences. I am frankly excited about this telescope, both for what it is now and for what it could be.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
To Light One Candle
When I started this blog almost five years ago (on the old AOL blogsite), I vowed the subject of each entry would be amateur astronomy, peripherally at least. I think I’ve stuck to that right well; I can’t remember the last time I strayed off the beaten path of gear-star parties-observing. This is one of those times, though, muchachos, and for good reason. One recent and quiet Chaos Manor South afternoon I was, as I often do, yakkin’ on Cloudy Nights and Astromart. AHHH—OOOGAH! Mail’s in! I strolled into the front hall of the old manse to see if Mr. Postman had perhaps left a new issue of Sky and Telescope or, at least, yet another Orion catalog. No such luck. What I found instead was the little brochure pictured above. Somewhat distractedly, but with nothin’ else to do—clouds was comin’ in and the cats had been fed—I set to browsin’ through this pamphlet. Shortly my jaw was droppin’ down to my chest. Well, almost, anyhow. This was a solicitation for a group pushin’ the geocentric theory. They was, it seemed, downright tired of godless scientists claimin’ the Earth goes around the Sun!
Like Popeye, your Old Uncle has had enough and he can’t stand no more. While I try to keep things light here and, yes, focused on the amateur side of astronomy, I do have a toe in the other camp, too. As an astronomy educator at the university level, if just an enlisted man in the trenches of academe, I get to see firsthand the increasingly sad state of science and math literacy in this country. Sure, many of my students are as scientifically and mathematically inclined as my generation of undergraduates was. But not all, and the ignorance seems to be spreading. Example? The first class I taught, over a decade ago now, an otherwise bright-seeming young woman raised her hand after I’d reviewed the syllabus to include the requirement that each student have (and know how to use) a scientific calculator: “You mean we have to do MATH? I thought this was a SCIENCE course.” And it’s gone downhill from there.
Lots of people a lot smarter than your Old Uncle have wrestled with the causes of our country’s science illiteracy and innumeracy (“math illiteracy”). A quick Google will turn up lots of opinions from everybody from the AAAS to Discover Magazine. Since I’ve been teachin’ for a while, and have observed a goodly number of math and science challenged post-secondary students up close and personal, I think I’m allowed to offer a few opinions myself. I’ve decided the Troubles with Kids Today science and math-wise originate, near as I can tell in four general areas: secondary schools (high schools), the home, the culture, and religion (in other words, “the whole dadgummed shootin’ match”).
Yeah, I know and acknowledge there are many talented and tireless secondary-level science teachers, so y’all don’t grab up the torches and pitchforks. Certainly colleges share part of the blame for turnin’ scientifically and mathematically ignorant students loose on the world after four years, but I don’t think I’m bein’ prejudiced if I say mostly it ain’t our fault. It’s awful hard, especially in this time of dramatically reduced post-secondary education budgets, to do much to rehabilitate the freshman who is badly deficient in math and science. Those who’ve chosen majors that require a respectable degree of math/science knowledge from the get-go fall by the wayside or are shunted into majors that do not require this knowledge to any degree and (theoretically) never think about math and science ever again.
The reasons freshmen are coming in without much math or science as compared to the college freshmen of fifty years ago are complex, but probably start with a fact that is seldom considered: we are attempting to fully educate far more marginal students today than we were in the 1950s or 1960s. Back then, the student who couldn’t stay awake in Algebra or Biology (or English or Social Studies) was quickly switched onto the “vocational track” that culminated in trade-school or work on graduation. Of course, innumerable minority students, no matter how impressive their talents and grades, were also steered away from colleges (if not locked out of them), but that is a kettle of fish for another day. Today, it is generally presumed every kid should go to college. That’s made possible by financial aid, renormalization of the ACT/SAT scores, and by what amounts to open-admissions policies at public universities. Naturally, there still are and likely always will be plenty of kids who fall asleep in algebra and biology and who, failing or failing to take the college prep science courses, get very little science (or math) education in high school. The difference is that many of these students are nevertheless college bound today.
What can be done? Secondary science curriculums need to be designed to also serve students who are not going to be able to handle the time-honored high school track of biology-chemistry-physics and algebra-geometry-precalc. These kids, even those who have no intention of going anywhere near a university, need to be well-educated in the general concepts of science and math. They might not be able to balance chemistry equations when they graduate, but they damned well should know what the Scientific Method is and have at least a simple picture of the universe around them. Yes, I know some schools do do a good job with “general” science courses. Most don’t, however, and the most important thing that could be done to improve science literacy in the good, old U.S. of A., I’m convinced, would be for these courses to be viewed by secondary educators as critically important, perhaps even more important than the “real” science courses they teach.
For good and ill, the American home has changed one hell of a lot since the 1960s, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t look there for another source of our problems. In the intervening forty years we’ve come a long way from the old norm of two-parent – one-career homes where stay-at-home Moms kept an eagle eye on Junior and Sis and made danged sure the homework got done every night, were at PTA meetings every month, and showed up for those unpleasant teacher-parent conferences on the (hopefully) rare occasions when they occurred. Clearly we are not goin’ back to those days. For one thing, many—way too many—families struggle to keep their heads above economic rough waters with both Mom and Pop workin’ full time. I don’t have the solution, but one thing that couldn’t but help is to educate parents (many of whom are scientifically illiterate and innumerate themselves) as to the importance of math and science for their children’s success in school and after. This is one area where we—amateur astronomers—can do yeoman duty. Even if all you accomplish at a public star party is to impart to some parent the wondrous knowledge that the Sun is a dwarf star and the Moon was born of the Earth, you may have unknowingly motivated Mom or Pop to put the kids on the road to scientific literacy. Which may be as simple as them beginning to help little Junie Moon with her biology homework despite a long day at The Office.
You know what really pisses me off? Hearin’ the interminable jokes on the sitcoms about how much math sucks. It is truly bizarre, but in our popular culture being mathematically illiterate is not only rib ticklin’, it is presented as something to be proud of. You listen to this junk on the boob tube, and you get the idea that the only person who can do or is interested in doing math is that fabled and weird rocket scientist. It is not just TV, neither. I am a big Jimmy Buffet fan, but I near-about blew a gasket when I heard his “Math Sucks” song. Yeah, maybe that was ironic or at least slightly tongue-in-cheek—maybe—but I doubt that’s what most of his fans thought. What they thought was likely “YEAH! ME TOO!” I am just amazed when a person who would be mortified to admit they have trouble readin’ or writin’ readily and chirpily confesses they cannot add two and two. Every time you hear a math (or science) joke on the television, I encourage you to complain to the network and sponsor with an email. Yeah, I know it seems a small thing, but popular culture is viral, and the current message is that little Johnny must fail in mathematics in order to be “normal.”
We now come to the lollipop-in-the-beach-sand sticky part of the problem: religion. As most of y’all know, your Old Uncle is not a prayin’ man. That does not mean I hate religion. While I am not shy about excoriating religion for the evil it has done, I also respect it for the good it has done and continues to do. Naturally, the older I get, the more I wish I could believe, but I find I simply cannot, not in the objective reality of gods and goddesses. I acknowledge the psychological reality of spiritual entities, but as concrete big daddies and mamas watchin’ us from the clouds? No, I never have been able to. But I don’t want you to think I, like some folks who count themselves among the non-believers, have any particular axe to grind when it comes to religion. I actually find religion fascinating—if not convincing.
As for the subject at hand, most well-established religious sects—Christian ones, anyway, the modern religions I know the most about—have a pretty good record when it comes to science. The Roman Catholic Church, despite its continuing bad press over the Galileo affair four centuries back, embraces both Evolution and The Big Bang. Most of the mainline protestant churches are the same. But that is not true of the evangelical protestant sects that are still very popular and wealthy in the Americas. Being a Southron born and bred, I’ve been aware of the fundamentalists’ battle against Darwin since I was a pup. I still remember how my old man, an immigrant to the South who was European in both heritage and outlook, used to laugh about the “crazy preachers” the TV station where he worked as an engineer used to broadcast on Sunday mornings. How we used to laugh about one worthy, who, once he was done with the HEALING, would lay into Darwin, his spiel culminatin’ in this goober crouchin’ down and capering like an ape among the congregation.
These people were always a tiny minority though, one formed of the less privileged, and one that had relatively little influence even in the Sunny South. That began to change with the fundamentalist explosion that got seriously underway about thirty years ago. By the 1980s, folks toeing the fundamentalist line were not confined to the South, and not confined to a demographic consisting of the poorest of the poor dirt farmers and unskilled workers. Soon, prominent and (supposedly) educated men in Washington were castin’ aspersions on pore ol’ Charles Darwin. And soon the crusade against Evolution expanded to include anything that contradicts the most literal interpretation of the Bible. That was really always the argument they had with Charlie, anyway. Sure, the hardliners may have hated the aesthetics of the idea that a “monkey” was their (distant) uncle, but what really torqued the jaws of the (increasingly) right-wing religionists was that Evolution contradicted what “The Lord” said in Genesis. If contradicting the Bible’s literal interpretation was the offense, why shouldn’t Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton be in the dock with Darwin?
One evenin’ about ten years ago, a student approached me after class. At first I supposed he might still be strugglin’ to understand Kepler’s Third Law, but a glance at his face showed this was somethin’ more serious. Perhaps the need to, regretfully, miss next week’s astronomy lab. You could have knocked me over with a feather, though, when he looked me in the eye and said, “I was talking to my pastor and his wife, and they want to know who at this school has been teaching blasphemy about the Moon.” Noticin’ my uncomprehending look, he elaborated, “The Pastor says that teaching the Moon was formed of the Earth is against God’s Word.” Not knowing what else to do, I recapitulated the reasons we believe the Moon was probably formed as the result of the collision of a large body with the nascent Earth. It was immediately apparent, however, that the mind of this student was now firmly closed to anything I might say on the subject. With nothing else to be said, I told him he was welcome to give my name to his pastor and that I’d be happy to chat with the holy man about the origins of the Solar System. I never heard from the kid’s preacher, and can only assume the student decided the old aphorism, “Don’t Start Nothing, Won’t be Nothing” was a pretty good one to follow.
From that evening forward, I kept my ears and eyes open. It wasn’t long before I became aware many—if not all—of the sects loosely described as “fundamentalist” (or “right-wing,” or “hard-shell,” or “literalist”), groups that have one thing in common, an unbendingly literal interpretation of the Bible’s stories that does not admit any possibility of metaphor or fable, are in opposition to almost all of modern science. That includes, especially, biology, astronomy, and geology, the disciplines most likely to contradict the myths in the Holy Book. I thought I knew the score, anyway, but actually I really wasn’t aware how far things had gone until the other day when I received the mailing mentioned at the beginning of this here screed.
At first I couldn’t believe anybody with the money to professionally print and mail a pamphlet like the one I got (likely in large numbers; it was addressed to “occupant”) could be serious. This had to be a gag. By the time I finished readin’ and had done a little Googling, it was clear that this was anything but a gag. There is a (thankfully) still small, but perhaps growing group of religionists who don’t just deny the 19th century’s Darwin, but also the 16th century’s Copernicus. The people who sent me the brochure, for example, are distributing a free book called Geocentricity Primer and seriously (near as I can tell) do believe the Earth is not just the center of the Solar system, but is in a central and privileged position in the universe itself, a universe very limited in size and age.
What is their proof? There is none, of course. As is usually the case with the scientifically illiterate writing about science, they follow two paths, makin’ up things wholesale, and positing a CONSPIRIACY AMONG THOSE BAD OL’ GOD-HATING SCIENTISTS:
So, we now have a bunch that don’t just deny Evolution or The Big Bang in favor of religious texts, but who go so far as to crank us back to the medieval in the service of their faith (after a few paragraphs about “science” my little pamphlet gets straight to the point with plenty of scripture quotations). Are people who believe the Sun goes around the Earth a tiny minority? Yes. Could the idea spread? It’s scary, I know, but given the high degree of ignorance about science demonstrated by a large proportion of the American public this and other crackbrained and Luddite ideas could spread. You doubt that? I’ve seen a survey in which a majority indicated that they thought the best way to decide which should be taught, Creationism or Evolution, would be to have residents of a school district vote on the ideas. Will they next be voting on whether or not the Earth is round?
What do we, the majority of Americans who understand the importance of science, do about the Geocentrists and the IDers and the Creationists and (believe it or not) the Flat Earthers? We do nothing about these religious sects per se. One of the beauties and strengths of the western democracies as opposed to the fundamentalist religious regimes of the Middle East/Southwest Asia is that we allow the most harebrained among us to worship whichever gods they see fit in whatever ways they see fit as long as they do not do unwonted violence to themselves or their children or infringe on the rights of the rest of us. Which does not mean these people should not be opposed if they, for example, begin lobbying your local school board to “teach” Creationism or Intelligent Design alongside or in preference to Evolution or whichever scientific theory or subject they oppose at the moment. If you do not stand up, not only will their children be harmed, yours will be too.
Like Popeye, your Old Uncle has had enough and he can’t stand no more. While I try to keep things light here and, yes, focused on the amateur side of astronomy, I do have a toe in the other camp, too. As an astronomy educator at the university level, if just an enlisted man in the trenches of academe, I get to see firsthand the increasingly sad state of science and math literacy in this country. Sure, many of my students are as scientifically and mathematically inclined as my generation of undergraduates was. But not all, and the ignorance seems to be spreading. Example? The first class I taught, over a decade ago now, an otherwise bright-seeming young woman raised her hand after I’d reviewed the syllabus to include the requirement that each student have (and know how to use) a scientific calculator: “You mean we have to do MATH? I thought this was a SCIENCE course.” And it’s gone downhill from there.
Lots of people a lot smarter than your Old Uncle have wrestled with the causes of our country’s science illiteracy and innumeracy (“math illiteracy”). A quick Google will turn up lots of opinions from everybody from the AAAS to Discover Magazine. Since I’ve been teachin’ for a while, and have observed a goodly number of math and science challenged post-secondary students up close and personal, I think I’m allowed to offer a few opinions myself. I’ve decided the Troubles with Kids Today science and math-wise originate, near as I can tell in four general areas: secondary schools (high schools), the home, the culture, and religion (in other words, “the whole dadgummed shootin’ match”).
Yeah, I know and acknowledge there are many talented and tireless secondary-level science teachers, so y’all don’t grab up the torches and pitchforks. Certainly colleges share part of the blame for turnin’ scientifically and mathematically ignorant students loose on the world after four years, but I don’t think I’m bein’ prejudiced if I say mostly it ain’t our fault. It’s awful hard, especially in this time of dramatically reduced post-secondary education budgets, to do much to rehabilitate the freshman who is badly deficient in math and science. Those who’ve chosen majors that require a respectable degree of math/science knowledge from the get-go fall by the wayside or are shunted into majors that do not require this knowledge to any degree and (theoretically) never think about math and science ever again.
The reasons freshmen are coming in without much math or science as compared to the college freshmen of fifty years ago are complex, but probably start with a fact that is seldom considered: we are attempting to fully educate far more marginal students today than we were in the 1950s or 1960s. Back then, the student who couldn’t stay awake in Algebra or Biology (or English or Social Studies) was quickly switched onto the “vocational track” that culminated in trade-school or work on graduation. Of course, innumerable minority students, no matter how impressive their talents and grades, were also steered away from colleges (if not locked out of them), but that is a kettle of fish for another day. Today, it is generally presumed every kid should go to college. That’s made possible by financial aid, renormalization of the ACT/SAT scores, and by what amounts to open-admissions policies at public universities. Naturally, there still are and likely always will be plenty of kids who fall asleep in algebra and biology and who, failing or failing to take the college prep science courses, get very little science (or math) education in high school. The difference is that many of these students are nevertheless college bound today.
What can be done? Secondary science curriculums need to be designed to also serve students who are not going to be able to handle the time-honored high school track of biology-chemistry-physics and algebra-geometry-precalc. These kids, even those who have no intention of going anywhere near a university, need to be well-educated in the general concepts of science and math. They might not be able to balance chemistry equations when they graduate, but they damned well should know what the Scientific Method is and have at least a simple picture of the universe around them. Yes, I know some schools do do a good job with “general” science courses. Most don’t, however, and the most important thing that could be done to improve science literacy in the good, old U.S. of A., I’m convinced, would be for these courses to be viewed by secondary educators as critically important, perhaps even more important than the “real” science courses they teach.
For good and ill, the American home has changed one hell of a lot since the 1960s, and I’d be a fool if I didn’t look there for another source of our problems. In the intervening forty years we’ve come a long way from the old norm of two-parent – one-career homes where stay-at-home Moms kept an eagle eye on Junior and Sis and made danged sure the homework got done every night, were at PTA meetings every month, and showed up for those unpleasant teacher-parent conferences on the (hopefully) rare occasions when they occurred. Clearly we are not goin’ back to those days. For one thing, many—way too many—families struggle to keep their heads above economic rough waters with both Mom and Pop workin’ full time. I don’t have the solution, but one thing that couldn’t but help is to educate parents (many of whom are scientifically illiterate and innumerate themselves) as to the importance of math and science for their children’s success in school and after. This is one area where we—amateur astronomers—can do yeoman duty. Even if all you accomplish at a public star party is to impart to some parent the wondrous knowledge that the Sun is a dwarf star and the Moon was born of the Earth, you may have unknowingly motivated Mom or Pop to put the kids on the road to scientific literacy. Which may be as simple as them beginning to help little Junie Moon with her biology homework despite a long day at The Office.
You know what really pisses me off? Hearin’ the interminable jokes on the sitcoms about how much math sucks. It is truly bizarre, but in our popular culture being mathematically illiterate is not only rib ticklin’, it is presented as something to be proud of. You listen to this junk on the boob tube, and you get the idea that the only person who can do or is interested in doing math is that fabled and weird rocket scientist. It is not just TV, neither. I am a big Jimmy Buffet fan, but I near-about blew a gasket when I heard his “Math Sucks” song. Yeah, maybe that was ironic or at least slightly tongue-in-cheek—maybe—but I doubt that’s what most of his fans thought. What they thought was likely “YEAH! ME TOO!” I am just amazed when a person who would be mortified to admit they have trouble readin’ or writin’ readily and chirpily confesses they cannot add two and two. Every time you hear a math (or science) joke on the television, I encourage you to complain to the network and sponsor with an email. Yeah, I know it seems a small thing, but popular culture is viral, and the current message is that little Johnny must fail in mathematics in order to be “normal.”
We now come to the lollipop-in-the-beach-sand sticky part of the problem: religion. As most of y’all know, your Old Uncle is not a prayin’ man. That does not mean I hate religion. While I am not shy about excoriating religion for the evil it has done, I also respect it for the good it has done and continues to do. Naturally, the older I get, the more I wish I could believe, but I find I simply cannot, not in the objective reality of gods and goddesses. I acknowledge the psychological reality of spiritual entities, but as concrete big daddies and mamas watchin’ us from the clouds? No, I never have been able to. But I don’t want you to think I, like some folks who count themselves among the non-believers, have any particular axe to grind when it comes to religion. I actually find religion fascinating—if not convincing.
As for the subject at hand, most well-established religious sects—Christian ones, anyway, the modern religions I know the most about—have a pretty good record when it comes to science. The Roman Catholic Church, despite its continuing bad press over the Galileo affair four centuries back, embraces both Evolution and The Big Bang. Most of the mainline protestant churches are the same. But that is not true of the evangelical protestant sects that are still very popular and wealthy in the Americas. Being a Southron born and bred, I’ve been aware of the fundamentalists’ battle against Darwin since I was a pup. I still remember how my old man, an immigrant to the South who was European in both heritage and outlook, used to laugh about the “crazy preachers” the TV station where he worked as an engineer used to broadcast on Sunday mornings. How we used to laugh about one worthy, who, once he was done with the HEALING, would lay into Darwin, his spiel culminatin’ in this goober crouchin’ down and capering like an ape among the congregation.
These people were always a tiny minority though, one formed of the less privileged, and one that had relatively little influence even in the Sunny South. That began to change with the fundamentalist explosion that got seriously underway about thirty years ago. By the 1980s, folks toeing the fundamentalist line were not confined to the South, and not confined to a demographic consisting of the poorest of the poor dirt farmers and unskilled workers. Soon, prominent and (supposedly) educated men in Washington were castin’ aspersions on pore ol’ Charles Darwin. And soon the crusade against Evolution expanded to include anything that contradicts the most literal interpretation of the Bible. That was really always the argument they had with Charlie, anyway. Sure, the hardliners may have hated the aesthetics of the idea that a “monkey” was their (distant) uncle, but what really torqued the jaws of the (increasingly) right-wing religionists was that Evolution contradicted what “The Lord” said in Genesis. If contradicting the Bible’s literal interpretation was the offense, why shouldn’t Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton be in the dock with Darwin?One evenin’ about ten years ago, a student approached me after class. At first I supposed he might still be strugglin’ to understand Kepler’s Third Law, but a glance at his face showed this was somethin’ more serious. Perhaps the need to, regretfully, miss next week’s astronomy lab. You could have knocked me over with a feather, though, when he looked me in the eye and said, “I was talking to my pastor and his wife, and they want to know who at this school has been teaching blasphemy about the Moon.” Noticin’ my uncomprehending look, he elaborated, “The Pastor says that teaching the Moon was formed of the Earth is against God’s Word.” Not knowing what else to do, I recapitulated the reasons we believe the Moon was probably formed as the result of the collision of a large body with the nascent Earth. It was immediately apparent, however, that the mind of this student was now firmly closed to anything I might say on the subject. With nothing else to be said, I told him he was welcome to give my name to his pastor and that I’d be happy to chat with the holy man about the origins of the Solar System. I never heard from the kid’s preacher, and can only assume the student decided the old aphorism, “Don’t Start Nothing, Won’t be Nothing” was a pretty good one to follow.
From that evening forward, I kept my ears and eyes open. It wasn’t long before I became aware many—if not all—of the sects loosely described as “fundamentalist” (or “right-wing,” or “hard-shell,” or “literalist”), groups that have one thing in common, an unbendingly literal interpretation of the Bible’s stories that does not admit any possibility of metaphor or fable, are in opposition to almost all of modern science. That includes, especially, biology, astronomy, and geology, the disciplines most likely to contradict the myths in the Holy Book. I thought I knew the score, anyway, but actually I really wasn’t aware how far things had gone until the other day when I received the mailing mentioned at the beginning of this here screed.
At first I couldn’t believe anybody with the money to professionally print and mail a pamphlet like the one I got (likely in large numbers; it was addressed to “occupant”) could be serious. This had to be a gag. By the time I finished readin’ and had done a little Googling, it was clear that this was anything but a gag. There is a (thankfully) still small, but perhaps growing group of religionists who don’t just deny the 19th century’s Darwin, but also the 16th century’s Copernicus. The people who sent me the brochure, for example, are distributing a free book called Geocentricity Primer and seriously (near as I can tell) do believe the Earth is not just the center of the Solar system, but is in a central and privileged position in the universe itself, a universe very limited in size and age.
What is their proof? There is none, of course. As is usually the case with the scientifically illiterate writing about science, they follow two paths, makin’ up things wholesale, and positing a CONSPIRIACY AMONG THOSE BAD OL’ GOD-HATING SCIENTISTS:
"Ever since the scientific community adopted heliocentrism as fact, attempts have been made to prove it. NOT ONE of these attempts produced the proof…the results…are consistent with the hypothesis that the earth is at rest."As is also usually the case with these people (and their buddies, the Creationists and Intelligent Designers) the words “theory,” “fact,” and “hypothesis” are sprinkled liberally throughout the text despite the fact that it’s readily apparent that whoever wrote this thing had no more idea as to what these words mean in the context of science than my cat, Growltiger, does.
So, we now have a bunch that don’t just deny Evolution or The Big Bang in favor of religious texts, but who go so far as to crank us back to the medieval in the service of their faith (after a few paragraphs about “science” my little pamphlet gets straight to the point with plenty of scripture quotations). Are people who believe the Sun goes around the Earth a tiny minority? Yes. Could the idea spread? It’s scary, I know, but given the high degree of ignorance about science demonstrated by a large proportion of the American public this and other crackbrained and Luddite ideas could spread. You doubt that? I’ve seen a survey in which a majority indicated that they thought the best way to decide which should be taught, Creationism or Evolution, would be to have residents of a school district vote on the ideas. Will they next be voting on whether or not the Earth is round?
What do we, the majority of Americans who understand the importance of science, do about the Geocentrists and the IDers and the Creationists and (believe it or not) the Flat Earthers? We do nothing about these religious sects per se. One of the beauties and strengths of the western democracies as opposed to the fundamentalist religious regimes of the Middle East/Southwest Asia is that we allow the most harebrained among us to worship whichever gods they see fit in whatever ways they see fit as long as they do not do unwonted violence to themselves or their children or infringe on the rights of the rest of us. Which does not mean these people should not be opposed if they, for example, begin lobbying your local school board to “teach” Creationism or Intelligent Design alongside or in preference to Evolution or whichever scientific theory or subject they oppose at the moment. If you do not stand up, not only will their children be harmed, yours will be too.
How about individuals? How do you respond when somebody wanders up to you at the public star party and loudly declares, “I cannot believe you are tellin’ these kids that Jupiter goes around the Sun. My preacher says that is the word of Satan.” What you should not do is say, “Ha! Ha! Ha! You loony! Why don’t you move to Iran and hang out with the Ayatollahs?” I am embarrassed to admit that is (almost) what I did at an astronomy club meetin’ when a new member chirped up with that old canard about human tracks alongside dinosaur tracks in Texas provin’ man lived with the dinosaurs (jus’ like the Flintstones, I reckon), proving the Bible correct. Don’t ask me how the discussion got on that subject, but it got my dander up, I responded too harshly, and we lost a valued club member.
Instead, talk to these people calmly and gently. The truth is, most of them were educated in the same schools and colleges as the rest of us and really know the basic facts of the universe. Deep down, they know Copernicus and Kepler, not Jim Bakker and Oral Roberts are correct about the layout of the Solar System. In my experience, quite a few of ‘em are practicing Doublethink—the art of holding two opposed things to be true at once. They know Earth is revolving around good, ol’ Mr. Sun, and that their god is not (literally) a bearded old man sittin’ on a throne up in the (literal) clouds. Their bold assertions about Dinosaurs or Galileo are sometimes a cry for help, help in reconciling their faith with their knowledge.
You can help them, not by banishin’ them to Tehran, but by gently and simply summarizing why and how we know the things we know and by emphasizing that the knowledge of these things does not necessarily mean they give up (all) their beliefs. Tell them about brilliant scientists who’ve remained believers despite knowing the Bible is not literally true. The examples of religious men, like the astronomers of the Vatican observatory, who acknowledge the truth of our astronomical knowledge can also be convincing and reassuring. You may not immediately covert these people or even obviously sway them, but you may later find you planted a little seed that blossomed into enlightenment. If you ask me, good, ol’ America is ripe for a Second Age of Enlightenment in the face of way too much ignorance—religiously induced or otherwise.
Thanks for lettin’ me get on my soapbox and get this off my chest. Next time? Back to astronomy. Amateur astronomy. I swear (if not on the Bible).
Instead, talk to these people calmly and gently. The truth is, most of them were educated in the same schools and colleges as the rest of us and really know the basic facts of the universe. Deep down, they know Copernicus and Kepler, not Jim Bakker and Oral Roberts are correct about the layout of the Solar System. In my experience, quite a few of ‘em are practicing Doublethink—the art of holding two opposed things to be true at once. They know Earth is revolving around good, ol’ Mr. Sun, and that their god is not (literally) a bearded old man sittin’ on a throne up in the (literal) clouds. Their bold assertions about Dinosaurs or Galileo are sometimes a cry for help, help in reconciling their faith with their knowledge.
You can help them, not by banishin’ them to Tehran, but by gently and simply summarizing why and how we know the things we know and by emphasizing that the knowledge of these things does not necessarily mean they give up (all) their beliefs. Tell them about brilliant scientists who’ve remained believers despite knowing the Bible is not literally true. The examples of religious men, like the astronomers of the Vatican observatory, who acknowledge the truth of our astronomical knowledge can also be convincing and reassuring. You may not immediately covert these people or even obviously sway them, but you may later find you planted a little seed that blossomed into enlightenment. If you ask me, good, ol’ America is ripe for a Second Age of Enlightenment in the face of way too much ignorance—religiously induced or otherwise.
Thanks for lettin’ me get on my soapbox and get this off my chest. Next time? Back to astronomy. Amateur astronomy. I swear (if not on the Bible).
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Keep it Rocking
Keep your club rockin’. I frequently revisit this question, “What makes a club good and how do you keep one good?” because I think it is an important one for all amateurs. Yeah, even in this age of 24-hour-a-day amateur astronomy chit-chat on the dadgummed Internet, the good ol’ local astronomy club is still important. Even if you don’t belong to your local club (though I think it’s downright foolish not to) it may still be doin’ things like crusading for sensible lighting that benefit all area amateurs, members or not. The astronomy club is also what keeps amateur astronomy in the public eye. Outreach activities attract new members to our avocation, and that keeps amateur astronomy healthy, and that keeps the new gear all you twidgets crave flowin’.
Yep, there is a virtual meetin’ goin’ on all day and all night at places like Cloudy Nights and Astromart, so what good is a non-virtual astro-club when you can talk scopes and observin’ any time you want on the I-net? For some people, “no good at all.” Astronomy is one of those pursuits that can be practiced in solitary fashion, and that is what some people like about it and good on ‘em. I used to be surprised to meet enthusiastic and active local amateurs who, despite bein’ in the astro game for years and years, were not members of my club, the PSAS. I’m not surprised anymore. I eventually wised up to the fact that some amateurs are jus’ not joiners.
That’s not the best path for most of us, though. A club brings enough tangibles and intangibles to the table to make it worth belongin’ even if you consider yourself an introvert. The greatest asset? Strength in numbers. You can pool your resources to, for example, acquire a dark observing site that because of cost or other reasons would be undoable for an individual. That there alone is enough reason for almost anybody to belong to a club. In most cases, you don’t even have to attend meetings. Keep your dues current, and usually you’ll be able to use the dark site like anybody else. Prob’ly no one will care even if you don’t say much, set up in a corner away from everybody else, and fly alone. For most of us, though, there are also the intangibles. Mainly the experience of observing and doing other things in a group of like-minded individuals, who, over the years, often become the closest of friends. My most cherished astronomy memories are almost exclusively built on the adventures and misadventures of our little club.
Those are a couple of reasons, and good ones I think, to jine-up with your friendly neighborhood astronomy society. Howsomeever, neither you nor anybody else will want to remain a member of that club if it is not done right. Every club can get into a rut; it’s easy to recognize the signs: meetings become progressively more boring affairs where everything but astronomy is discussed, the membership begins to dwindle, nobody goes out to the dark site anymore, and the last public star party was, when you think about it, durin’ Hale-Bopp. What is important is to do somethin’ about club-entropy before it goes so far as to be irreversible. How? Glad you asked.Meetings
Ah, yes, the dreaded business meeting. Every club has ‘em, and every club has trouble keeping them interesting. Oh, it used to be easy. Back in the pre-Interweb days of yore, the monthly club meeting was a huge treat for me. Over the course of a month, it was often the only time I got to shoot the breeze with my fellow amateurs. All that’s changed, but it is still possible to keep meetings fun. It don’t even take that much work. Rule One is, take the word “business” out of “business meeting.” Sure, you’ll want to hear the Treasurer’s report, and have the Secretary read the minutes of the last meetin’, and Robert’s Rules of Order can keep the proceedings rollin’ along smartly. B-U-T… I’ve seen clubs where “meeting” consisted of droning recitations about the bank account, interminable reviews of the report on same from last month, and soul-blistering expeditions into the land of “Point of Privilege,” “Floor Motion,” and “Adjournment Debate.” The most ironic thing? The folks runnin’ these dry-as-the-Sahara affairs were continually amazed the only people in attendance were their fellow officers and (fleetingly) new members.
How do you keep business meetings interesting? You focus on AMATEUR ASTRONOMY. There are plenty of ways to do that. My own club has a long-running style that suits us and may suit you as well. We open with a short report on the treasury and a short presentation of the minutes of the last meeting. That occupies maybe five minutes, which is almost too long. Following is the “what we gonna do.” Reminders about public outreach events, dark site expeditions, and other group activities. Maybe ten minutes. Max. Next is the heart of it, a presentation (now often a PowerPoint), usually about a constellation. When we adopted this format a decade ago, I thought we’d soon run out of stuff to say about the 88, but that never did happen. Each person tends to focus on a different aspect of their chosen constellation: deep sky observing, imaging opportunities, variable stars, etc, etc. And each year when a constellation comes back around, we are all usually ready to hear about it again. Who gives the presentation? Whoever volunteers for that duty. It used to take a little wheedling, but before long, the membership found out giving a presentation is often more fun even than listenin’ to one. This is your chance, after all, to show off your astrophotos to a captive audience, go on and on about double stars if that is your thing, or dwell on the mythological background of the star pattern if that is what floats your boat.
After that? “Anybody got anything else?” In other words, Open Mike time. If somebody has a presentation on some other subject, like a new piece of equipment they’ve acquired, or a report on a visit to a star party, or a talk about Solar eclipses or QUASARS, this is the time. That done, it’s punch and cookies. You’d be amazed at how much fun it is to gobble munchies from the Wally-World down the road and drink plastic cups of Purple Passion Punch in the company of your fellow amateurs. Sometimes Cookie and Punch Time after the “main” meeting is more fun and illuminatin’ than anything that has gone before. Cookies reduced to crumbs, a look at the watch says an hour, sometimes even two, has gone by in what seems like fifteen minutes and another successful PSAS meetin’ draws to a close. The takeaway? We keep it simple, we keep it short, we keep it interesting with talks by members, not endless dronin’ by officers, and we allow everybody to have their say month after month. “But Uncle Rod, but Uncle Rod, my club is way too big for your simpleminded ideas.” Nonsense. I’ve seen similarly informal and fun meeting formats work for the largest organizations. Which might be even larger if they took some of the starch out. Pass the cookies.
Recruiting
You are FREAKING OUT because your numbers have dropped from fifty to forty to twenty and ten is approaching. Don’t be overly worried about occasional membership doldrums. Every club waxes and wanes. A long-term, constant bleeding away of members? Get worried, but don’t freak out. Do something. First, take a look at your meetings. If they are hidebound parliamentary parties, change that, do it right away, and strive to get the word out that there’s a new game bein’ played down to the club. How do you get the word out? Whether you have a newsletter or not, you should have a mailing list of all members. I know it is low tech, but the simple postcard can work wonders: “We miss you at the club. We are trying some new things we know you are gonna like. Why not give us a try this Thursday evening?”
How do you get the word about your group out to prospective new members? The most efficient way is at public outreach sessions. Got a prospect (you’ll quickly develop a sixth sense as to who is and who is not an amateur aborning)? Give her/him a flier about the club, which includes a few words about what you are and what you do along with contact info and a (current) meeting schedule. How else? The same old things that have always worked. If your local newspaper (assumin’ you still have one) has a community events listing, make sure your meetings are included there every single month. Most cable TV systems have a “community bulletin board” scroll and will be happy to add your meeting announcement to that. Even the lowest of the low tech can still be very productive: fliers posted at the local library and the university student union building. In my experience? The problem is not getting members, but keepin’ ‘em, and if you are doin’ your meetings the right way, you are well on the way to doin’ that.
Despite my snide comments about that new-fangled Internet, there is no doubt in my formerly military mind that a good website—hell, a website of any kind—attracts new members. These days, when somebody wants to know somethin’ they hit the Google. It is vital that when they type in “Mayberry Astronomical Society” they get a hit for your MAS. I would guess that if you don’t already have a site, there is someone in the membership with the talent (and server space) to put one up for y’all—and will prob’ly enjoy doin’ it. This is mucho important. The last several new members we’ve garnered have found us on the web. Oh, and when you have that site up, don’t forget about it. Make danged sure that the date, time, and place of the meeting is listed in bold letters on the home page, and that, come hell or high water, it is updated every month.
Who do you recruit, by the way? While I think the Great American Astronomy Club is in fairly good health, a snapshot of the membership of all too many groups will show not all is rosy. That snapshot will often reveal a bunch of faces that are white, male, and older. There is nothing wrong with any of those things, your Unk bein’ a member in good standin’ of that demographic, but if you, like most of us, want to see your club prosper and thrive and survive after your time on this Pebble in the Sky is done, you have to move beyond that group.
We’ve made fairly good strides in gaining women converts, but need to do more in that regard. Youth? In addition to actively recruiting them, what will stand us in best stead there is figuring out how to keep them. If you’ve got a youngster who’s all fired up about computers and Internet telescopes, encourage her to give a presentation or chair a committee. Don’t relegate the kids to the back row. Make sure they are in on the action even to the extent of serving as officers. When it comes to minority representation in clubs and amateur astronomy, we are really hurtin’, brothers and sisters, hurtin’ bad. What will change that? Getting the word out on amateur astronomy to EVERYBODY. Do you provide astronomy outreach services to inner city schools? On a regular basis? Do you hold general public events in areas accessible to the minority community? Do you announce your meetings in media targeted at these folks? If not, get to it and right now.
Newsletter
Every club needs a newsletter, correct? Well, maybe. Oh, that used to be true, but these days, when even the PSAS has a dadgummed website, not so much. The website performs most of the functions that used to be done by the newsletter: meeting and other event reminders, listings of upcoming star parties, pictures and general news items about the club. Still, if you want to do a newsletter, there is no reason not to. If you have a person in your club who’s become afflicted with the astronomy-writin’ bug, a newsletter can be a beautiful thing. I got my start by writing stories for club papers, and I’m still as proud of those articles as I am of anything else I have written. If you do decide to do a newsletter, I strongly recommend you keep it simple; otherwise, it will become an albatross around somebody’s neck before all is said and done.
The way to keep it simple is to forget hardcopies and stamps and mailing. Those things are incredibly expensive and time consuming, and today are a drag on club resources for no good reason. If you want to do a newsletter, do it however you want on the computer: with a fancy desktop publisher or just with Microsoft Word. Make it as pretty or as utilitarian as you want, but DO NOT PRINT IT. Save it as an Adobe Acrobat file (Word 2007 will do that, and so will many free/cheap utilities). When you are ready to “publish,” post it on the club website if you have one, or email it as an attachment to your membership if you don’t. Yes, almost every club has a few members who don’t do email or Internet for various reasons. These people are easy to accommodate. Print out a few copies and have them on hand at meetings. I’ve easily weaned all but two or three of our folks off the printed newsletters.
Keeping in Touch
How do you email all them club members? At one time I maintained an extensive mailing list in Microsoft Outlook. Till one day I said to myself, “Self, it’s a lot of work to keep this mailin’ list current. There has gotta be a better way.” ‘Deed there was, and it was right in front of my nose: Yahoogroups. Most of y’all are well acquainted with these mailing lists. You join one and thenceforth receive all the messages everybody in the group posts. You can elect to get these via email, or just read them on the World Wide Web. It’s free, too, a big drawin’ card for Unk. As quickly as I could, I transitioned everybody from the old mailin’ list to the PSAS Yahoogroup. What a work-load reduction! The most beautiful thing? I don’t have to manage the list, the members do that themselves. Individuals subscribe or unsubscribe as they see fit. Many of the folks who don’t like email are happy with reading the group messages on the web. There are also a lot of frills that are even more useful for clubs than they are to the usual discussion groups. Your “Eyepiece Caps Uncensored” Yahoogroup prob’ly don’t have much use for upcoming event reminders, but bein’ able to set up a reminder message about the monthly meetin’ that is sent to everybody automatically a few days prior is sweet, real sweet, muchachos.
Dark Site
Business meetings can be fun, but amateur astronomy is about observing, and that’s what your club should be about too. Every astronomical society needs a dark site where members can observe as a group every single month. Even moreso than good meetings, a good dark site can keep a club alive through thick and thin. What’s a good dark site? That is for y’all to decide, but my opinion is what’s more important than “super dark” is “accessible” and “safe.” If you’ve got a decently dark site within an hour’s drive for most members, a site that is comfortable and secure, that’s highly preferable in my opinion to a location that is distant and prone to “trouble.” Unfortunately, the countryside is not as peaceful as it used to be, with out of the way dark spots sometimes frequented by the bottom feeders of the meth trade. The dark site subject cries out for an entire article, and I’ll do that sometime soon.
Public Outreach
Most clubs do public outreach programs. They do them for a couple of reasons. The average amateur just likes showin’ off sky and scopes to the public, and most of us believe we are providing a vital public service in the bargain. It is no secret the United States is troubled by significant math/science illiteracy (which also deserves an entire article), and introducing Mom and Pop and Bud and Sis to astronomy is our little contribution to the fight against the encroaching darkness of superstition and ignorance. The added benefit, as I’ve already said, is that public outreach is an excellent scouting opportunity if you’re lookin’ for new members. It’s also a bonding experience for your existing members: us out there together with a few scopes facin’ a few thousand eager kids and adults. In my opinion, every single club should be doin’ at least a couple of major public star parties a year, if not more. And most do. However, let us not lose sight of the fact that just because you and me and Little Sister like to work with the public, that don’t mean all amateurs do. Some just do not like dealin’ with the public for one reason or another, and should not be pushed into participating. Certainly I think it is a mistake in most instances for a club to be focused entirely or almost entirely on public outreach. Do not lose sight of the fact that astronomy is not one pursuit, but many pursuits, and a good club should try to serve them all.
Working
All these things, public outreach, and meetings, and dark site star parties have one thing in common: they require a lot of work on somebody’s part. That “somebody” is the club’s officers. The astronomy club is ‘bout the only organization I know of where there’s a constant competition to see who can avoid holdin’ the reins of power. All too many clubs leave the same people in charge year after year after year. These officers are often highly motivated, and will tell you they enjoy the work. Eventually, though, the time comes when they burn out. Sometimes that happens with several officers at the same time—that happened to our club once. A few of the movers and shakers got tired of doin’ all the work, a few moved away, and a few dropped out. We’d gotten so used to their guidance that the club foundered and nearly died as a result.
What to do? Do your darndest to change most of your officers each year. Hold elections regularly and encourage the nomination of new faces. Yes, I know it’s sometimes impossible to get someone to sign on for a thankless job like Treasurer, but, at the very least, you can set up committees. If you can’t get Joe Amateur to agree to be Secretary, it might be possible to sign him up to be Dark Site Committee Chair, which will lessen the work load for another officer. Also good is that changing officers yearly will help break the “us and them” pattern: “us” club members come to the meeting to be entertained by “them” officers. Everyone needs to be involved in running the club, and the line between the “us” and the “them” needs to be blurry at all times.
Having Fun
All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. The main reason we are club members in the first place is to have fun as a group. One way to do that in addition to meetings, public star parties, and dark site observing runs is to do stuff like organize group expeditions. Is there a major star party somewhere nearby? Why not caravan there and set up together? Is the club in the neighboring city havin’ a ‘specially good speaker this month? Why not get together as a group and go? You don’t have to limit yourselves to astronomy events, either. One thing we down here and have done for years and have had great success with is our annual Holiday Dinner. In lieu of the normal January bidness meeting (who’s in the mood for that after New Year’s?), we meet at a local restaurant. We keep it simple, with everybody payin’ for their own food and drinks, but arrange a backroom or at least a table for the club beforehand. Not only is it fun to enjoy the waning of the holiday season and ring in another year with your good buddies, it’s surprising’ what you can learn about/from your fellow observers after they get a little whiskey in ‘em.Every club is different, just like every amateur astronomer is different. I am not sayin’ I have all the answers when it comes to keepin’ your club healty, I don’t, but I will say the broad brush strokes of what I have been yakkin’ about will work for you too, no doubt about it. If I had to boil my club philosophy all the way down? Informal is better than formal. Inclusive is better than exclusive. Short is better than long. Active is better than inactive, and a little fun is better than a lot of seriousness.
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Sunday, June 07, 2009
Uncle Rod’s Telescope Hall of Fame
Hall of fame or hall of shame? Hall or fame or hall of shame? Hall of fame or hall of shame? I couldn’t decide whether this should be a “best of” or a “worst of,” as both can be illuminatin’. Eventually, I settled on “best.” Not only might that ensure I got fewer emails tellin’ me I ain’t got the sense god gave a goose, it would also mean I didn’t hurt nobody’s feelins. You see, in this old boy’s experience, every scope there has ever been is remembered fondly by some amateur, and it ain’t my intent to spoil anybody’s fond memories. You may still be hoppin’ mad that I’ve committed the sin of omission, of course, “Hell, Unk, how come you didn’t include the Fecker Celestar and the Mayflower 3-inch?” But I think you will nevertheless agree that every one of these here telescopes belongs in the Hall of Fame. Not necessarily because of optical or mechanical fineness, mind you; I’m basin’ inclusion not just on that, but also on the innovation demonstrated and the impact on you and me, Joe and Jane Amateur Astronomer.
Astronomy Technologies 66ED/William Optics 66SD 66-mm ED apochromats
If you read the previous installment of this here blog, you know how much I love the Short Tube 80-mm refractor, and that my occasional reference to this 66-mm APO as “the new Short Tube 80” is high praise. Yeah, it’s a little more expensive than the achromat, with an OTA goin’ for about $350.00 as compared to the $250.00 the ST80 commanded when it was introduced, but those dollars have shrunk over the last 13 years, and in some ways the 66 is worth the small amount of extra moola required. Yeah, it’s smaller in aperture, but it is unarguably better than my beloved 80 both optically and mechanically. On M13, which, as I noted last time, can be a tough nut for the Short Tube to crack, the 66 picks out a few stars regularly and without complaint. And it’s easier to get those few stars in focus due to a two-speed Crayford that’s worlds better than the primitive rack and pinion of the Short Tube. Your extra $$$ also wins you a retractable dew shield and, on most examples, a very serviceable and attractive case. If the Short Tube is a versatile scope, the 66 is more versatile, since it is much more capable of producing good looking CCD images thanks to its (relative) lack of chromatic aberration. Visually? Despite the smaller aperture it will take more magnification on the Moon and planets than the Short Tube and show you more.
Like the Short tube, this is an humble telescope. The Tasco 4.5-inch reflector of the 60s – 80s (made, usually, by Japan’s Towa), whether in its original white tube (TE) version or the later red tube mutation (TR) had a huge but seldom acknowledged impact on astronomy. For over twenty years, Tasco sold a scope that for most of that time was of good quality, sold for a reasonable price, and was available almost anywhere. Whether you got yours from the local department store or from the BX like Unk, what did you get? You got a spherical f/8 primary mirror that did a surprisingly good job, a small but workable GEM comparable to today’s EQ-2, and a couple of eyepieces that was passable at least (.965-inchers of course). I know I had some awesome views with the scope from the very dark skies of the northern Arkansas of the 1970s. No, the Tasco was not a fancy scope, but as I say in “The Good Tasco,” it is fondly remembered by almost everybody who owned one, and got more than a few started in a career in amateur—or professional—astronomy.
As I’ve said a time or three previous, if you were raised in the amateur astronomy of the 1960s, this was the telescope you wanted, and maybe still want. Back then? Good luck. Unless you (or your ol’ man) was Mr. Moneybags, you could prob’ly forget it. But, still, what a dream! That long (f/15) tube! That Unihex! Those zillions of eyepieces (simple .965s though they might be)! A clock drive (maybe a weight driven clock drive)! That weird and funky lookin’ astrocamera (which took 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ PLATES)! Unitron achromats reigned supreme for near ‘bout three decades; in fact, “reigned” is probably too weak. From the 1950s and into the 1970s, if you said “refractor” to an amateur astronomer it was usually understood you meant “Unitron.”
How good were they, really, though? I’ve been lucky enough to look through quite a few, and usually, though not always, the answer is “very good indeed.” No, you don’t got much field with any but the longest eyepieces, but so what? Long focal length has its uses, too, despite what I said when I was pickin'-on the Questar, and not just on the planets. Most deep sky observers tend to use too little rather than too much power. As is the case with more than one scope from the classic age, older examples tend to be better optically, but even some I’ve used from the company’s windin’ down period in the 70s have impressed me. So why not just go out and buy a new Unitron? Shocking as it would have been for us to know in the 1960s, these were Japanese scopes (a few of the larger objectives were sourced from U.S. companies); Unitron (United TRADING Company) was mostly just the importer of these beautiful instruments, which were largely made by Nihon Seiko. When the owner of that business called it quits, the components needed to make Unitrons dried up. Unitron is still around, and even has a web page with pix of a few of their beautiful scopes on it, but they don’t seem to sell much of anything.
Also Rans: Back then, I agonized over the choice of the 4-inch Model 160 Photo Equatorial or the Model 145 3-inch Photo Equatorial. I mean, that huge, long tube and non-collapsible tripod of the 4-inch… wouldn’t that be a bit much? Since I didn’t have a dog’s chance in hell of actually owning either, the answer was, “Hell no, I’ll take the 4!”
There y’all have it, Uncle Rod’s Telescope Hall of Fame. Sure I coulda kept goin’…the TV Genesis prob’ly belongs here. The Orion StarBlast too. How about the Celestron Ultima 2000? Or the Meade LX6? Surely the Palomar Junior should be there. Maybe some more cogitatin’ on my part and some suggestions on yours will give me enough candidates for a “Part 2.”
Astronomy Technologies 66ED/William Optics 66SD 66-mm ED apochromats
If you read the previous installment of this here blog, you know how much I love the Short Tube 80-mm refractor, and that my occasional reference to this 66-mm APO as “the new Short Tube 80” is high praise. Yeah, it’s a little more expensive than the achromat, with an OTA goin’ for about $350.00 as compared to the $250.00 the ST80 commanded when it was introduced, but those dollars have shrunk over the last 13 years, and in some ways the 66 is worth the small amount of extra moola required. Yeah, it’s smaller in aperture, but it is unarguably better than my beloved 80 both optically and mechanically. On M13, which, as I noted last time, can be a tough nut for the Short Tube to crack, the 66 picks out a few stars regularly and without complaint. And it’s easier to get those few stars in focus due to a two-speed Crayford that’s worlds better than the primitive rack and pinion of the Short Tube. Your extra $$$ also wins you a retractable dew shield and, on most examples, a very serviceable and attractive case. If the Short Tube is a versatile scope, the 66 is more versatile, since it is much more capable of producing good looking CCD images thanks to its (relative) lack of chromatic aberration. Visually? Despite the smaller aperture it will take more magnification on the Moon and planets than the Short Tube and show you more.
Also Rans: I’m not quite sure, since I’ve never been quite sure which Chinese scope factory(ies) produces the 66es, which are sold by a variety of vendors under their badges with differing accessories and in a wild array of colors (check out the paintjob on my 66, William Optics’ “Patriot Edition”). Closest competitor that appears to be made by somebody else is likely StellarVue’s sweet 70-mm ED.
AstroPhysics f/12 Super Planetary Refractor
I could easily have put any AP here: a 150EDF or any of the Starfires, the Traveler, you name it; they are all beautiful, finely made, and reasonably priced. And yet, this late 80s scope is the one I’ve always fancied (I never got around to puttin’ myself on the waitin’ list for one and it’s long been too late to correct that). Maybe the color correction on this and Roland’s other earlier scopes wasn’t quite as marvelous as on the newer ones, but at the Super Planetary’s f/12 you’ll never know that. The few I’ve used have been essentially perfect in that regard. But it’s not just that. With that long tube, this one truly looks like your retro Uncle’s conception of what a lens scope should be. No, it’s maybe not quite as delicious as a Unitron, but it’s right up there. And good luck gettin’ a 6-inch Unitron. The few that were made were priced in the stratosphere (7000 heavy dollars in the 1970s), and you can imagine what one would command now. The Super Planetary? An insanely reasonable $1500 for the OTA. Put one on a sufficient mount, turn it to Jupe, and prepare for a jaw-droppin’ experience. For me there’s just something about a high focal ratio 6-inch of any kind that warms the cockles of me little heart, and this one jus’ about sets it on fire.
Also Rans: As far as I know, there is not a refractor around at this time that resembles the Super Planetary, combining long focal length and an apochromatic lens. Sure, you can get some big, long refractors from D&G, but they’re achromats.
Cave Astrola 8-inch
The 1960s and (early) 1970s were the golden age of the commercially produced Newtonian telescope. There were quite a few jewels to choose from—Optical Craftsmen and Starliner come to mind. More than anybody else, though, there was Cave, the telescopes remembered thirty years after their heyday as bein’ the pinnacle of the Newt Maker’s art. If you wanted and could pay for better than Edmund and Criterion, you went to Tom Cave for one of his “Astrolas.” Not only was he a master observer who knew what constituted a good telescope, he was perceptive when it came to hirin’ the best people, legendary mirror maker Alika Herring, for example. Cave produced Newtonians in apertures from 6-inches up to a gigantic 18.5-inches. I know the word “gigantic” might seem inappropriate when describin’ a “mere” 18-inch scope in these days of big Dobs, but take my word for it, an 18-inch f/20 Cave on a GEM was a towering beast. Cave made Cassegrains, too, which were almost as highly regarded as the Newtonians. For most amateurs, though, the Astrola to have was one of the 8-inch models. Lots of light gatherin’ compared to the 4 and 6-inch telescopes we’d cut our teeth on, but relatively affordable and relatively portable compared to the larger Caves, which even at 10-inches were getting’ big enough to make haulin’ ‘em around a pain even if you owned that fabled Chevy Van.
My fave, and the one I finally ended up owning briefly was the 8-inch Deluxe. If I’d admired Edmunds and Criterions in the past and thought ‘em “beautiful,” this was a scope in a whole ‘nother class. Audrey Hepburn compared to Jayne Mansfield. White fiberglass tube (Parks), a rack and pinion focuser that left the Space Conquerors and RV-6es in the dust, primary and secondary mounts that did the same, a 50-mm finder, a big and (fairly) steady GEM on a hefty pier, a clock drive good enough for imaging (maybe), three Orthoscopic eyepieces, and—well, you get the picture. The telescopes were as good working as they were good looking. Yeah, some folks think some Cave years are better than others, and that quality began to slide as the 70s got underway, but I can testify that my 70s Deluxe produced great images. So why did I sell my Cave after owning it for barely a year?
The answer is simple: amateur astronomy for me and for most amateurs changed in the 1970s. We went from observing mostly the Moon and planets and Messiers to focusing on the deeper deep sky, following in Scotty Houston’s footsteps. Certainly a Cave is as capable of producing good deep sky images as any other telescope, but in the 70s, the problem was becoming getting the telescope to a spot where you could see those objects. Whether in Possum Swamp, or my adopted home of Little Rock, Arkansas, I had to pack the scope in the car and drive an hour or three to get to truly dark skies. Imagine, if you will, the pain involved in wrestling an 85-pound Cave Newtonian from my upstairs apartment, into the back seat of a Dodge Dart, and doing the same thing in reverse at 3 a.m. on a 20 degree Arkansas morning. It wasn’t just portability, either. I and many of my brother and sister amateurs were now obsessed by taking pictures of the deep sky. A Cave could do that—Evered Kreimer proved that in spades—but not without a lot of modifying and fussin’. One o’ them new-fangled C8s was just about astrophotography ready out of the box, and was as portable as portable can be. Which was why I sold the Cave for an Orange Tube. And have never looked back. I respect the Caves but I do not miss them.
Also Rans: Sure, everybody wanted a Cave 12 or 16, but who could afford that? The 8-inch hit the mark, and nobody, not even Starliner nor Optical Craftsmen, much less Criterion or Edmund, did one better—or as good.
Celestron Orange Tube C8
In some ways, this is the ultimate legend, the scope that, with the Dobsonian, rang in modern amateur astronomy. Sure, it’s possible to argue that the predecessors to the Orange Tubes, the Blue and White Celestrons of the 1960s, are more deserving of Hall of Fame Status. They were, in many ways better telescopes, with superior drives and a zero image shift focusing system. They were also the telescopes that cracked the code (thanks to Celestron owner Tom Johnson) when it came to mass producing Schmidt Cassegrains. The problem was that they were very expensive. Few Blue and White C8s were made, and next size up, the C10, cost dern near as much as a Volkswagen Beetle. The Orange Tube didn’t introduce the mass produced Schmidt Cassegrain, it just made it affordable. Sort of, anyway. You still had to fork over 1000 dense 70s dollars by the time you paid for “options” like a tripod, and I couldn’t afford one until I was in my mid-20s—and then only just. It was worth it, though, to finally experience a telescope that wasn’t just portable, but adaptable. Astrophotography was only the beginning. Almost anything astronomical that can be imagined can be done with a C8, from peeping at a fat gibbous Moon to taking the spectra of distant stars.
Also Rans: From Celestron? We thought the C5 was nice, and admired the C11 and C14 when they came along, but neither stole our hearts like the C8. The C8 had absolutely no challengers for a decade, not until Meade released their 2080, which was at least somewhat of an advance, bein’ equipped with a (semi) worm gear drive.
Coulter Odyssey I (13.1-inch) Blue Tube
Jim Braginton’s humble 13.1-inch Odyssey Dobsonian won’t win any optical prizes. Oh, it’s usually good enough; especially if you run it at low power, or, as Jim used to say, at “visual equalization.” Contrary to what he used to preach, though, low power is not always good for deep sky observing. Whether it’s appropriate or not depends on the object in question, but it sure does help cover up optical sins. It was no secret even In The Day that when you were buying one of Coulter’s telescopes you were not buying optical fineness and planetary performance, you were buyin’ pure and simple aperture horsepower that would allow you to see things you’d never seen before and see things you had seen before in a wholly different way. The Odyssey I is a true classic for that single reason.
The 1960s and (early) 1970s were the golden age of the commercially produced Newtonian telescope. There were quite a few jewels to choose from—Optical Craftsmen and Starliner come to mind. More than anybody else, though, there was Cave, the telescopes remembered thirty years after their heyday as bein’ the pinnacle of the Newt Maker’s art. If you wanted and could pay for better than Edmund and Criterion, you went to Tom Cave for one of his “Astrolas.” Not only was he a master observer who knew what constituted a good telescope, he was perceptive when it came to hirin’ the best people, legendary mirror maker Alika Herring, for example. Cave produced Newtonians in apertures from 6-inches up to a gigantic 18.5-inches. I know the word “gigantic” might seem inappropriate when describin’ a “mere” 18-inch scope in these days of big Dobs, but take my word for it, an 18-inch f/20 Cave on a GEM was a towering beast. Cave made Cassegrains, too, which were almost as highly regarded as the Newtonians. For most amateurs, though, the Astrola to have was one of the 8-inch models. Lots of light gatherin’ compared to the 4 and 6-inch telescopes we’d cut our teeth on, but relatively affordable and relatively portable compared to the larger Caves, which even at 10-inches were getting’ big enough to make haulin’ ‘em around a pain even if you owned that fabled Chevy Van.
My fave, and the one I finally ended up owning briefly was the 8-inch Deluxe. If I’d admired Edmunds and Criterions in the past and thought ‘em “beautiful,” this was a scope in a whole ‘nother class. Audrey Hepburn compared to Jayne Mansfield. White fiberglass tube (Parks), a rack and pinion focuser that left the Space Conquerors and RV-6es in the dust, primary and secondary mounts that did the same, a 50-mm finder, a big and (fairly) steady GEM on a hefty pier, a clock drive good enough for imaging (maybe), three Orthoscopic eyepieces, and—well, you get the picture. The telescopes were as good working as they were good looking. Yeah, some folks think some Cave years are better than others, and that quality began to slide as the 70s got underway, but I can testify that my 70s Deluxe produced great images. So why did I sell my Cave after owning it for barely a year?
The answer is simple: amateur astronomy for me and for most amateurs changed in the 1970s. We went from observing mostly the Moon and planets and Messiers to focusing on the deeper deep sky, following in Scotty Houston’s footsteps. Certainly a Cave is as capable of producing good deep sky images as any other telescope, but in the 70s, the problem was becoming getting the telescope to a spot where you could see those objects. Whether in Possum Swamp, or my adopted home of Little Rock, Arkansas, I had to pack the scope in the car and drive an hour or three to get to truly dark skies. Imagine, if you will, the pain involved in wrestling an 85-pound Cave Newtonian from my upstairs apartment, into the back seat of a Dodge Dart, and doing the same thing in reverse at 3 a.m. on a 20 degree Arkansas morning. It wasn’t just portability, either. I and many of my brother and sister amateurs were now obsessed by taking pictures of the deep sky. A Cave could do that—Evered Kreimer proved that in spades—but not without a lot of modifying and fussin’. One o’ them new-fangled C8s was just about astrophotography ready out of the box, and was as portable as portable can be. Which was why I sold the Cave for an Orange Tube. And have never looked back. I respect the Caves but I do not miss them.
Also Rans: Sure, everybody wanted a Cave 12 or 16, but who could afford that? The 8-inch hit the mark, and nobody, not even Starliner nor Optical Craftsmen, much less Criterion or Edmund, did one better—or as good.
Celestron Orange Tube C8
In some ways, this is the ultimate legend, the scope that, with the Dobsonian, rang in modern amateur astronomy. Sure, it’s possible to argue that the predecessors to the Orange Tubes, the Blue and White Celestrons of the 1960s, are more deserving of Hall of Fame Status. They were, in many ways better telescopes, with superior drives and a zero image shift focusing system. They were also the telescopes that cracked the code (thanks to Celestron owner Tom Johnson) when it came to mass producing Schmidt Cassegrains. The problem was that they were very expensive. Few Blue and White C8s were made, and next size up, the C10, cost dern near as much as a Volkswagen Beetle. The Orange Tube didn’t introduce the mass produced Schmidt Cassegrain, it just made it affordable. Sort of, anyway. You still had to fork over 1000 dense 70s dollars by the time you paid for “options” like a tripod, and I couldn’t afford one until I was in my mid-20s—and then only just. It was worth it, though, to finally experience a telescope that wasn’t just portable, but adaptable. Astrophotography was only the beginning. Almost anything astronomical that can be imagined can be done with a C8, from peeping at a fat gibbous Moon to taking the spectra of distant stars.Also Rans: From Celestron? We thought the C5 was nice, and admired the C11 and C14 when they came along, but neither stole our hearts like the C8. The C8 had absolutely no challengers for a decade, not until Meade released their 2080, which was at least somewhat of an advance, bein’ equipped with a (semi) worm gear drive.
Coulter Odyssey I (13.1-inch) Blue Tube
Jim Braginton’s humble 13.1-inch Odyssey Dobsonian won’t win any optical prizes. Oh, it’s usually good enough; especially if you run it at low power, or, as Jim used to say, at “visual equalization.” Contrary to what he used to preach, though, low power is not always good for deep sky observing. Whether it’s appropriate or not depends on the object in question, but it sure does help cover up optical sins. It was no secret even In The Day that when you were buying one of Coulter’s telescopes you were not buying optical fineness and planetary performance, you were buyin’ pure and simple aperture horsepower that would allow you to see things you’d never seen before and see things you had seen before in a wholly different way. The Odyssey I is a true classic for that single reason.
What was it like? If you want details, have a look at my article “Meade Forever” but the equation is purty simple: 13.1-inches of aperture + $395.00 = compromises. Those compromises included not just optical, but mechanical ones. Whether we are talkin’ the Blue Tube or the less good Red Tube that replaced the original as the 90s came in, we are talkin’ “cobbled together, simple as simple can be and still be called ‘telescope’.” Nevertheless, amateurs loved the Odyssey I, and it is easy to see why. For folks used to observin’ M13 in a 6 or 8-inch telescope, the Great Glob in a 13-inch, especially from a dark site, was, to put it mildly, a revelation. These big, gawky, but loveable telescopes will never win any design awards, but they did what they needed to do, turn a whole lotta boys ‘n girls on to the beauties of the Great Out There.
Also Rans: Really weren’t none from this company. The 29-inch wasn’t around long enough to have any effect on amateur astronomy, even if it hadn’t been so dadgummed big and heavy. The 17.1-inch Odyssey II was still too big and too heavy, and usually had optics considerably worse than those of the 13.1. The 10-inch wasn’t so much cheaper that we would want to settle for it. The 8-inch? With that we was back in C8 territory, and there was no way Jim Braginton’s 8 could compete with Tom Johnson’s—‘cept on price, o’ course. Today? It’s Dob heaven thanks to the Chinese telescope invasion; take your pick from ultra cheap to purty dern good.
Criterion RV-6 Dynascope 6-inch f/8 Newtonian
If you hang out where classic scope fanatics gather, especially where classic reflecting telescope fans gather, you may at first be surprised that ever’body talks about the Criterion RV-6 Dynascope 6-inch f/8, but almost nobody talks about the (nearly identical) Edmund 6-inch f/8, the Super Space Conqueror. Not only do the two scopes look right similar, they are similarly equipped with eyepieces, clock drives, and good optics. Hell, the mirrors are from the same maker, Upco. So why? Most of all, I reckon, because there are more RV-6es around. Criterion sold more six inch telescopes than Edmund did. Mostly, I suspect, because their advertising was better. Through the 1960s and into the 1970s, the RV-6 occupied a full splash page almost every month in Sky and Telescope, while the Super Space Conqueror was usually confined to a postage stamp sized area of one of Edmund’s multi-product ads.
There was more to it than that, of course. The RV-6, which debuted in 1959, wasn’t a whole lot better than the SSC, but it was some better for almost the same price. The focuser, finder, and drive were just a tad nicer than those of the Edmund. You also got to choose your three eyepieces from a wide selection, which even included some Orthoscopics. The RV-6’s tube was at least semi-rotatable while the Edmund’s wasn’t, which caused the Space Conqueror’s eyepiece to assume some wicked bad angles in some areas of the sky. For whatever reason, amateurs just liked the RV-6 and still do. It is still capable of producing fine images within the limits imposed by its somewhat small aperture, and lives on not just as a collector’s item, but as a working telescope.
Also Rans: Criterion produced a full line of Newtonians including an 8-inch and a 12-inch. The RV-8 8-inch is prob’ly the company’s other sweet spot, right behind the RV-6. I know my Bubba Phil Harrington still loves and uses his. The 12? I’ve used one frequently and both mount and optics seem a little subpar compared to the other RVs.
Edmund Scientific Astroscan 4-inch f/4 Newtonian
I began noticing this weird lookin’ little scope not long after its debut in 1977 as a no-name RFT. It was hard to miss, since Edmund hadn’t had ads as strikin’ in years, if ever. The telescope didn’t remain anonymous for long, either, with Edmund soon runnin’ a contest to name the little bugger, eventually settlin’ on “Astroscan 2001.” As the new century approached, the no-longer-spacey “2001” was dropped, but the telescope remained and remains the same. It is a 4-inch Newtonian in a sealed tube (the optical window on the end is just that, a flat—more or less—optical window; this is a straight Newtonian). The most innovative thing about it? Edmund adapted the “bowling ball telescope” that ATMs had been making for years into something mass produceable and light and very manageable. A little tube that could be aimed anywhere in the sky sittin’ in its proto-Dobsonian cast-aluminum base or easily handheld—CUDDLED—at low power.
I began noticing this weird lookin’ little scope not long after its debut in 1977 as a no-name RFT. It was hard to miss, since Edmund hadn’t had ads as strikin’ in years, if ever. The telescope didn’t remain anonymous for long, either, with Edmund soon runnin’ a contest to name the little bugger, eventually settlin’ on “Astroscan 2001.” As the new century approached, the no-longer-spacey “2001” was dropped, but the telescope remained and remains the same. It is a 4-inch Newtonian in a sealed tube (the optical window on the end is just that, a flat—more or less—optical window; this is a straight Newtonian). The most innovative thing about it? Edmund adapted the “bowling ball telescope” that ATMs had been making for years into something mass produceable and light and very manageable. A little tube that could be aimed anywhere in the sky sittin’ in its proto-Dobsonian cast-aluminum base or easily handheld—CUDDLED—at low power.
And I ain't got one because? Once I got over my doubts as to the efficacy of an RFT, there remained some mutterings I heard about the quality of the scope. Yes, it offered an insanely expansive wide field, but at f/4 most eyepieces tended to turn ugly even fairly far out from the field edge. That wasn’t the worst though: Images would likely degrade the longer you had the scope and the more you hauled it around. The Astroscan couldn’t be collimated by end users (!), and the mirror mounting scheme meant it wouldn’t hold collimation over the long run. You could have Edmund re-collimate it for you, but by the time UPS got done with it on its return voyage, it would likely be “out” again. Basic optical quality of the 4-inch parabolic primary could vary, too, especially as the years of production rolled on. I pitted a mid-production A-scan against my Short Tube 80, and the 80, despite its aperture disadvantage, kicked the Edmund’s booty all over the field. Last and least (good), the Astroscan’s focuser was—no way to mince words on this—t-r-a-s-h.
Nevertheless, this is such a convenient and easy to handle telescope that it still is and probably will long remain popular. Get one out under the Milky Way, cradle it in your arms, start Astro-Scanning, and all those daunting minuses just evaporate. I still may buy one one o’ these days. I ought to. If rumors are correct and Edmund (the new Edmund, “Scientifics” which bought the consumer division of our old friend some years ago) comes out with one with a collimateable primary, I prob’ly will.
Also Rans: Nuttin’ from Edmund, who ain’t much interested in scopes these days, and little from anybody else. Bushnell has sold an Astroscan clone, but despite an adjustable primary, this one don’t make it. I mean, come on, a spherical primary at f/4.5? I don’t think so! The closest competitor is the Orion StarBlast, which offers a quality mirror in an adjustable cell. It is not really suited to hand-holding, though, bein’ best in its micro-Dob mount.
Meade ETX 90-mm MCT
When John Diebel and company began this project, “ETX” stood for “Everybody’s Telescope,” and in many ways it is that. Not that everybody greeted it with open arms. When the ETX-90 first appeared in Meade’s ad spreads in 1996, the reaction of the more cynical among us was, “Ho, ho, ho, Meade is tryin’ to clone the Questar 3.5, what a laugh!” And in truth, that was exactly what they was tryin’ to do with this ETX, 90-mms of f/14 Gregory Maksutov on a little fork mount which sported tiny screw-in legs, jus’ like the real deal. It soon became apparent that it was a rather pale imitation of its inspiration in most ways: the fork mount and drive base were plastic, and there was a small and insufficient finder rather than the Questar’s elegant built-in finder system.
Despite all that, Meade sold plenty of ETX 90s and continues to sell plenty. Why? Like the Q3.5, it’s small, cute, and portable. Most surprisingly for the jaded amongst us, the ETX optics, if not quite in J.R. Cumberland territory, are close, very close. Yeah, lots o’ plastic, but for the price of a Questar, you could replace your ETX ten times. Oh, and at least the ETX 90 came with a battery powered drive rather than an AC synchro like its role model. Again, the ETX is not as “good” as the Questar. It’s a Timex to the Questar’s Omega, but its images are (usually) just about as sharp as those of a Q, and just about anybody can afford an ETX. That, my friends, is what is known as “Having Your Cake and Eating it Too.”
Also Rans: The 90 is cute, but I actually prefer the 125 ETX. It is admittedly more of a handful, bein’ almost as awkward to waltz into the backyard in one go as a C8, but those 5-inch MCT optics? Yum!
Meade LX200 Classic 10-inch
There is no way, Pards, no way in hell, anybody could discuss classic and groundbreaking telescopes without countin’ the LX200 “Classic” among the anointed. Not that it was that innovative in design. It built on the technology Celestron had pioneered with the Compustars, maybe roundin’ off a few sharp edges, but not breakin’ much new ground. What was revolutionary about the Classic was that it made that technology affordable. Not that there weren’t a few disbelievers when it burst onto the amateur astronomy landscape toward the end of 1992. Although the big advertisements tended to minimize the fact that the scope would automatically go-to an amazing 747 objects, stressing, instead, the quality of drive, mount and forks, ol’ eagle eye Unk put two and two together: “Ah ha! Meade’s doin’ a dadgummed computer scope. Never work. If it does it won’t work reliably. If it does work reliably, real amateurs STAR HOP anyway!”
Despite all that, Meade sold plenty of ETX 90s and continues to sell plenty. Why? Like the Q3.5, it’s small, cute, and portable. Most surprisingly for the jaded amongst us, the ETX optics, if not quite in J.R. Cumberland territory, are close, very close. Yeah, lots o’ plastic, but for the price of a Questar, you could replace your ETX ten times. Oh, and at least the ETX 90 came with a battery powered drive rather than an AC synchro like its role model. Again, the ETX is not as “good” as the Questar. It’s a Timex to the Questar’s Omega, but its images are (usually) just about as sharp as those of a Q, and just about anybody can afford an ETX. That, my friends, is what is known as “Having Your Cake and Eating it Too.”
Also Rans: The 90 is cute, but I actually prefer the 125 ETX. It is admittedly more of a handful, bein’ almost as awkward to waltz into the backyard in one go as a C8, but those 5-inch MCT optics? Yum!
Meade LX200 Classic 10-inch
There is no way, Pards, no way in hell, anybody could discuss classic and groundbreaking telescopes without countin’ the LX200 “Classic” among the anointed. Not that it was that innovative in design. It built on the technology Celestron had pioneered with the Compustars, maybe roundin’ off a few sharp edges, but not breakin’ much new ground. What was revolutionary about the Classic was that it made that technology affordable. Not that there weren’t a few disbelievers when it burst onto the amateur astronomy landscape toward the end of 1992. Although the big advertisements tended to minimize the fact that the scope would automatically go-to an amazing 747 objects, stressing, instead, the quality of drive, mount and forks, ol’ eagle eye Unk put two and two together: “Ah ha! Meade’s doin’ a dadgummed computer scope. Never work. If it does it won’t work reliably. If it does work reliably, real amateurs STAR HOP anyway!”
Sure, I hadn’t seen an LX200 in the flesh, but so what? My mind (such as it was) was made up. Until, just a little while later, a fellow club member in search of a new scope took the plunge and ordered a 10-inch LX200. Out at our old Hurly, Mississippi dark site on one chilly fall eve, I was prepared for disaster. My buddy, set up his admittedly pretty blue-tube CAT, turned on the power, zipped it around with the hand controller a bit, and beckoned, “Take her for a spin, Rod.” After a minimal amount of instruction, I was punchin’ in “M15,” and inititatin’ somethin’ that sounded like the coffee grinder down to the A&P. When the racket ceased, I put my eye to the eyepiece. HOLY SMOKES! Not only was M15 centered, it was sharp and beautifully resolved. And so it went for the rest of the evenin’, one object after another, prob’ly more than I could have starhopped to in a week. Was I a convert? You bet. It was still a few years before I switched over to go-to myself, but I have, and the Classic is responsible for that—and for me seein’ far more over the intervenin’ years than I would have by fumblin’ around with a Telrad and Sky Atlas 2000.
Also Rans: There was also the 8-inch LX200 Classic, and, after a while, a 12-inch and a 16-inch. But the 10 was the winnin’ filly. Its optics seemed a bit better than those of the smaller scope, not just light gatherin’ wise, but quality wise, and it was generally more problem-free than either big sister. Not surprisingly, Meade sold more 10s than any of the other LX200s (maybe even combined).
Questar 3.5
Some of ya’ll don’t think I pay sufficient obeisance to this most hoary and legendary of all amateur telescopes, the Questar 3.5-inch Maksutov. Not that that matters much, since obviously somebody must like it or the Questar Corporation of New Hope, Pennsylvania would not have been able to keep sellin’ these expensive scopes (four grand plus) year after year for more than half a century. It ain’t true, anyhow, as I’ve acknowledged this as a genuine and beautiful classic in my SCT books and in my Used Guide. Do I think the Questar is a good choice for everybody? Now that is another kettle of fish.
In some ways, the Questar is still innovative. No one has ever equaled its “control box,” which allows you at the flick of a lever to switch the eyepiece between the undertube finder, the main scope, and a Barlowed main scope. The dewshield is built in, and, like the rest of the Q, lovely. How my mouth has watered at the dewshield’s engraved star map and the tube’s engraved Moon map. The whole thing fits in a beautiful leather case, and the build quality is such that you will hand the Questar down to your children and grandchildren. The optics (made now as in the past by J.R. Cumberland) are exquisite, with it bein’ (almost) unheard of for anything the least bit subpar to slip out of Cumberland or Questar and make it to a customer.
In some ways, the Questar is still innovative. No one has ever equaled its “control box,” which allows you at the flick of a lever to switch the eyepiece between the undertube finder, the main scope, and a Barlowed main scope. The dewshield is built in, and, like the rest of the Q, lovely. How my mouth has watered at the dewshield’s engraved star map and the tube’s engraved Moon map. The whole thing fits in a beautiful leather case, and the build quality is such that you will hand the Questar down to your children and grandchildren. The optics (made now as in the past by J.R. Cumberland) are exquisite, with it bein’ (almost) unheard of for anything the least bit subpar to slip out of Cumberland or Questar and make it to a customer.
Beauty is only skin deep, though, even with telescopes. Those optics, while exquisite, yeah, are small. A 600 buck Orion 5-inch MCT will show you much more. For all its beauty, this is not a very versatile scope, either. It is a long focal length MCT with a naturally narrow field. The average 1000 dollar 4-inch Chinese APO will do a lot more. Yes, the Questar does have that cute little fork mount, but while cute, it can be awkward. The drive base interferes with the tube when you are trying to view objects in the far south if your latitude is low, and those silky slow motion controls are not always backlash free. Oh, and forget those cute little tripod legs that screw into the base. They are useless. You will need a substantial tripod to provide sufficient support for this long focal length baby, something which tends to abrogate the “observatory in a case” mantra of Questar lovers. Drive electronics? There ain’t no stinkin’ electronics on the base model. With that you get an AC synchro motor jus’ like in 1954.
And yet…and yet… I still want an Omega Speedmaster Pro watch, though I know an humble Casio or Timex will likely keep better time. Sometimes, muchchachos, you gotta take the whole gestalt o’ the thing into account. As I said in Choosing and Using a New CAT, I sometimes daydream myself onto a desert isle, Questar at my side and cold drink in my hand, waiting on the beginning of a long total eclipse. So why don’t I stop wantin’ and do something about it? I defer to Mr. Spock’s opinion: “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
Also Rans: Questar also sells a 7-inch MCT, but its price has prevented it from being anything but a pretty curiosity. The (no longer produced) 12-inch Q? Its sky-high price tag made it not just rare, but R-A-R-E. Optical Technologies Incorporated set out to out Questar Questar in the 1970s, selling a whole range of Maks with Cumberland optics. In just a few years, though, they found out there is only room for one Questar in the telescope bidness, and that that wasn’t them.
Synta Short Tube 80
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I reckon. Unlike the Questar, Synta’s Short Tube 80-mm f/5 refractor is not here because it is beautiful or finely made, it ain’t. It is here because thousands of amateurs have found it highly useful and fun and because it is so cheap (less than $250.00) that almost every amateur can have one and most do. For a complete rundown on the small wonder, see last week’s blog entry. Here, I’ll just say, as I did last week, that this is a versatile scope that delivers images as good as can be expected from a fast achromat. I hang on to mine because it’s continually making itself handy: as an uber portable grab ‘n go, as a capable guide scope, as an excellent wide field visual instrument, as a passable wide field imager. This adaptability is what makes it more useful to me than my ETX (or my imaginary Questar 3.5). That and the fact that it is so cheap and sturdy that I don’t have to worry about babyin’ it. I’ll toss it in the back of the car for a weekend at the beach, and leave it in the motel room without frettin’ about it possibly bein’ stolen by some denizen of the Redneck Riviera.
Also Rans: Orion sold a (non-Synta) Short Tube 90 for a while, and Synta still produces 100, 120, and 150-mm f/5 achromats. All have their fans, but the 80 is by far the best.
Tasco 11TE (or TR)
Like the Short tube, this is an humble telescope. The Tasco 4.5-inch reflector of the 60s – 80s (made, usually, by Japan’s Towa), whether in its original white tube (TE) version or the later red tube mutation (TR) had a huge but seldom acknowledged impact on astronomy. For over twenty years, Tasco sold a scope that for most of that time was of good quality, sold for a reasonable price, and was available almost anywhere. Whether you got yours from the local department store or from the BX like Unk, what did you get? You got a spherical f/8 primary mirror that did a surprisingly good job, a small but workable GEM comparable to today’s EQ-2, and a couple of eyepieces that was passable at least (.965-inchers of course). I know I had some awesome views with the scope from the very dark skies of the northern Arkansas of the 1970s. No, the Tasco was not a fancy scope, but as I say in “The Good Tasco,” it is fondly remembered by almost everybody who owned one, and got more than a few started in a career in amateur—or professional—astronomy.Also Rans: Nothin’ similar in the reflector realm from Tasco. The other most fondly remembered scope they sold is probably the 10TE 3-inch refractor. This was an unarguably fine instrument, but a somewhat rare one. The good, ol’ 4.5 reflector had a much larger impact due to its more reasonable balance of quality/price (the 10TE was close to 600 fat dollars).
Unitron 4-inch Photo Equatorial
As I’ve said a time or three previous, if you were raised in the amateur astronomy of the 1960s, this was the telescope you wanted, and maybe still want. Back then? Good luck. Unless you (or your ol’ man) was Mr. Moneybags, you could prob’ly forget it. But, still, what a dream! That long (f/15) tube! That Unihex! Those zillions of eyepieces (simple .965s though they might be)! A clock drive (maybe a weight driven clock drive)! That weird and funky lookin’ astrocamera (which took 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ PLATES)! Unitron achromats reigned supreme for near ‘bout three decades; in fact, “reigned” is probably too weak. From the 1950s and into the 1970s, if you said “refractor” to an amateur astronomer it was usually understood you meant “Unitron.”How good were they, really, though? I’ve been lucky enough to look through quite a few, and usually, though not always, the answer is “very good indeed.” No, you don’t got much field with any but the longest eyepieces, but so what? Long focal length has its uses, too, despite what I said when I was pickin'-on the Questar, and not just on the planets. Most deep sky observers tend to use too little rather than too much power. As is the case with more than one scope from the classic age, older examples tend to be better optically, but even some I’ve used from the company’s windin’ down period in the 70s have impressed me. So why not just go out and buy a new Unitron? Shocking as it would have been for us to know in the 1960s, these were Japanese scopes (a few of the larger objectives were sourced from U.S. companies); Unitron (United TRADING Company) was mostly just the importer of these beautiful instruments, which were largely made by Nihon Seiko. When the owner of that business called it quits, the components needed to make Unitrons dried up. Unitron is still around, and even has a web page with pix of a few of their beautiful scopes on it, but they don’t seem to sell much of anything.
Also Rans: Back then, I agonized over the choice of the 4-inch Model 160 Photo Equatorial or the Model 145 3-inch Photo Equatorial. I mean, that huge, long tube and non-collapsible tripod of the 4-inch… wouldn’t that be a bit much? Since I didn’t have a dog’s chance in hell of actually owning either, the answer was, “Hell no, I’ll take the 4!”
There y’all have it, Uncle Rod’s Telescope Hall of Fame. Sure I coulda kept goin’…the TV Genesis prob’ly belongs here. The Orion StarBlast too. How about the Celestron Ultima 2000? Or the Meade LX6? Surely the Palomar Junior should be there. Maybe some more cogitatin’ on my part and some suggestions on yours will give me enough candidates for a “Part 2.”
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Mother of All Chinese Scopes
Well, not really. As astronomically oriented and creative as the Chinese people have always been, it’s not a surprise to learn the telescope was introduced to that country way back in the 17th century, not long after it made such a big splash in Europe. By “mother of all Chinese telescopes” I mean amateur telescopes. I don’t mean the Tasco imports that began hitting our shores from Taiwan in the 80s, neither, I mean The Little Telescope That Could, the one that showed amateurs “Chinese telescope” was no longer synonymous with “cheap junk.” When this 80-mm refractor burst onto the amateur astronomy scene in the mid 90s, it was the herald of good astronomical things to come from the East. You called it, Boudreaux; I am talking about the ubiquitous Short Tube 80.
In 1968, a neighbor boy had achieved that holy grail of old time amateur astronomy. His affluent parents (relatively speakin’) had bought him a Unitron, a 60-mm on an alt-az mount. Yep, no plebeian Palomar Junior for this worthy. The folks ponied up the incredible sum of $125.00 and he ran with it straight to Unitron. What he got in return was a beautiful scope with a gleaming white tube perched on an attractive and sturdy wooden tripod. Best of all was the Unihex rotary eyepiece holder mounted on the focuser. It sported oodles of eyepieces and looked like somethin’ that belonged on one of Doc Smith’s starship bridges. I was droolin’ at the very thought of this superscope. When I finally managed to cadge a look through this beauty one evenin’ when its owner had it pointed at a gibbous Moon, I was prepared to be impressed. Lookin’ at them full page Unitron ads in every month’s Sky and Telescope had prepared me to be blown away. I pressed my eye to the eyepiece, focused up…and... “What the Hell?!”
Afore long, I had my little bird pointed at Jupiter. Due to my diagonal diagnosis the last time out, I mounted a good Celestron star diagonal, the 1.25-inch that came with my ‘95 Ultima 8. Still, I didn't know what to expect. When pointed at a planet would the little refractor sing that Jimi Hendrix moldy-oldie “Purple Haze”? Well, yeah, there was some color, but it was genuinely unobtrusive. At 133x (6mm Circle T Orthoscopic, 2x Barlow), much detail was on display. Including, by 1 a.m.--could it be?--the Great Red Spot. The GRS, pale as it was at the time, was noticed more as a "hollow" until it rotated well onto the planet. But it was easily recognizable. Earlier on, I'd watched a shadow transit of Io, and was just blown away to realize that not only could I see the shadow of the moon, a hard, black little pimple on Jove's saturnine face, but also Io’s disk as she crossed a cloud band slightly darker than herself. At modest magnifications the other Galilean moons showed as tiny but visible disks. I hadn't expected a heck of a lot on the planets from an inexpensive 80mm f/5 achro, but I was seein’ a very respectable Jupiter. And the 80 had done it from the get-go. No cool-down or warm-up wait for this baby.
This little refractor, a 3-inch f/5, seemed way too humble to give birth to a burgeoning telescope industry, yet that’s just what it did. This short focus achromat clued-in us rank and file mamas and papas that there was, or shortly would be, gold comin’ out o’ them mainland and Taiwanese telescope factories. The situation is a wee bit analogous to what it was with Japan in the 70s and 80s. Previous to that time, most of us had been suspicious of any scope stamped “made in Japan.” That was despite some incredibly fine Japanese instruments bein’ imported into the U.S. of A. during the 60s and even 50s—see my entry, “The Good Tasco,” for a few words about them Gotos and Royals. What finally got the message out on the fineness of Japanese scopes was the coming to the U.S. of Vixen under the wing of Celestron. This 80 f/5 did the same for Chinese telescopes in the 1990s with the help of Orion.
I suspect a lot of the credit for the Short Tube’s success should go to the founder and former owner of Orion (the U.S. Telescope and Binocular Center), Tim Giesler. He was no doubt searchin’ for a new product to keep him ahead of the pack in the go-go days of amateur astronomy marketing of the 1990s, and hit upon a company, Synta, who were pushing this fast achromat. In retrospect, a product like the ST80 looks like an obvious winner, but it wasn’t so obvious just a few years back. Not that amateurs hadn’t been offered telescopes of this sort before. There was a reasonably popular forerunner to the ST80 on sale as far back as the mid-80s, a 60-mm f/5 imported durin’ the comet Halley craze by Tasco, Celestron, Meade and others and sold under names as varied as “Comet Seeker,” “Cometron,” and “9VR.”
Quite a few seasoned amateurs liked these li’l scopes (made by Mizar and at least one other Japanese manufacturer) and they were point-and-shoot heaven for the tyros out to hunt down Halley. I have little doubt that more cash-strapped novices saw the comet through their modest Cometrons than their more well heeled brothers did with brand spankin’ new f/10 SCTs. Why didn’t these little scopes become more a fixture of amateur astronomy? Perhaps they were just swept out with the detritus in the wake of Halley. As with more expensive instruments during the comet’s reign, their quality varied. Or maybe the time was just not right. Maybe it took a few more years of the big Dob revolution to make Joe and Jane Amateur aware that f/5 could be a sweet thing compared to f/10. Like me, lots of observers back then was still scratchin’ their heads at the idea of an RFT (richest field telescope). How was I gonna count craterlets on the floor of Plato with a thing like that?
Whatever. Orion and Giesler correctly divined that the time was ripe in amateur astronomy for a wide field and inexpensive refractor. In 1996, Orion’s multipage color extravaganza catalogs began to feature full page spreads on the 80 f/5 that shouted its virtues to high, high heaven. Sure, like Unk, a lot of amateurs was still suspicious of a fast Chinese scope, but at the price, about $250.00 for an OTA, quite a few boys and girls was willin’ to take a chance. And soon the word began to spread. This was a quality scope that, within the limits imposed by a small, fast, achromatic objective, delivered outstandin’ images. Most frequent comment on sci.astro.amateur? “YOU GOTTA GET YOU ONE!” Turned out that even Unk, who was quite a refractorphobic in those days, was not immune to the siren song of this Visitor from the East.
Refractorphobic? Uncle Rod? Who reputedly loves all telescopes? You betcha. I’d done little more than take quick glimpses through refractors at star parties for the past 30 years, and then only at the strong prompting of their proud owners. Even the incredible lens-scope resurgence that began in the 80s and came to full flower in the 1990s thanks to Uncle Roland and Uncle Al left Unk cold. Why? I was traumatized by a refractor in the 1960s. Yeah, I heard the pluses of these telescopes bein’ preached by their fans: No cooldown! Tiny stars! No collimation! Still I wasn’t convinced. My memory had been seared by a Unitron. And not in a good way.
Quite a few seasoned amateurs liked these li’l scopes (made by Mizar and at least one other Japanese manufacturer) and they were point-and-shoot heaven for the tyros out to hunt down Halley. I have little doubt that more cash-strapped novices saw the comet through their modest Cometrons than their more well heeled brothers did with brand spankin’ new f/10 SCTs. Why didn’t these little scopes become more a fixture of amateur astronomy? Perhaps they were just swept out with the detritus in the wake of Halley. As with more expensive instruments during the comet’s reign, their quality varied. Or maybe the time was just not right. Maybe it took a few more years of the big Dob revolution to make Joe and Jane Amateur aware that f/5 could be a sweet thing compared to f/10. Like me, lots of observers back then was still scratchin’ their heads at the idea of an RFT (richest field telescope). How was I gonna count craterlets on the floor of Plato with a thing like that?
Whatever. Orion and Giesler correctly divined that the time was ripe in amateur astronomy for a wide field and inexpensive refractor. In 1996, Orion’s multipage color extravaganza catalogs began to feature full page spreads on the 80 f/5 that shouted its virtues to high, high heaven. Sure, like Unk, a lot of amateurs was still suspicious of a fast Chinese scope, but at the price, about $250.00 for an OTA, quite a few boys and girls was willin’ to take a chance. And soon the word began to spread. This was a quality scope that, within the limits imposed by a small, fast, achromatic objective, delivered outstandin’ images. Most frequent comment on sci.astro.amateur? “YOU GOTTA GET YOU ONE!” Turned out that even Unk, who was quite a refractorphobic in those days, was not immune to the siren song of this Visitor from the East.
Refractorphobic? Uncle Rod? Who reputedly loves all telescopes? You betcha. I’d done little more than take quick glimpses through refractors at star parties for the past 30 years, and then only at the strong prompting of their proud owners. Even the incredible lens-scope resurgence that began in the 80s and came to full flower in the 1990s thanks to Uncle Roland and Uncle Al left Unk cold. Why? I was traumatized by a refractor in the 1960s. Yeah, I heard the pluses of these telescopes bein’ preached by their fans: No cooldown! Tiny stars! No collimation! Still I wasn’t convinced. My memory had been seared by a Unitron. And not in a good way.
In 1968, a neighbor boy had achieved that holy grail of old time amateur astronomy. His affluent parents (relatively speakin’) had bought him a Unitron, a 60-mm on an alt-az mount. Yep, no plebeian Palomar Junior for this worthy. The folks ponied up the incredible sum of $125.00 and he ran with it straight to Unitron. What he got in return was a beautiful scope with a gleaming white tube perched on an attractive and sturdy wooden tripod. Best of all was the Unihex rotary eyepiece holder mounted on the focuser. It sported oodles of eyepieces and looked like somethin’ that belonged on one of Doc Smith’s starship bridges. I was droolin’ at the very thought of this superscope. When I finally managed to cadge a look through this beauty one evenin’ when its owner had it pointed at a gibbous Moon, I was prepared to be impressed. Lookin’ at them full page Unitron ads in every month’s Sky and Telescope had prepared me to be blown away. I pressed my eye to the eyepiece, focused up…and... “What the Hell?!”As I pulled away from the Unihex, I was able to mutter a, “Looks great, congratulations!” but I had hardly been impressed. At about 50x, Luna was far dimmer than she was in my Palomar Junior, which I hurried back to. The disk had a noticeable warm orange tone, too, rather than the pristine pure white of my Pal. It warn’t just the images that bothered me, though. The tube was beautiful. But the finder? Wasn’t a 16-mm aperture finder scope just a wee bit small? Even for a 2.4-inch telescope? And that Unihex sure was cool. But, come on, .965-inch eyepieces (there was, I believe, room on this gadget for a single 1.25-incher, but the scope hadn’t come equipped with one)? If I’d given the little telescope more of a chance, it’s possible I wouldn’t have been so disappointed. As I learned in later years, this and other quality 60-mm achromats can produce impressively sharp images. But I didn’t get another chance with the Unitron. I never got to look through it again. Didn’t want to, anyhow. It seems dumb to have condemned all refractors to perdition based on my misplaced expectations as to what a 60-mm could do, but that’s just what I did. Dumb, yeah; my single peep through a Unitron Model 114 caused me to avoid refractors like the plague for the next three decades.
So strange it was, but understandable, that Unk was considering spendin’ even a modest amount of inflated dollars for a lens telescope of any kind. Understandable? Yeah. By the end of the 90s, I was goin’ through a grab ‘n go crisis. Ever’body needs a “g-n-g,” a telescope that can be stationed near a back door for use at a moment’s notice for a quick glimpse at the Moon or a bright DSO, to hunt down a little comet, or just to use to putter around in the sky on evenins when you don’t feel like maneuvering a C8 into the light-polluted backyard. Down here in The Swamp, those nights are pretty frequent during the summer. It’s hazy, it’s hot, there are tons of mosquitoes, and the clouds are always at least incipient. It’s safe to say that if I didn’t have a grab ‘n go, I wouldn’t do too much backyard observing from May through September. In late 2000 I was without a scope that could serve in that role, and was somewhat desperate for somethin’ easier to trot out than my 12.5-inch Dob or Ultima C8.
The ST80 was, I decided, IT. If Clara Bow was the It girl, the Short Tube 80 sure was the It telescope. But the question then became, “Which Short Tube 80?” By 2000, plenty of astro-vendors had noticed Orion’s success with the little guy, and thanks to Synta, who was ready, then as now, to sell to all comers, we began seeing 80 f/5s wearin’ not just “Orion” and “Sky Watcher” badges, but “Celestron” and, believe it or not, even “L.L. Bean.” After some lookin’ and cogitatin’ I settled on an especially good deal bein’ offered by a small merchant, Eagle Optics. Eagle was a big name with the birding crowd, and they made a (too) brief foray into astronomy just at the time I was huntin’ for an 80. They was offerin’ a nice package that included a Celestron-tagged Short Tube 80 and a small but serviceable EQ-1 GEM mount. This outfit was priced not much higher than what Orion wanted for just the OTA, and there were a couple of other advantages the Eagle had over the original as well.
Back then, Orion only sold the 80 with a correct-image diagonal that, while OK for birding and other terrestrial uses, was the pits for the sky, producing ugly diffraction spikes that emanated from bright objects. The Orion’s OTA mounting scheme was also questionable, a plastic under-tube block with a ¼ 20-tpi hole in it—somethin’ that proved to be neither stable nor sturdy. In contrast, the Celestron version came with a passable 90 degree astronomical diagonal, and, instead of the mounting block, genuine tube rings. The forward tube ring even sported a ¼-20 bolt for mountin’ a piggyback camera. But it got better. Eagle also included an adapter that allowed scope and rings to be mounted on any ¼ 20-tpi device. Remove the tube rings from the EQ-1 GEM, attach ‘em to the adapter via provided holes, and voila, the 80 could ride piggyback on my SCTs or be attached to a camera tripod.
Prob’ly the greatest plus for the Eagle package, though, was the included EQ-1 mount. You would think a scope as small as the 80 f/5 would be fine on a camera tripod. Not. Surprisingly, the wee one tends to overcome all but the largest photo-video tripods. And even on substantial ones, balance is a real problem, and motions are rarely very smooth, even at low powers. On the udder hand, a small GEM like the EQ-1 allows the scope to be balanced easily, and the ability to track the stars with just the RA slow motion control means that even if this motion is not quite as smooth as what a fine fluid-head video tripod can offer, it feels that way. One of the modern alt-az mounts like the ones sold today by Orion, William Optics, and Astronomics might be even better, but even the tiniest GEM is mucho bettero than any camera tripod for this scope.
As is always the case after turning over my credit card to an astro-merchant, I spent the next week or so in an agony of anticipation: Would this small REFRACTOR be worth even the modest amount I’d paid for it? Would it turn out to be just a toy like the red-tube Chinese refractors from Tasco? I jus’ couldn’t get over the idea that a dadgummed lens-scope was on its way to me. Luckily, the agony of anticipation was relatively short-lived. Unk arrived home one 5 p.m. to discover a yellow note on the portal of Chaos Manor South. At first I thought, “Consarn it, I missed it, an’ it’s too late to make a run down to UPS.” Fortunately, though, for once the the driver had left my package with the neighbors across the street. I beat feet to Jim and Shelley’s. God only knows what they thought when they opened their door at the poundin’ to discover a wild-eyed Rod chantin’ “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!” As I trotted the surprisingly big box—near ‘bout 20-pounds—back to the ol’ manse, I found telescope jaded little ol’ me was gettin excited at the prospect of a cotton pickin’ 3-inch refractor. Before long, I had the little feller unpacked and assembled (20-minutes, tops). Relieved? Hell, I was impressed.
First off, it was cute, borderin’ on purty. The white tube of the Orion version was nice, but I thought the glossy black of the Celestron was better. It would, I figgered, look right sweet ridin’ piggyback on my Ultima C8. In addition to the OTA and GEM, some other cool things came out of the box and put the Celestron miles ahead of the Orion (back then; these days Orion sells some very nice and reasonably priced ST80 packages). Fer one thing, there was a decent if not perfect finder marked “6x30 L.E.R” on its objective end (“long eye relief” I reckon). Despite the presence of a baffle that stopped it down, images were bright and sharp inside durin’ the day and turned out to be much the same outside in the dark. There was also a single eyepiece hidin’ down amongst the Styrofoam peanuts, a 25-mm marked “Super-Modified-Achromat” or some such foolishness. In truth, it was a workable Kellner capable of fulfillin’ the role of “better than nothin’,” I suppose. All told, at less than 300 simoleons this was a nice outfit by the standards of the day. What is surprisin’ nine annums later is how much scope prices have continued to plummet. In 2009, Orion will sell you an ST80 and all the fixins at a price similar to what I paid a decade ago, but with a nice 40-mm finder, two genuine wide-field eyepieces (Synta Expanses), and a considerably better tripod than the somewhat flimsy wooden one my little scope possessed.
As ALWAYS, the very act of your Old Uncle totin’ a new scope into the backyard, even an humble Short Tube 80 ferchrissake, brought a sudden and immutable flood of clouds. I was able to give the 80 a quick once over, since Lyra’s Vega and Double-Double were briefly in the clear in a sucker hole near the zenith. First off, it was obvious I could forget any trepidation concernin’ the EQ-1 mount. It was almost overkill for the Short Tube. At 120x, the shakes produced by a sharp rap on the OTA died out in a couple of seconds. Optically? Hard to tell while dodgin’ all them clouds, but the ST did easily split the Double-Double at just over 100x. Nice and sharp at that magnification, too. I did note, however, that one of my good 1.25-inch diagonals provided a substantially better image. The stock unit seemed prone to flaring on bright stars like Vega, a sure sign of misalignment. Hows about the 64 dollar question? Chromatic aberration, the fearful Color Purple? Vega did, as I expected, show a bit of in-focus false color, but surprisingly it was jus’ not a distracting amount. Nice airy disk and diffraction rings were visible at 120x and the in-and-out-of-focus diffraction patterns looked good.
Dislikes? Other than the punk diagonal, not much. With a bit of adjustment the focuser was smooth and easy enough, though it certainly couldn’t compete with the JMI Crayfords I was so fond of. So what? In just a few minutes this little Short Tube 80 refractor gave me a great deal of joy. If nothin’ else, it was clearly a grab ‘n go champ, perfect for waltzin’ around the backyard huntin’ breaks in the trees (and clouds). After even this strictly limited amount of observing with the refractor, one thing was sure: this was not a toy. This was a REAL telescope capable of real work.
I still didn’t have a good idea what the 80 could do optically, though, and was right anxious to find out. Naturally, the week passed with no clear skies. Until Friday night, when, also naturally, I was otherwise occupied. That year, my older daughter, Miss Beth, was in her high school's marching band, and Miss Dorothy and I spent every Friday night at the Big Game. And what a nice night this Friday was. Bizarrely enough for down here in October, a cold front had passed through, moderating temperatures and cleansing the sky. By the time we returned home it was 11 p.m., and good ol’ Jupe was well up in the east, Saturn was tagging not far behind, and there was a real and unmistakable hint of fall in the air. If you think I grabbed my new scope and ran for the backyard, you are right. This was what grab ‘n go was all about. Late, tired, but the Short Tube 80 was so easy to get set up that there was no way I wouldn’t do a little observin’.
Afore long, I had my little bird pointed at Jupiter. Due to my diagonal diagnosis the last time out, I mounted a good Celestron star diagonal, the 1.25-inch that came with my ‘95 Ultima 8. Still, I didn't know what to expect. When pointed at a planet would the little refractor sing that Jimi Hendrix moldy-oldie “Purple Haze”? Well, yeah, there was some color, but it was genuinely unobtrusive. At 133x (6mm Circle T Orthoscopic, 2x Barlow), much detail was on display. Including, by 1 a.m.--could it be?--the Great Red Spot. The GRS, pale as it was at the time, was noticed more as a "hollow" until it rotated well onto the planet. But it was easily recognizable. Earlier on, I'd watched a shadow transit of Io, and was just blown away to realize that not only could I see the shadow of the moon, a hard, black little pimple on Jove's saturnine face, but also Io’s disk as she crossed a cloud band slightly darker than herself. At modest magnifications the other Galilean moons showed as tiny but visible disks. I hadn't expected a heck of a lot on the planets from an inexpensive 80mm f/5 achro, but I was seein’ a very respectable Jupiter. And the 80 had done it from the get-go. No cool-down or warm-up wait for this baby.On to Saturn. Sharp. Cassini's Division was easy (the rings were nice an’ open that year, remember), with some banding on the planet obvious. I could also see other detail—like brightness variations across the rings--when the seein’ steadied down real good (not that it was bad at any time). I soon found I could pick out one or two other satellites in addition to Titan when I bumped the power up. How did she take magnification? Right well. Saturn seems to always allow a little more power than Jupe, but at 150x I thought the 80 was startin’ to pant a bit, and at 200x (achieved by stackin’ Barlows), it was clear the small, short refractor was about ready to drop with exhaustion. But that was OK; I’d told myself before I’d forked over the bucks that I’d be satisfied if the ST80 could at least do 100x on the Moon and planets, and it was clear that would not be a problem.
On the planets, yeah, but how about the Moon? Luna was gettin’ over into the west, but still a good target, so we went there. Verdict? Good. Not great, but good. As on the planets, color was not a problem. Yes, there was a thin line of spurious color on the limb, but the terminator was essentially perfect. I’ve seen far more color in a 4-inch f/10 achromat, which yielded purple shadows along the terminator. Even at over 100x, the Short Tube produced black crater and mountain shadows. If the small scope had faults where Lunar observing was concerned, they were mainly that the disk away from the terminator was not as sharp and detailed, I thought, as what a similar aperture reflector might deliver. Also, like I found on Jupiter and Saturn, push much past 150x and the image got mushy and a little ugly, even with good eyepieces. No, I wouldn’t be gawkin’ at Plato’s floor at 400x, but it was clear the Short Tube was more than useable for casual Moon viewin’.
Before I knew it, it was 2 a.m. and I was feeling a mite weary. As a last treat, I turned to M45. How wonderful to find all the Pleiads perfectly framed in one field and shining like hard and perfect sapphires. A look at an open cluster also helped me assess some of the 80’s other optical characteristics. Edge sharpness was more than adequate, especially considering the f/5 speed of the ST. Contrast also seemed good, though, of course, I didn’t even suspect the Merope nebulosity from the Garden District’s sodium pink skies. I won’t lie to ya’ll: I wound up staring at the Seven Sisters for at least another half hour before callin’ it a night. And callin’ it a night with this grab ‘n go sure was sweet. That consisted of collapsin’ the EQ-1’s extendable tripod legs, puttin’ the aperture cap in place, and carryin’ the whole shebang in through the back door in one go. Time between last peek at M45 and first sip of Rebel Yell? Mebbe 2-minutes.
The Short Tube 80 wasn’t just a Grab ‘n Go scope, though; it was a Richest Field Telescope, too. I was all antsy to see what it could do from my good buddy Pat’s dark (a decade ago considerably dark) back 40. First moonless night I could, I grabbed the 80, threw it in the backseat and hauled butt across the bay to see what it the scope would do on the brightest and the best DSOs.
M22: This fantastic, large globular star cluster was gettin' awful low, so this was me an’ Pat’s first stop. The cluster looked nice at our findin’ power of 25x, but, while that provided a beautiful wide-field vista, there wasn’t much in the way of resolution, with the glob bein’ nothing more than a blob. Howsomeever, boostin’ the 80 to a bit over 100x with a 7-mm Orthoscopic and a 2x Shorty Barlow provided definite resolution in the form of plenty of teeny-weeny stars around the edges.
M13: M22, M-schmenty two. The Great Glob is the prize for late summer observers, right? The big guy was still nice and high at this fairly early hour. How was it? So-so. M13 was bright and easily visible in the 80 f/5 and even in her small finderscope, but it was was just a bright blob no matter how much power we poured on or how we squinted. It was attractive in its own way, but its tighter nature (13 is of Shapley Sawyer Class V) as compared to M22 prevented the 80 from showin’ even a hint of resolution under Pat’s skies. And mostly from the other skies I later tried the scope from. Oh, under the good—not great—skies of the Peach State Star Gaze I was able to pick out a star or two in M13 at 150x, but that was real dicey.
M11: The Wild Duck (galactic) Cluster was simply outstanding. I looked at it for a very long time, my little bird of a telescope seemin’ to flap along with those distant fowl, Woodstock flyin’ with the eagles. What made M11 so nice in this scope was that the 80’s wide field nature showed off both sides of the cluster’s nature. At low power with a 26-mm Plössl, it took on that famous triangular “flight pattern” shape. At higher magnifications it assumed the appearance of an incredibly loose globular, with the reddish star at the heart of the cluster very prominent.
M27: What a treat the Dumbbell Nebula was. The apple core shape was blatantly obvious at 15x, and a terrific view was provided by a Barlowed 15-mm Plössl. An OIII filter worked very nicely with this combo as well (Have you heard folks opine that an OIII “won’t work with a small scope”? They don’t know pea-turkey).
M31: Was climbing now, so away we went. Not bad, not bad at all. The less than black skies at Pat’s, e’en a decade ago, prevented the Andromeda Nebula from showing anythin’ close to its full extent, but there was a lot of galaxy visible at 15x. Companion M32 was extremely prominent. I even convinced myself I could see dimmer satellite galaxy M110 at this magnification.
M31: Was climbing now, so away we went. Not bad, not bad at all. The less than black skies at Pat’s, e’en a decade ago, prevented the Andromeda Nebula from showing anythin’ close to its full extent, but there was a lot of galaxy visible at 15x. Companion M32 was extremely prominent. I even convinced myself I could see dimmer satellite galaxy M110 at this magnification.
Double Cluster: Stupendous! Looked best in a 15-mm Plössl. I thought a long focal length eyepiece for once actually provided too much space around the pair.
M57: Looked much more like a smoke ring than it had in the city, OIII or no OIII. It was as easy to pick out the donut hole, I thought, as it normally was in my Palomar Junior 4.25-inch.M15 in Pegasus is a very tightly-wound glob with a strange, bright core. And she looked good in the 80. Not surprisingly, no hint of resolution, though.
Naturally, these nice wide field views jus’ whetted my appetite for RFT glory in Short Tube style. Henceforth, I began takin’ the ST along anytime I headed off to a dark site star party. It would not be an exaggeration to say that if I hadn’t done this I would have missed some of the best views of my life. The first was at our “home” star party, the Deep South Regional Star Gaze, some years ago, when its southern Mississippi site was still relatively dark (we’ve since moved to a better location). One of my most wanted objects had always been the North America Nebula, NGC 7000. I’d convinced myself I’d seen it a time or two over the years through binoculars and my SCTs at very low power. With binocs, however, it was hard to distinguish this great nebular complex from the gauze of the Cygnus Milky Way. In my scopes, I sometimes thought I picked up the brightest area of the nebula, the Gulf of Mexico region, but I was not at all sure, suspectin’ I was usin’ as much averted imagination as averted vision. I didn’t expect too, much, then, when I turned the 80 toward Deneb. My fellow observers thought I’d gone nuts, I reckon, from the way I was suddenly hoppin’ up and down and yelling, but there was a reason for that. At 16x in the ST, the NAN wasn’t just visible or “suspected,” it was obvious, with the North America shape being clear. Bumpin’ up the power and addin’ an OIII filter made it near ‘bout spectacular. Later, I found that NGC 7000 wasn’t much of a challenge with the scope even from not-perfect skies, since I was able to see it almost as well from some semi-dark paper company land back home.
My other “most memorable” observation probably came at a Peach State Star Gaze back in the days when that excellent star party was still held at the Indian Springs State Park in central Georgia. Being just outside the metro Atlanta light dome didn’t stop the 80 from doin’ a real job on M31. With the power just high enough to frame Andromeda perfectly, the monster galaxy for once really looked like a galaxy. One dark lane was starkly visible and the other wasn’t hard. M32 burned away near the nucleus, and M110 wasn’t just seen, it took on form and substance, with fleeting details shimmering in the nucleus (prob’ly my imagination, since this elliptical shouldn’t have any details). I even thought I glimpsed the great star cloud NGC 206, which lurks in M31’s southwest arm. If so, that’s quite a catch for an 80-mm, as it generally takes about 4-inches to rope thisun.
Whatever became of my Short Tube 80? Nuttin honey. Unlike some of y’all, Unk rarely sells/trades gear on the Astromart. Hell, the last major doohickey I sold there was a Starlight Xpress MX5, so that oughta tell you somethin’. Yeah, I’m a gear packrat and sometimes that is a Good Thing. I will admit the ST was eclipsed for a while by the coming of the StarBlast. That 4-inch wonder-scope brought both more aperture and a little Dobsonian mount perfect for grab ‘n go observin’. The ‘Blast will easily do 200x on the Moon and planets, somethin’ the 80 can’t even dream of. And yet…and yet…the Short Tube does have its strengths, and that is why it still comes out of its case regularly. Firstly, unless you use a coma corrector on the StarBlast, its f/4 field edge is considerably messier than the Short Tube f/5 field. Most of all, though, the 80 is useful for more than just quick looks. I’ve used it regularly as a guide scope with my Atlas mount. My William Optics 66 had been doin’ well in that role, but I got to wonderin’ if the good, old Short Tube might not pull in a few more guide stars. Sure nuff, she did. Lately, I’ve been using the 80 every single day. I’ve got interested in monitoring the Sun (not that there is much to see, lately), and have a nice Thousand Oaks filter I bought for the 80 one afternoon at a star party when I was mucho bored.
It’s not just that I keep findin’ things to do with my Short Tube 80 that keeps her at my side; it’s also that she’s become an old friend. After almost a decade of thick and thin observin’ it’s hard to imagine not havin’ the ST80 along at dark sites, be that the Tanner Williams club field or the Texas Star Party. Yeah, I know there is More Better Gooder around today. You can get a 66-mm ED from WO or Astronomics that costs less than 350 bucks and will show almost as much (maybe more sometimes) than the ST. On the other hand, you can still get a Short Tube 80 for about a hundred dollars less than that, and that will include a GEM little mount, a finder, even a couple of decent eyepieces. And, like Unk, if you are prone to practicin’ spur of the moment “guerilla astronomy” on occasion, you may find the inexpensive and rugged 80 more suited to that than a lovely ED. However you observe, you may, like me, also come to love the little telescope. It’s a timeless classic, humble and loveable, and I think every workin’ amateur still needs one.
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
Home Dome: Stars on the Ceiling
Naw, I ain’t talkin’ about observatory domes. I do hope to fulfill my dream in the next few years and have a dome of my own in the backyard, but that is not what is on my mind (such as it is) this mornin’. I’m thinkin’ about “dome” as in “planetarium dome.” Well, not really a dome, more like the ceilin’ of Li’l Rod’s boyhood room. Yep, stars on the ceiling. Just because I promised I’d leave the Pal Junior alone for a while, don’t mean I’ve given up on astro-nostalgia. As I said last time, I think about the good old days of the 60s – 70s frequently of late, as I suppose is natural for someone of my increasingly advanced years to do. OK, OK, alright already! The subject for the day is a forgotten facet of the amateur astronomy (for kids anyhow) of the 1960s, home (toy) planetariums. You know, the Spitz Junior, the Nova, the Sky Zoo, and other alluringly named gadgets that are still fondly remembered by more than a few middle-aged amateur astronomers.
The story of these fascinatin’ gizmos is mostly the story of one man’s, Armand Spitz’s, passion for astronomy, and is a very interesting one. If you want a well-written and detailed account, I commend to you Conrad Goeringer’s article, “Stars on My Ceiling” in the July 1992 issue of Sky and Telescope. Course, I do know a few of y’all weren’t even around in 1992, and if’n you were, unlike Unk, not ever’body maintains untidy and dusty stacks of countless old astronomy rags. So here’s the story in a nutshell: Armand Spitz, Director of Education for Philadelphia’s Fels planetarium wasn’t just passionate about astronomy; as you might expect for somebody with a job title like his, he was also passionate about astronomy education. One thing bothered Mr. Spitz, and became ever more a concern as the Space Age dawned in the late 40s and early 50s: most kids hadn’t a prayer of visiting a planetarium. With a Zeiss projector costing hundreds of thousands even way back when, that was no wonder. Outside the big cites few kids (or adults) were able to experience the wonders of the Indoor Sky.
Spitz set out to change that, and, in 1945, formed his own company, Spitz Labs, to do so. By 1947 he was demonstrating a projector, the “Model A,” he’d cobbled together that, while far less fancy than one o’ those monstrous and beautiful Zeiss dumbbells, worked well. No, it didn’t have a spaceship bridge control console or razor sharp projection lenses—it didn’t have any lenses at all as a matter of fact, using simple pinhole projection for its stars. It didn’t even have a real star ball; instead of expensive globes, Spitz used a single weird-lookin’ but easier to produce dodecahedron assemblage of flat pentagon-shaped panels (a shape suggested by Albert Einstein, which shows you the sort of company Armand kept) for the projector’s single “ball.” Your high school gym wouldn’t suddenly become the Griffith planetarium with the purchase of a Spitz, no, but the thing was functional and had a big advantage in that almost any school or museum could have a Model A. Many soon did. Armand’s company continued on to greater and greater glory even after he sold out in the 60s and retired. Today, Spitz is still around and goin’ strong, boasting that it is a world leader in planetarium technology. It’s now more focused on things like video projection systems than traditional projectors, true, but it’s nice to see the name and business live on.
The history of Spitz’s company is really incidental to our subject, though. What is important for us is the chance meeting between Armand Spitz and the chief of a company called “Harmonic Reed.” Harmonic Reed, as you might not be surprised to learn, was vested in producin’ toy musical instruments and, especially, harmonicas. When its chief executive happened to sit in on one of Spitz’s demonstrations of his Model A, however, history was made. This dude, Thomas Leveridge, had an idea that turned out to be a brilliant one. Spitz's projector was basically a very simple device. Why couldn’t a toy be produced on the same general principles, but even simpler and cheaper? The eyes of the nation’s kids were ever so slowly beginning to turn to the skies as NACA and the infant space program ginned up, and everybody was downright captivated by the spacemen and space monsters that danced across 50s movie screens and them newfangled TV sets. It seemed to Mr. Leveridge that a toy planetarium projector would be a natural for a company that wanted to branch out from harmonicas and toy organs, somethin’ which didn’t seem to be exactly a growth industry no more.
Armand Spitz apparently thought this was a capital idea, and agreed to join forces with the harmonica bunch to produce a toy planetarium. There was one immediate stumbling block, though. Leveride thought, probably correctly, that a round star ball would be more attractive and appealin’ to kids and parents than the strange assemblage of flat pentagons that was the Model A. Unfortunately, that was easier to say than do. Creating a molding machine that would form a perfect hemisphere while punching hundreds of star-holes into it turned out to be a daunting task. Nevertheless, Harmonic’s machinist, Hans Lingenfield, persisted. Despite his persistence, however, by the time the annual New York Toy Fair, an insanely significant event for toy-makers, arrived he’d been able to fabricate a grand total of two Spitz “Juniors,” the initial name for the little projector. These two examples caused, if not a stir, at least some interest at the shindig, and when Hans cracked the star ball code shortly after, Junior went into production, where it continued for the better part of two decades to the tune of over one million projectors.
The finished product was both beautiful and functional (and today looks breathlessly retro-attractive). Yes, Tom was right about the star ball. The 7-inch glossy black (later blue) hemispheres were joined by a rubber gasket, givin’ Junior a futuristic Saturn/flying saucer look. The initial projector, which was powered by AC current, was equipped with a rheostat to simulate the coming of dusk and dawn, a little lighted arrow pointer for the “lecturer” to use while showin’ off wonders, and, possibly best of all, a 30+ page richly illustrated booklet written by Armand Spitz himself. How much for all these Good Things? Aye, there’s the rub. When Junior debuted in 1954, the price was $14.95. Dependin’ on how you do the math, that’s roughly equivalent to $115.00 today, downright extravagant back then, even for those of us whose parents had been well-schooled by Dr. Spock. Despite this hurdle, the Spitz Junior sold well enough that the company began to add other astronomy related products.
One of these was the Moonscope, a Gilbert reflector lookalike (prettier, though), but that is a story for another Sunday mornin’. Planetarium-wise, not long after the Spitz Junior hit the streets, Armand Spitz and Harmonic Reed came up with a follow-on projector, the legendary “Sky Zoo.” Rather than a star ball, the Zoo featured a sky globe emblazoned with constellation pictures. These were of the proper size to be projected over the Spitz Junior’s constellations when the Sky Zoo was set up next it. As an alternative to a complete Sky Zoo projector, Spitz offered just a constellation picture globe, which could be mounted on Junior in place of the star ball. Naturally, Harmonic strongly suggested parents buy the complete Sky Zoo instead. Alas, the Zoo was a humongous bust, sellin’ no more than a couple of thousand units at best, and was quickly discontinued. That didn’t mean you couldn’t enjoy them funky pictures of Cassiopeia, Sagittarius and the rest, though. Following the cancellation of the Zoo, Harmonic added a little-bitty constellation picture projector and slides to the Spitz Junior. This small plastic unit fitted over the illuminated pointer in place of the arrow.
Amazingly enough, given the somewhat outré nature of the toys as compared to Slinkies or even chemistry sets, the failure of the Sky Zoo didn’t stop Harmonic and Spitz from introducing new planetarium products. One very impressive addition was an upgraded Spitz Junior aimed at schools. This advanced model featured a standard Junior to which had been added a motorized drive for the star ball and a dome illuminator. For that dome illuminator to be of any use, you naturally had to have a dome, and Spitz provided one, a 10-foot aluminum and canvas rig. At 150 smackers, the complete outfit was definitely aimed at educators; not us rugrats. Spitz/Harmonic Reed did produce one more popularly priced variation on the Junior as the 1960s came in, the The Spitz Junior Portable. This was a somewhat simplified projector powered by D batteries rather than AC, which lacked both the rheostat (there was a “bright/dim” switch) and the constellation picture projector. It did come with a somewhat functional AA powered arrow pointer. The advantage? No AC meant it could be used anywhere, mom and pop didn’t have to worry about Bud and Sis electrocutin’ themselves, and it could sell for considerably less.
And that’s the way it was until the late 60s, when the changes began to come thick and fast. The stories of Spitz Laboratories and Harmonic Reed are intertwined and a little confusin’, but what happened more or less is as that Armand Spitz retired in 1969, selling his company to McGraw Hill. After the Main Man’s departure, Harmonic Reed chose to spin-off the “science” part of their company. But that was not the end of their planetarium projectors. Hardly. Not only did they continue sellin’ the toy, which was now bein’ called the “Nova Home Planetarium,” they came out with some much fancier projectors for sale to secondary schools, culminatin’ in the famous Nova III, which sold for far less than anything Zeiss (or even upstart Japanese Goto) offered and did almost as much. Our little friend the Junior—err, “Nova Home Planetarium”? He struggled on until the early 70s and faded away. Why? The tenor of the times, I reckon. Followin’ the end of Apollo and the Vietnam Hangover, most Americans, kids and adults, had had enough of space for a while. An “expensive” pinhole star projector? No way, dude. Hip 70s youth preferred pet rocks and mood rings.My experience with the Spitz Junior goes back to the early 1960s. Oh, I may have noticed it in the Sears Wishbook (Christmas catalog) or similar a time or two in the late 50s, but it hadn’t made much of an impression. The first time I laid eyes on one and it made sense to me what the danged thing was good for was one sunny afternoon at Gayfer’s. Back in the 60s and into the 70s, almost every city of any size had a home-grown department store. Those have long since been gobbled by the big chains, but back then our premier store, occupying a substantial portion of a block of downtown real estate, was the locally owned Gayfer’s. Mama liked to do her clothes shoppin’ in this borderline hoidy-toidy outfit on those occasions when she could afford to—it was a little upscale for the likes of us. When she was able to visit the Big Store, she tended to park me in the toy department (perfectly safe in them days). Gayfer's collection of toys was small, e’en ‘round Christmas time, but, like the rest of the store, it was quite an upgrade compared to Woolworth’s and Kress. Well I remember starin’ longingly at a beautiful and gleaming Schwinn Jaguar bicycle and almost convincing myself I could have one for Christmas (I was lucky to get a Sears bike that year).
At some point, Gayfer’s had begun to display a few “science toys” in a corner. There wasn’t a Gilbert reflector, alas, but there were some mighty fancy chemistry sets. And the Spitz Junior. I suppose what initially attracted my attention was the insanely gaudy box, but the projector itself was fascinatin’ too. Scannin’ Armand’s little book, which was laid out beside Junior, I finally had an epiphany: This thing would project the stars on the walls and ceiling of your room. Somehow that just seemed cool. Not only would it be outasight, I thought, to turn the Spitz on and “fly” my toy Mercury capsules around in deep space, maybe I could actually learn the names of stars and constellations with the aid of the funny lookin’ contraption. This was a while before the events of Stephanie’s Telescope, and I had yet to set my sights on a scope of my own, but knowing the stars and constellations seemed a worthy pursuit. Only problem? The price tag. Junior had begun at $14.95, but the price had begun to creep up before long, goin’ to $19.95 by the end of the 50s (albeit with constellation, satellite, Saturn, and Solar eclipse slides included) and topping out at 30 dollars at the end of the 60s. I don’t know what the fare was that afternoon in Gayfer’s, but it was enough to eliminate it as a birthday gift, and make it very dicey even for Christmas. Not that I didn’t put it on my list, but Sears was apparently not sellin’ the Spitz Junior at the time, and if it didn’t come from Sears (where you could put stuff on lay-a-way, a time payment plan) Mama, Daddy, and Santa said Forget About It.
There things might have remained but for the kindness of one of my teachers. Or, actually, not one of my teachers. Miss Atkins taught at Kate Shepard Elementary, but I was not in her class, which was both fortunate and unfortunate. The teacher I had that year, Miss Stinson, was far younger and, I thought, considerably more glamourous. Unfortunately she was also a more down to earth sort than Miss Atkins. Miss A., I understood, was, almost unbelievably, like me, obsessed by the Great Out There, and routinely treated her students to extensive space and astronomy “units.” Miss Stinson, on the other hand, was more obsessed by The New Math. I admittedly found things like “sets” purty darned fascinatin’, but not as fascinatin’ as outer space, for gosh sakes. Anyhoo, one day Mama arrived home from one of her Church Circle meetings bearin’ a sizable box, “Miss Atkins thought you might like to borrow this for a while. She bought it for her son, but he’s off to college now.” Oh. My. God. The box festooned with its near psychedelic vistas of starry-eyed boys and girls could only contain one thing, a Spitz Junior!Off to my room I went. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but hoped for good things. I was not disappointed. Even with the room fairly bright despite me snatchin’ my blanket off the bed and tuckin’ it over the windows, a flick of the switch and the stars showed up purty as could be. That was just the beginning. While I now had the Tasco 3-inch, and was beginning to be able to pick out star-patterns with some alacrity, there is no doubt the little toy helped me round-out my constellation knowledge. But that warn’t the real fun. The real fun was writin’ and producin’ planetarium shows for the folks and my buddies. I had never been to a real planetarium, mind you, but I’d seen the Griffith scene in Rebel Without a Cause and thought I knew what one should be like (I did finally get to a real dome a few years later, Miami’s Space Transit Planetarium, which sported, yes, a Spitz Laboratories projector). When I was closin’ out the folks’ house after Mama’s passin’, I hoped against hope to turn up some of my laboriously typed “scripts.” No dice, but I remember them well enough; especially what I considered my greatest triumph, The Coming of the Stars of Winter: “Behold, boys and girls, the majesty of the great hunter Orion rising in the east.” I don’t know if family and friends actually enjoyed my shows, but at least they pretended to.
It was a sad time, you betcha, when Miss Atkins finally (months later) asked for the return of Junior. I wasn’t crushed, though. I now had that other Junior, the Palomar Junior, to focus on, and contented myself with the thought that the little Spitz had served its purpose. It had helped me finish learning the sky and I had sure had a lot of fun with my shows. Oh, I did try to recreate the Spitz myself using plans for a “tin can planetarium projector” I found in Patrick Moore and Percy Wilkin’s How to Make and Use a Telescope. Cain’t say how well that might have worked (Armand Spitz made one for his daughter, I understand), since Li’l Rod, lazy then as now, gave up after punchin’/drillin’ the holes for Ursa minor in the end of a coffee can. As for Spitz and company, I can’t say I thought much about ‘em over the next 30 or so years, except maybe to note that the little projectors had suddenly disappeared from Edmund’s catalogs and the toy store shelves. It was not until I had a space crazy kid of my own that I began to think of stars on the ceilin’ again.
I don’t know if she’ll ever be a real amateur astronomer (whatever the hell that is), but my daughter Lizbeth has enjoyed observin’ with me over the years, and went through a phase when she was about ten when, just like her old man at that age, she was fascinated by the constellations and the myths that go with them: “Daddy, my favorite constellation this week is Lyra. Do you know what a Lyre is?” One afternoon, as Lizbeth and I were wont to do, we were inventorying the shelves of Toys ‘r Us, probably lookin’ for one of the Polly Pockets sets which Lizbeth still enjoyed, when she emitted a very definite “DADDY, I WANT THAT!” “That” turned out to be the Space Theatre Planetarium. It was about 25 bucks, but I decided “What the hell?” Lizbeth rarely asked for expensive toys; 25 bucks was a lot less than it had been that day in Gayfer’s; and, well, just because I could. I gotta say the sight of that box showin’ kids and parents in ecstasy over stars on the ceilin’ sent a wash of memories over me not to be denied.
Lizbeth was at least as thrilled with her planetarium as I’d been with the Spitz. Me? I couldn’t help makin’ comparisons. The Johnny-Come-Lately’s biggest shortcoming as far as I was concerned was its lack of a star ball. Instead, it used barely convex top-mounted slides to project stars that, unlike Junior’s, were displayed mostly on the ceiling. The projection admittedly looked pretty good, but not as realistic as the Spitz’s room-fillin’ sky. As simple as the Spitz Junior was, it projected brighter stars, too. The surface of the ball was larger than that of Lizbeth’s slides, allowing the Junior’s pinholes to be somewhat bigger, lettin’ more light through. The Space Theatre did have one significant advantage in that its slides could be changed for others—which showed, for example, only the stars of summer, etc. Not a bad little toy, but I was surprised it wasn’t better than my old friend 40 years down the road.
I slowly became aware that, far from bein’ dead, the home planetarium, at least as a toy, seemed to be makin’ a regular comeback. I began to keep my eye out for new projectors on the shelves at Toys ‘r Us and the (late, lamented) Discovery Channel Store and Ebay, even pickin’ up a few whose price wasn’t too outrageous. One thing I noticed immediately was that while there were quite a few star projectors on sale, very few were true planetarium projectors. Most were more in the nature of celestial globes with illuminators at their centers allowin’ them to project black stars on a white sky. Not realistic, no, but not necessarily all bad. These projectors tend to be quite useable in less than perfectly dark rooms, and their surfaces are often emblazoned with extras like constellation labels, the ecliptic, the Celestial equator, and even a few clusters and nebulae. My example, the Star Theatre, even sports glow-in-the-dark stars and a built in compass on its base, and is quite useable as a (small) celestial globe.
I wasn’t satisfied, though. I wanted a home planetarium. For a couple of years it appeared I’d best forget that. Then the Japanese planetarium craze began. I don’t know what prompted the Japanese consumer to become interested in home planetariums, maybe the fact that from places like Tokyo it’s impossible to see all but the brightest stars and the Milky Way is forever invisible. Anyhoo, Japanese companies, and particularly Sega, began producing home projectors that are anything but toys. That company’s Homestar series almost takes the home planetarium into the 21st century, and some models definitely take it beyond the toy category. Models? Yep. These things are so popular in the East that the company has produced at last count five distinctly different projectors, including one that floats in your bathtub and produces a starry sky to soothe you during your ablutions (!). The Sega planetariums top out with the Homestar EX(tra), which is designed for use in schools or, Sega says (don’t ask me why), in nightclubs. The EX goes for 800 dollars U.S., a rather daunting price, yeah, but the less expensive Homestar and Homestar Pro are now available to U.S. consumers for reasonable amounts thanks to that undying force in the toy bidness, Uncle Milton (the antfarm folks), with the base model projector costing just above 100 bucks.
Are these units better than the old Spitz? In some ways, yes. The Pro, for example, uses a superbright LED for projection, makin’ it much brighter than a Junior runnin’ with the rheostat pegged. They also offer niceties such as motorized sky rotation, shooting star projection, and interchangeable star slides that enable the user to see the sky with or without constellation stick figures. That’s nice, but the slides are also the weakness of these units. Like Lizbeth’s humble Space Theatre, the use of slides means the virtual sky is only on the ceiling. If you can live with that, though, you might be right happy with a Sega. It is light-years ahead of the Spitz in many ways. The stars are focused with a lens, makin’ them oh-so-much sharper than pinhole stars, and the number of stars projected makes the Junior’s “almost 400” laughable. Including the Milky Way (yes!) the base Homestar projects 10,000 stars; the EX (not yet for sale in the U.S.) kicks that up several notches to 140,000 .
Would I spend a C-note plus on one of the Homestars? I’ve thought about it, but it seems I’ve satisfied my home dome lust in a way that probably makes me happier than even the EX would. I was browsin’ the eBay one afternoon as I sometimes do, and ran across a mint Portable Junior for a surprisingly reasonable cost—less than 50 bucks. When I first began to see Spitz Juniors on the ‘Bay, they was outrageously priced, but luckily for us planetarium fans, vendors soon realized toy collectors weren’t overly interested in these obscure things and prices dropped sharply. When my unit arrived, I found that, for once, the eBay ad had been accurate. Save for a little corrosion on the battery terminals, it was near mint and beautiful. I wasted no time gettin’ it into a dark room, just like on that long ago 1965 afternoon. A flip of the switch, and…it might be too much to say I was in ecstasy, but I was impressed all over again. Maybe it’s that I live where the sky is terrifically light-polluted and blocked by too many trees, but, if anything, the ceiling sky was even more magical-seeming than it was Back in The Day. You’ll prob’ly be relieved to know I’ve been able to exercise some restraint and have not made Miss Dorothy sit through (too many) of my still corny planetarium shows. Lizbeth and I, however, have amused ourselves many a time with productions that include a recreation of The Coming of the Stars of Winter.
How shall I continue to satisfy lust for the Indoor Sky? I hope the Homestar EX will soon arrive on our shores at a more manageable price. And I’ll continue to hope somebody, someday will market an affordable widget that will project Stellarium and my other computer planetariums on the ceiling. But till one of those things happens, I’ll just continue my quest for a cheap and good (non portable) Spitz Junior; one with that prized Sky Zoo attachment. Whatever comes down the pike, rest assured that on any given cloudy Possum Swamp evenin’ you are likely to find your Old Uncle relaxin’ and reminiscin’ under stars on the ceiling.
If you’re as obsessed by these old toys (and home planetariums in general) as Unk, why not jine-up with my Spitz Junior Yahoogroup? Despite the name, discussions of all home planetariums old and new are more than welcome. Another excellent resource for stars on the ceiling fans is the HPA, the Home Planetarium Association. Want to ogle an amazing collection of pro projectors? Stroll through the Planetarium Projector Museum. Check 'em out, muchachos.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
How Much is that Kitty in the Window?
“Used scopes” seems to be on lots of folk's minds of late. No doubt because of a recession that makes even those of us lucky enough to still be gainfully employed skittish when it comes to spendin’ lotsa bucks for a new SCT. If we can save moola by buyin’ a CAT only used once a year by a little old lady from Pasadena, we will save that moola. There’s no doubt there’s a slew of used SCTs available; unfortunately all too many amateurs find themselves in financial straits ranging from “concerning” to “dire” and decide they must sell a beloved scope. Shame, but when it comes down to feedin’ the kids and payin’ the mortgage, there is really no decision. What follows is my advice on the used gear game, adapted and expanded from the short checklist at the end of my (free) Used CAT Buyer’s Guide. Like the checklist in the Guide, this is aimed at catadioptric buyers, but most of it is general enough in nature to be a help to prospective purchasers of used scopes of any design.
Before we get started, let me address a concern I’ve heard expressed more than once of late, the morality of buying used right now. Isn’t it wrong to take advantage of someone’s misfortune by buying their telescope for a song? As above, it’s a shame when someone has to part with their gear to make ends meet. And certainly I would hope these folks will get a fair price for their stuff. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with buyin’ used telescopes in economic hard times. If your purchase of that LX200 means the person in question has another month’s grace with their mortgage, I’d say both y’all benefit. As for fair price? I don’t see many out and out steals. Prices are down, but telescopes ain’t being given away. Anyhoo, it’s up to the seller to set a price she/he thinks is fair or to accept an offer made by a buyer—or not.
The first question, of course, is where do you buy used? The best answer is always “locally” and especially “from a fellow club member.” By purchasin’ locally, you will get to examine the telescope in person, which is almost always a Good Thing. Most people are not gonna set out to cheat you, but it ain’t unheard of in this ol’ boy’s experience for somebody’s idea of “near mint” to be closer to his idea of “fair.” Even better than buying locally is buying locally from a fellow amateur. The scope being sold by a deceased amateur’s relative or by the person who thought they wanted a telescope but really didn’t may be fine, but don’t expect these people to be able to tell you much about it. They may remember when that Super C8 was bought, but forget things like, “Does this NexStar have the user-upgradable motor control board?” Best of all is a fellow club member. Not only should this person be able to tell you anything about the scope in question, you may have used it yourself on more than one occasion at club star parties and be very familiar with its pluses and minuses. Also, a fellow club member knows they will be seein’ you every month at meetings and star parties, so it’s unlikely they will intentionally rook you.
What if your city don’t have a club, you don’t know any fellow amateurs in town, or none of them or anybody else has the C8 of your dreams for sale? The alternative is the online astronomy classifieds. Astro-classfieds have been a popular feature of the amateur astronomy landscape for at least three decades, startin’ with a little paper called The Starry Messenger. This monthly pulp magazine was nothin’ but amateur astronomy want-ads. Oh, how we loved The Messenger back in the 80s! Oh, how we waited for it every month so we could jump on them hot deals. Problem was, seemed like everybody in the dadgummed U.S. of A. got their copy before us here in Possum Swamp. Every time I dialed an ad for “mint Cave 12-inch, $750.00” the response was the same: “Sorry, sold yesterday.”
The Internet astronomy explosion changed all that. By the mid-90s there were online astro-fieds that I could see as soon as somebody on the left coast could. The death knell for The Starry Messenger was sounded by Astromart, which cracked the code for what amateur astronomy online buyin’ and selling should be. Today, Astromart is not alone; there are, for example, classifieds on Cloudy Nights and Astronomy Mall (a site that is a real old timer in online amateur astronomy; happy to see it still survives). Still, when most folks think of used astronomy gear, they think of Herb York’s Astromart. There are a number of reasons for that. The website URL is easy to remember, “Astromart.com;” it’s simple to get to the ads; and, most of all, Astromart is safe, or as safe as any service of this kind can be. Can you get cheated on The Mart? You can, but it is far less likely than it could be thanks to the tireless efforts of Herb, his colleagues, and more than a few volunteer monitors. This is not to say other astronomy ad services are not necessarily “safe;” just that I know how much (day to day) effort that goes into keeping Astromart a good place for buyers and sellers both.
How about eBay? There is good and bad. With Paypal you do gain some protection, and some of our amateur astronomy vendors sell there. B-U-T…in my opinion, when you come right down to it, eBay can be a crapshoot. Fraud aside, you will likely be dealing with someone who knows absolutely nothing about astronomy and telescopes—witness all the images of 4.5-inch Newtonians with their mirror cells pointed at the sky. I’ve bought more than a few small astronomy-related items on the ‘Bay, and I have never been cheated. Not completely. I’ve always received my item, anyway. It ain’t always been in exactly the condition indicated by the ad, though. A time or two it’s not even been the exact item I’ve bid on. Further eBay advice? Save yourself some money. Decide in advance what you want to pay for the telescope in question. Place a bid for that amount and do not place a new bid no matter what happens. If you lose the item, you lose it. I guarantee, there will be another one soon, and you will eventually get what you want. Get caught up in the bidding race and you will wind up payin’ way too much, defeating the purpose of buying used.
Before you even dream of shopping for a new CAT anywhere, the first thing to do is educate yourself. What kind of drive did the Meade 2080 LX3 have? Which finder shipped with the LX6? Did a hand control come standard with the Celestron Powerstar IV? Identify the models you think you might potentially be interested in and learn everything you can about ‘em. That’s easy in the Internet era. One place to start is my aforementioned Used Guide. Another is the Telescope Bluebook web site. I refer to it frequently and it has saved my bacon more than once. Yahoogroups are another good source of info. Almost every popular old scope has had a Yahoogroup established for it, and even if a given group is not very active, the archives will likely be mucho informative. Finding out all you can about a scope is doubly important if the person you are buyin’ from—the Widder Jones down the street or some Goober on eBay—don’t know much about SCTs.
Whether you’re biddin’ on the ‘Bay or buyin’ from Elmer down to the club, what do you look for and out for in a used CAT? Naturally, you will not be able to check these things if you are buying off Astromart, but you will be able to use the following to at least formulate a set of questions for the seller.
Indoor/Daytime Checks
Overall Condition
First off, a general assessment. Is Miss Telescope in reasonable physical condition? Is the paint on the OTA and mount more-or-less intact? Is any rust minimal? When ya loosen the locks on dec/RA does the mount move smoothly? Physical condition will, of course, be related to the age of the scope. You can’t (always) expect an Orange Tube C8 to look as good as a two year old ETX 125. If you’re buyin’ a Meade with one of their chrome plated tripods, expect some rust on the legs. The only way that (initially) pretty tripod will be free of orange spots is if it was rarely outside. And that’s the thing. A scope that has been used frequently and shows some normal wear may be a better prospect than the poor Super C8 Plus that was bought for Halley, used thrice, and has been in a closet ever since. The scope that got outside likely has a knowledgeable owner who has kept the scope in good shape where it counts. I’d much rather have a Super C8 with a few paint nicks but a good optics set than I would one with spots of fungus on the primary from bein’ stored in a damp utility room for years.
Mechanics
Unless the maybe-scope-of-your-dreams is a recent Celestron, it will have slow motion controls on both axes. Exercise these to ensure they operate smoothly. Remember, in the case of fork mount telescopes, you will have to have the declination lock at least partially engaged and the RA lock as least partially disengaged before you can move the mount with the slowmos. Never turn a powered-up LX200's slow motion controls; that can cause damage. A non-go-to GEM will often have manual clutches that will need to be loosened before using the slow motions (I’m not talking about the main RA and declination locks; those should be locked). Carefully and thoroughly check the OTA/mount’s other mechanical functions. Does the focus knob turn easily and smoothly (if this is a Meade LX200 GPS or other recent Meade scope, make sure the mirror lock is disengaged before you start twiddlin’ the focus control)? Exercise any other mechanical fittings on the OTA and mount as well. If there is a wedge, does it have fine altitude and azimuth adjusters? Do they work right? If a wedge isn’t included with a non-go-to fork mount scope, by the way, insist on a hefty discount. The scope will not track without a wedge. Are the tripod fittings OK? All screws and bolts and nuts there and tight? Accessory tray present if there is supposed to be one? Leg extension locks operational and leg extensions un-dented (if they are, the locks were tightened down too tightly at some point, possibly compromising firm locking)?
Before we get started, let me address a concern I’ve heard expressed more than once of late, the morality of buying used right now. Isn’t it wrong to take advantage of someone’s misfortune by buying their telescope for a song? As above, it’s a shame when someone has to part with their gear to make ends meet. And certainly I would hope these folks will get a fair price for their stuff. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with buyin’ used telescopes in economic hard times. If your purchase of that LX200 means the person in question has another month’s grace with their mortgage, I’d say both y’all benefit. As for fair price? I don’t see many out and out steals. Prices are down, but telescopes ain’t being given away. Anyhoo, it’s up to the seller to set a price she/he thinks is fair or to accept an offer made by a buyer—or not.
The first question, of course, is where do you buy used? The best answer is always “locally” and especially “from a fellow club member.” By purchasin’ locally, you will get to examine the telescope in person, which is almost always a Good Thing. Most people are not gonna set out to cheat you, but it ain’t unheard of in this ol’ boy’s experience for somebody’s idea of “near mint” to be closer to his idea of “fair.” Even better than buying locally is buying locally from a fellow amateur. The scope being sold by a deceased amateur’s relative or by the person who thought they wanted a telescope but really didn’t may be fine, but don’t expect these people to be able to tell you much about it. They may remember when that Super C8 was bought, but forget things like, “Does this NexStar have the user-upgradable motor control board?” Best of all is a fellow club member. Not only should this person be able to tell you anything about the scope in question, you may have used it yourself on more than one occasion at club star parties and be very familiar with its pluses and minuses. Also, a fellow club member knows they will be seein’ you every month at meetings and star parties, so it’s unlikely they will intentionally rook you.
What if your city don’t have a club, you don’t know any fellow amateurs in town, or none of them or anybody else has the C8 of your dreams for sale? The alternative is the online astronomy classifieds. Astro-classfieds have been a popular feature of the amateur astronomy landscape for at least three decades, startin’ with a little paper called The Starry Messenger. This monthly pulp magazine was nothin’ but amateur astronomy want-ads. Oh, how we loved The Messenger back in the 80s! Oh, how we waited for it every month so we could jump on them hot deals. Problem was, seemed like everybody in the dadgummed U.S. of A. got their copy before us here in Possum Swamp. Every time I dialed an ad for “mint Cave 12-inch, $750.00” the response was the same: “Sorry, sold yesterday.”
The Internet astronomy explosion changed all that. By the mid-90s there were online astro-fieds that I could see as soon as somebody on the left coast could. The death knell for The Starry Messenger was sounded by Astromart, which cracked the code for what amateur astronomy online buyin’ and selling should be. Today, Astromart is not alone; there are, for example, classifieds on Cloudy Nights and Astronomy Mall (a site that is a real old timer in online amateur astronomy; happy to see it still survives). Still, when most folks think of used astronomy gear, they think of Herb York’s Astromart. There are a number of reasons for that. The website URL is easy to remember, “Astromart.com;” it’s simple to get to the ads; and, most of all, Astromart is safe, or as safe as any service of this kind can be. Can you get cheated on The Mart? You can, but it is far less likely than it could be thanks to the tireless efforts of Herb, his colleagues, and more than a few volunteer monitors. This is not to say other astronomy ad services are not necessarily “safe;” just that I know how much (day to day) effort that goes into keeping Astromart a good place for buyers and sellers both.
How about eBay? There is good and bad. With Paypal you do gain some protection, and some of our amateur astronomy vendors sell there. B-U-T…in my opinion, when you come right down to it, eBay can be a crapshoot. Fraud aside, you will likely be dealing with someone who knows absolutely nothing about astronomy and telescopes—witness all the images of 4.5-inch Newtonians with their mirror cells pointed at the sky. I’ve bought more than a few small astronomy-related items on the ‘Bay, and I have never been cheated. Not completely. I’ve always received my item, anyway. It ain’t always been in exactly the condition indicated by the ad, though. A time or two it’s not even been the exact item I’ve bid on. Further eBay advice? Save yourself some money. Decide in advance what you want to pay for the telescope in question. Place a bid for that amount and do not place a new bid no matter what happens. If you lose the item, you lose it. I guarantee, there will be another one soon, and you will eventually get what you want. Get caught up in the bidding race and you will wind up payin’ way too much, defeating the purpose of buying used.
Before you even dream of shopping for a new CAT anywhere, the first thing to do is educate yourself. What kind of drive did the Meade 2080 LX3 have? Which finder shipped with the LX6? Did a hand control come standard with the Celestron Powerstar IV? Identify the models you think you might potentially be interested in and learn everything you can about ‘em. That’s easy in the Internet era. One place to start is my aforementioned Used Guide. Another is the Telescope Bluebook web site. I refer to it frequently and it has saved my bacon more than once. Yahoogroups are another good source of info. Almost every popular old scope has had a Yahoogroup established for it, and even if a given group is not very active, the archives will likely be mucho informative. Finding out all you can about a scope is doubly important if the person you are buyin’ from—the Widder Jones down the street or some Goober on eBay—don’t know much about SCTs.
Whether you’re biddin’ on the ‘Bay or buyin’ from Elmer down to the club, what do you look for and out for in a used CAT? Naturally, you will not be able to check these things if you are buying off Astromart, but you will be able to use the following to at least formulate a set of questions for the seller.
Indoor/Daytime Checks
Overall Condition
First off, a general assessment. Is Miss Telescope in reasonable physical condition? Is the paint on the OTA and mount more-or-less intact? Is any rust minimal? When ya loosen the locks on dec/RA does the mount move smoothly? Physical condition will, of course, be related to the age of the scope. You can’t (always) expect an Orange Tube C8 to look as good as a two year old ETX 125. If you’re buyin’ a Meade with one of their chrome plated tripods, expect some rust on the legs. The only way that (initially) pretty tripod will be free of orange spots is if it was rarely outside. And that’s the thing. A scope that has been used frequently and shows some normal wear may be a better prospect than the poor Super C8 Plus that was bought for Halley, used thrice, and has been in a closet ever since. The scope that got outside likely has a knowledgeable owner who has kept the scope in good shape where it counts. I’d much rather have a Super C8 with a few paint nicks but a good optics set than I would one with spots of fungus on the primary from bein’ stored in a damp utility room for years.
Mechanics
Unless the maybe-scope-of-your-dreams is a recent Celestron, it will have slow motion controls on both axes. Exercise these to ensure they operate smoothly. Remember, in the case of fork mount telescopes, you will have to have the declination lock at least partially engaged and the RA lock as least partially disengaged before you can move the mount with the slowmos. Never turn a powered-up LX200's slow motion controls; that can cause damage. A non-go-to GEM will often have manual clutches that will need to be loosened before using the slow motions (I’m not talking about the main RA and declination locks; those should be locked). Carefully and thoroughly check the OTA/mount’s other mechanical functions. Does the focus knob turn easily and smoothly (if this is a Meade LX200 GPS or other recent Meade scope, make sure the mirror lock is disengaged before you start twiddlin’ the focus control)? Exercise any other mechanical fittings on the OTA and mount as well. If there is a wedge, does it have fine altitude and azimuth adjusters? Do they work right? If a wedge isn’t included with a non-go-to fork mount scope, by the way, insist on a hefty discount. The scope will not track without a wedge. Are the tripod fittings OK? All screws and bolts and nuts there and tight? Accessory tray present if there is supposed to be one? Leg extension locks operational and leg extensions un-dented (if they are, the locks were tightened down too tightly at some point, possibly compromising firm locking)?
Electronics
Whether the CAT in question is a computer heavy NexStar or LX200 or just an old warhorse with an AC synchro drive, power it up to make as sure as possible the drive functions as per normal. If this is a go-to scope, I urge you (or the owner) to do a “fake alignment” indoors. Run through the alignment process just as you would under the stars. Does the scope slew normally? No pauses or other hiccups (expect some scopes and mounts to be surprisingly noisy, especially the Meade go-to forks and LXD55/75 and the Celestron CG5)? When doing the fake alignment, just accept the alignment stars the scope requests. When alignment is complete, do a fake go-to to an object which you know is above the horizon and for which you know the current location, roughly. If the telescope points in generally the correct part of the “sky,” it passes.
How about a non-go-to scope? Exercise whatever features and functions it has. You’ll have an idea of what these are if you took my advice and educated yourself about the model(s) you are considering before beginning to shop. If the scope offers faster-than-sidereal slewing speeds, for example, test them all. What if the telescope, an Orange Tube C8 for example, does not have any slewing speeds at all, only sidereal tracking? Make sure it tracks. Keep in mind, of course, why they call it a “clock drive.” At sidereal rate, the scope will move very slowly; it will take 23-hours, 56-minutes, 4-seconds to revolve completely on its RA axis. So how do you know if the motor is workin’? Fasten the RA lock and power up. In half an hour, tube movement may be obvious. Better, some kind of marks on fork assembly and drivebase (maybe made with masking tape) will show-up movement sooner. Don’t use the RA circle as a reference; in most scopes it is driven to keep the current Right Ascension under the pointer as the telescope tracks. If you stick your ear up to the base, you may be able to hear the motor running, but don’t depend on that—nor on idiot lights. Make sure.
Optics
Aye, and there’s the rub: a used scope may have been meticulously cared for, but if it’s got punk optics, so what? What’s the most important thing a used CAT buyer can do to avoid buyin’ a pig in a poke optics-wise? Refuse to buy any SCT made between about 1986 and 1990 without testing the optics thoroughly. We refer to these poor kitties as “Halleyscopes;” they were built during the huge Comet Halley Craze and its aftermath in the 1980s. Celestron and Meade wore out their tools and workforces trying to ship as many telescopes as they could when Mom and Pop America was clamoring for SCTs to view the spectacular visitor (ahem). QA fell by the wayside and many (but not all) these scopes are optically sub-par. It took at least till the beginning of the 90s for the two companies to get their optical houses back in order. This is very important for the used consumer; by eliminating the Halleyscopes, you eliminate at least 90% of the optical dogs. Will viewing terrestrial objects tell you much about optical quality of a scope? Unless the CAT's optics or collimation are truly putrid, viewing terrestrial objects, especially given daytime "seeing" over the heated earth, ain't gonna be too informative. Lookin' at the Sun through a Solar filter? Maybe minimally more revealing.
As for the physical condition of a candidate’s optics, let us review what not to do first: the dadgummed flashlight test. What I mean is lookin’ at the optics of the scope in a strong oblique light—sunlight, a flashlight shone down the aperture, whatever. Any telescope’s optics will look horrid if you do that. Even the smoothest and best coated mirrors and lenses will scatter some light across their surfaces and every tiny dust mote and imperfection will stand out in stark relief. What should you do? View the optics in normal light. The coatings should be in good shape, no fungus or other suspicious spots on corrector or secondary or primary, and reasonably clean. What’s reasonably clean? The internal surfaces should be clear of everything but a small amount of dust. What if there’s more than a little dust on the corrector’s inside surface? Quite a few Meades from the 80s have an icky film on the corrector inside from some kind of outgassin’, apparently. If you’re confident around a CAT you shouldn’t turn down a scope because the inside of the corrector needs cleanin’. You can do that job in 15 minutes. The surfaces of the mirrors? That’s another story. Sure, you can clean ‘em, but you always run the risk of damaging the coating when you clean a first surface mirror. The real show-stopper? What caused a primary or secondary to get so dirty? Usually only bad things like the scope being stored for long periods with the rear port open or the corrector plate being removed and left that way for a long time. I’d turn down a CAT with a grungy primary or secondary unless it was almost bein’ given away.
One last optical caveat is the secondary on the Meade LX3. For a little while, Meade offered “MCSOG” optics as an option on these 80s scopes. That stood for “Multi-coated SILVERED optics group.” The secondary mirrors on the telescopes so equipped are not aluminized but silvered. Alas, as I coulda told ‘em would happen, those silver-coated secondaries, while wonderfully reflective, deteriorated in a relatively short time. Meade was replacing the secondaries on these scopes for free under their Lifetime Warranty for quite a while. Now? And for someone not the original owner (though I doubt Meade knows pea-turkey about who the original owners of cotton pickin’ LX3s were this far down the road)? Don’t count on it. How do you get a good look at the secondary, by the way? If the reflection of it in the primary is not overly informative, just pop off the rear port cover and take a peek up the baffle tube. A very few Celestron scopes in the early 80s were equipped with StarBright primaries that were silvered. These scopes are not common (Celestron soon changed the StarBright formula) and their silver seems to have held up better than that on the LX3 secondary. Bottom line? Any pitting on any scope mirror means “no way.”
Outdoor/night-time Checks
Unless the SCT in question belongs to a fellow amateur, it probably ain’t gonna be possible to give it a test run under the stars, but if that is possible, that is the best way of guaranteeing you get a scope to your likin’…
Mount Operation
If we’re dealin’ with an old-fashion non-go-to scope, all you need to know is that it tracks accurately when decently polar aligned. If you’re new to this stuff, though, please remember that if the mount is not precisely polar aligned, which it likely won’t be, not unless you do a drift alignment, objects will drift in the field in a north/south direction. If the RA axis is at least pointed at Polaris, though, that should be slow enough to show the thing is trackin’. Not sure? Center an object at high power and shut the drive off. NGC Umptysquat will dash out of the field quick enough to make your head swim. If the mount offers faster than sidereal slewing speeds, try them. (Did you know many old Celestrons offer a higher “centering” speed? Hold down an east or west button on the hand control and mash its opposite number.) For motorized slow motions to work, both RA and declination locks must be locked, of course. What else? Check anything that couldn’t be vetted by daylight—polar scope and finder illuminators, for example.
If the scope under test is a go-to model, check it thoroughly in every part of the sky for acceptable accuracy. What’s “acceptable”? A modern scope like a CG5, an LX200 GPS, or a CPC should put anything you request in or very close to the field of a low power eyepiece at f/10. An older scope like an Ultima 2000? At least close on deep sky objects (see the Guide for some words about the Solar System and these old scopes). What if the scope does not seem sufficiently accurate? What if it’s missing targets by large amounts? Don’t be too quick to condemn it. Was the go-to alignment done correctly and carefully? If the owner did it for you, did he seem to know what he was doin’? If the scope hasn’t been used for a while, he/she may have missed a step; that’s why it pays to educate yourself about your candidate scopes and their operation. Sometimes the quality of a battery or AC power supply is the culprit. Or a failure to set backlash characteristics (Drive Training for Meades, use of up and right keys for alignment star centering for Celestrons). Anyhoo, I’d be suspicious at least of a recent go-to that can’t be made to land on targets.
Optical Performance
Determining how optically good a telescope is is often difficult and sometimes nearly impossible. Yeah, you can try the consarned star test, but you will need good seein’ for that and you will need to be able to interpret the results, somethin’ that’s not always easy if you are new to scopes in general or, especially, CATs. As I’ve often said, the best optical test for an SCT is probably the way a planet looks at high magnification under good seeing. The problem is that you need good seeing and a planet above the horizon (Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn). If the telescope’s images don’t look quite right given acceptably steady seeing conditions, check the SCT’s collimation. If it is “off,” request the owner either adjust it or allow you to do so. I wouldn’t buy a telescope that exhibited poor images even if I were 99.9% sure collimation was the problem.
Other than image quality, what to look for? Mainly focus shift. Due to the telescopes’ moving mirror focusing system, SCT images move a small amount in the field when the focus control is adjusted. A little shift should be expected. How much is “a little”? For a modern scope, maybe 45-arc seconds to 1-arc minute. About the width of Jupiter in other words. Some older scopes may have more, but sometimes that can be improved upon. If Miss CAT has not been used in a while, racking focus to both ends of its travel to redistribute grease on the baffle tube may help a lot. Sometimes the focus shift can be further improved by adding a little (and I do mean “a little”) grease to the baffle tube in a very thin coat if the scope is old and dry. Sometimes fiddlin’ with the focus shaft after loosenin’ the screws on the focuser assembly can help as well (I can send you the procedure if you are interested), but if redistributing the grease by moving the mirror to both ends of focus a few times didn’t help, expect to have to live with whatever amount of shift remains. Can you?
Other Stuff
That good ol’ SCT checks out jus’ fine, you reckon? There are a few miscellaneous considerations to ruminate upon before you whip out the checkbook. First is age. For some telescopes “newer” equals better. That is surprisingly not the case with the earliest CATs. I have a 1973 Orange Tube that works just as well as it ever did. The same is true with early Meade 2080s. They are simple telescopes with little to go wrong. If they’ve been stored indoors and/or cared for by somebody with a modicum of sense, there’s not much to deteriorate. Their “electronics” consist of an AC power cord and a synchro motor (“motors” in the case of early Celestrons). When you get to mid 80s scopes, though, scopes like Powerstars and LX5s, circuit boards enter the picture. Even if they are simple, the electronics are there and their failure will disable the clock drive. When you start talkin’ older genuine comput-o-scopes, the Compustar, the LX200, and the Ultima 2000, “used” is often spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e.
Why? It’s not because these SCTs are inherently failure prone. Some folks will tell you early LX200s, for example, are better built than their GPS descendents. The problem is two-fold. First, their circuitry is more complex than that of later telescopes. As time went on, Meade (and Celestron) was able to accomplish the same tasks with greatly simplified circuitry. “Simpler” almost always equals “more reliable.” More importantly, just a few years after the end of production both companies typically stop supporting their old SCTs with parts and service. To their credit, Meade kept goin’ with the LX200 for well over five years after the GPS came out. Alas, it appears support for the LX200 from Meade has finally dried up. That does not mean that you might not be able to fix a malfunctioning scope, or that someone might not be able to fix it for you. But that is not assured, especially if critical and custom parts like some IC chips are no longer available. These telescopes (Meades and Celestrons) will eventually have problems. That might not happen for a long time—quite a few early LX200s are still cookin’—but it will happen. If the electronics survive the first 12-hours of powered up condition, yes, they will likely last a right long spell, but not forever, muchachos, not forever.
There’s one obsolete scope to always avoid, and it ain’t got no electronics, neither: The Criterion Dynamax. These SCTs, made in apertures of 4, 6, and 8-inches initially, competed with the Celestron Orange Tube in the 1970s, and, when the company was sold to Bausch and Lomb, were an alternative to Meade and Celestron SCTs through the mid-80s. What do most of the Criterions and B&Ls have in common? Very poor optics. You can read the whole sordid story in the Used Guide, but, suffice to say, if you are confronted by any of these scopes (other than the fairly nice B&L 8001 Pro), RUN LIKE THE WIND!
If you are considering an obsolete scope, you must also take the accessories into consideration. If they are not present, you may not be able to replace them. That can be particularly debilitating in the case of a hand control, and almost as bad with somethin’ like the non-standard visual backs a few of the very earliest scopes sported. One common problem is drive correctors. If you have a desire to take pictures with the “new” 2080 or Orange tube, you will need a “drive corrector,” a variable frequency inverter, to guide it during long exposures by adjusting the speed of the AC motor. If one is not furnished with the scope, well, good luck findin’ one today.
OK, OK. You’ve considered the ramifications of buyin’ an orphaned CAT, have avoided Halleyscopes and Dynamaxes like the plague—or at least star tested them—and are ready to buy. How much should you pay? Negotiatin’ a fair price is between you and the seller, but there are a few guidelines. Firstly, don’t pay more for that old SCT than it’s really worth. For example, zillions of C8 Orange Tubes were made. It’s a classic, sure, but with a small C. Given their numbers and the prices of modern go-to scopes, an Orange Tube shouldn’t sell for more than about 500 bucks in good condition. Mint with some sweet accessories? Maybe a little more. Usually the prices asked by working amateurs are pretty reasonable. Overinflated prices tend to come from folks who’ve inherited the scopes (“This is my Granpa’s EXPENSIVE SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT!”) or who bought the scope, put it away shortly thereafter, and have an exaggerated memory of its worth (“I am sure I paid three thousand dollars for this Super Polaris C8, even if it don’t got no clock drive thing.”). The best you can do in these situations? Pass ‘em by. There are plenty more where they came from. If you are in need of a baseline idea of what a particular scope should cost, a survey of old and new Astromart ads will help.
Don’t get the idea I am tryin’ to scare you away from buyin’ used with my tales of Halleyscopes and cautions about obsolete and too expensive used CATs. I just want you-all to be aware of the possible pitfalls and aggravations inherent in pursuing an old(er) SCT. Me? I’m not afraid to hack into an LX6 OTA or drivebase, but even I would be wary of an old LX200 or Ultima 2000. Which doesn’t mean one might not be a good scope for you as long as you are aware of the possible perils and are prepared to deal with ‘em. On the other hand, I would not have the slightest hesitation in buying a (non-Halley) non-go-to scope. In fact, as the years pass, I seem to have an ever greater desire to replace my foolishly sold Orange Tube C8 or to acquire one of the legendary Blue and White Celestrons I stared at in the Sky and Telescope ads of the 60s, but, of course, couldn’t dream of affording in the days of my misspent youth.
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