Sunday, March 09, 2014
Old Betsy’s Revenge
 |
| Betsy in Mardi Gras Regalia |
Why would
Unk’s time-honored Dobsonian want revenge?
Because she’s been starved of photons for too long. I booted up her Sky
Commander Digital Setting Circles computer the other day, muchachos, and was
gobsmacked to see the date set into it was November 10, 2012. Yep, last time
she was on an observing field was at the the 2012 Deep South Regional Star Gaze.
Why? Two
reasons. I’d finished The Herschel Project in the summer of 2012, so Betsy’s
considerable visual reach was no longer as vital to my observing. Also, a new
telescope had came to live at Chaos Manor South in the spring of 2013, Mrs. Emma Peel, shoving Bets even more into the
background. But, as I do periodically, I got to feeling that getting out with
the reasonably low-tech Betsy once in a while might be fun after too much wrestling
with computers and cables and cameras of late.
As with Big Bertha, who’d been laid off for a long while, too,
I expected to do a little maintenance on Old Betsy. I just hoped it would be
minimal. Having an understanding wife helps there, since the telescope is
stored in Chaos Manor South’s front parlor and is not exposed to varying
temperatures, bugs, and damp. A little dust and a little cat hair is all she
has to contend with.
A quick
check revealed her to be in fine shape. The dust on her body was easily dispelled.
How about the primary mirror? After Betsy’s last series of upgrades, Dorothy
and I decided she needed some sort of dust cover for the mirror in addition to
the wooden cover on the mirror box. As is the vogue for Dobbies today, we
fashioned a round cover that lies directly on the surface of the mirror. We made it
out of one of Unk’s favorite “astronomy materials,” corrugated plastic sign
material, the stuff the politicians sue for their dadgummed yard signs.
Modern
mirrors are well over-coated, and as long as you don’t drag the cover back and
forth across the mirror’s surface, you don’t have to worry about causing
“sleeks,” the small scratches that bedevil Newtonian owners. Indeed, removing
the cover showed Betsy’s Meade primary looked pristine. One small mod, and I
figgered she’d be ready to go for her twentieth
observing season.
Before I get
to that mod, y’all, I think I’ll give a brief recap of Betsy’s “career.” I reckon
I’ve done that here more than once, but not in a while, and I just enjoy
revisiting pleasant memories. Anyhow, Old Betsy first came to me in 1994 in the
form of a 12.5-inch Meade StarFinder Dobsonian. One of the simple and crude alt-azimuth
telescopes of yore like Coulter and Orion as well as Meade sold back in the
1990s. Cardboard tube, plastic focuser, particleboard mount.
The two most
memorable things from Betsy’s earliest days? How she arrived the day before
Miss D. and I were married in September of 1994, and how surprisingly good her
optics turned out to be. I love telling the story of how Miss Dorothy came home
on Friday afternoon to find her formerly spic-and-span front parlor covered in
telescope parts and packing material. It was her response when I chirped,
“Honey, IT CAME!” that clued me in, not that I needed cluing, as to how
wonderful she was. The place where we were to be wed the next morning looked
like a tornado had hit it, but D. replied, “Oh, Rod, how wonderful; I am so happy for you!”
Let me add
that I was assiduous about cleaning up after myself once Betsy was together,
and that I stashed her upstairs with herculean effort (toting her OTA around
was like manhandling a freaking water heater). Then came the big day, and
D. and I were off on our honeymoon. First light would wait till our return.
What did I expect? “OK, not great, ‘bout like a Coulter Odyssey 13-inch.” Such
a cheap and cheap-looking 12-inch couldn’t possibly have a good mirror, could
it?
 |
| TSP 1997 |
It could.
When we got back, I immediately hauled Betsy into the backyard, which, in those
days had reasonably clear views of the sky here and there—today the growth of
trees has foreclosed all observing “out back.” What could I see between the oaks
to the west? Good old Jupiter. What would he look like in a 12-inch f/5? Like a
custard pie, I reckoned.
Nuh-uh, Bubba. Despite the King being low in the
west, he was a thing of wonder, showing more detail—belts, whorls, spots—than I
had ever before seen visually. Back east, Saturn was perfectly placed. In
addition to disk banding and a stark Cassini’s Division, the Crepe ring, which
often eluded me, was, well, “easy.”
Betsy’s
near-full-thickness primary was a good mirror indeed. She strutted her stuff
over the next four years everywhere from the 1994 Deep South Regional Star Gaze to
the (infamous) 1997 Texas Star Party, where
she bested my friend Joe’s high-toned Dobsonian with its Parks mirror (Parks’
optics were highly regarded back then).
Not that
everything was coming up roses for me and Bets as 1998 came in. The death of my little Hyundai hatchback car in 1995 meant Betsy had been confined to home most of the
time—she wouldn’t fit in my Toyota Camry. Though I had a lot of fun with her in
the backyard, doing deep sky observing I would formerly have thought impossible
from our heavily light polluted neighborhood, I missed having her at dark
sites. I went to my friendly, neighborhood ATM, Pat Rochford, for advice.
What Pat
said was that it was time we did away with Bets’ Sonotube. We’d put her in
one of them new-fangled truss tube rigs and I could keep on trucking. Worked
for me. In addition to making the telescope portable again, we could fix
Betsy’s other shortcomings: the plastic 1.25-inch focuser (which did work better
than I expected), and a primary cell (if you could call it that) that was too
hard to collimate.
The biggest improvement
in addition to transportability, however, would be improving Betsy’s motions, and
especially her altitude motion. As was all too common in the 1990s (and
unfortunately still too common),
Betsy’s altitude bearings were too small. That would have made her altitude
movement too easy with Teflon bearing pads, and she would have been impossible
to balance. Meade compensated by using Nylon. That made her altitude movement
too sticky. I compromised by replacing one pad on each side with Teflon, and added an Orion
lead-shot filled beanbag counterweight to the scope’s rear. That worked, but
just barely.
I obtained
the required items for the upgrade: plywood, primary and secondary mirror mounts
and a spider from AstroSystems, a JMI NGF
focuser, and bearing material—Teflon and Ebony Star Formica—from long gone and
much missed ATM merchant Crazy Ed.
When I’d accumulated the parts, Pat, with a very small amount of help from
yours truly, got Betsy rebuilt in record time.
 |
| TSP 1999 |
“New” Betsy
was a revelation. Not only was I able to get her in the Toyota for the trip to
the 1999 Texas Star Party, there was room left over for enough camping gear and
other stuff for a week’s stay at Prude Ranch. What was truly remarkable,
however, was what Betsy did way out west, snagging dim and difficult objects
like the Double Quasar I would have thought
beyond the powers of a “mere” 12-inch.
Not that it
was all gravy. The truss tube mod meant I no longer used Betsy in the backyard.
She was too awkward to carry out back without separating the upper cage from
the mirror box, and that took too much effort given my home sky’s condition.
Not that it made much difference before long, anyway. Every year that passed it
got harder to see much out back due to the growth of foliage.
There things
remained till 2007. I did not use Betsy
as much as I used my SCTs, but I did use her, including at another rollicking
Texas Star Party, the 2001 edition. After
that, however, your old Unk got spoiled.
By goto. When I bought Big Bertha, the NexStar 11, in 2002 I discovered I was
now more interested in looking than hunting. Howsomeever, it would still have
been nice to be able to use the uber-simple and optically outstanding Betsy
once in a while…
I didn’t do
much more thinking about the old girl till I was having one of my periodic
astrophotography bug remissions in 2007. What could I do to improve her? How
about digital setting circles? I’d been impressed by the Sky Commander DSCs Pat
purchased for one of his scopes. No leveling, no consarned “warp factors” like
with Tangent based systems. Just align on two stars and everything from one
side of the sky to the other was in the eyepiece.
I figgered
if I was going to get Bets a set of Sky Commanders, it might be time to do a
complete “Baseline Phase II” upgrade. In addition to the circles, I rang up
AstroSystems and purchased a new, smaller secondary mirror, a new secondary
holder, and a dew heater for the secondary mirror. Betsy had a way too large
secondary as she came from Meade, necessitated (they thought) by her somewhat
tall stock focuser.
Finally, I
decided it was time to get the primary recoated. After a good cleaning, Pat
declared the 13-year old mirror’s surface still looked good, but my mind was
made up. I shelled out the bucks for Spectrum’s
top of the line “MaxR” high reflectivity coatings.
How did it
all work out? Amazingly well. The images Betsy now delivered were noticeably
superior. Whether that was due to the new secondary or the new primary coatings
or a combination of the two, I couldn’t say, but what was in the eyepiece was
noticeably brighter and more contrasty. The Sky Commanders? Freaking amazing. They put anything, anywhere I requested in the field of a medium power eyepiece. I felt
as if a whole new Universe had opened up for my old scope.
 |
| 2008 Chiefland Star Party |
There was
only one upgrade that didn't take. I’d decided to replace the original Meade
50mm finder with a new and fancy Orion RACI (right angle correct image) finder
scope. I didn't expect to use it a whole lot, since I already had a Telrad on
Bets. I figured if it got used at all, it would just be for centering
alignment stars, but I bought the Orion finder anyway. However, it didn't take long for me to recall how
much I hate right angle finders. I
have never been comfortable using one. I shelved the thing and returned Bet’s
original 50mm to it place of honor.
Old Betsy
sure did prove herself anew, beginning with the 2008 Chiefland Star Party. The skies were not perfect during the week-long event, but
she showed me some amazing things ne'ertheless (with the aid of my new 8mm and 13mm Ethos
eyepieces). Including a fairly pedestrian DSO, but one I’d been striving to
get a really good look at for dang near 40 years, NGC 206, the huge star cloud
in M31’s arms. Oh, I’d seen it plenty of times before, but never as clearly and sharply as
Betsy showed it Down Chiefland Way.
I did make one more addition to complete
Betsy’s Upgrade following CSP 2008. I’d been using a Desert Storm cover to protect the scope since TSP
2001. It worked, but had a big fault. It was cut to cover the whole telescope,
yeah, but only when the tube was pointing nearly straight up. For safety’s
sake, a Dobsonian needs to have its OTA positioned near level when unattended
in case a wind blows up. With her tube level, though, the cover would not fit
over Betsy’s big (ahem) rear end. I made do by protecting the mirror box with a
tarp I bungied in place, which was a hassle. At the CAV, I’d noticed a fellow observer's AstroSystems scope cover, which would go over the mirror box with the tube level,
and asked Santa Dorothy to bring me one for Christmas ’08.
The cost of
Betsy’s upgrades was not inconsiderable, but what she did at the 2009 Deep South Regional Star Gaze made it worth
it. We had horrible weather on the first night of the star party, but the other
evenings were exemplary, and I ran through my observing list in a right quick hurry and was soon out of objects.
‘Twas then I concluded that Betsy’s optical and finding prowess meant I should tackle
the legendary and somewhat daunting Herschel
II list. The rest, as they say, is history—in a small amateur astronomy
sort of way.
 |
| DSRSG 2009 |
After that
triumph, however, things wound down for Bets. She got a few cracks at the
Herschels, but after I decided to go for the Whole Big Thing, all 2500 H-objects,
I began to use deep sky video camera equipped SCTs most of the time. Especially
when I had to do Herschels from our less than pristine club site.
There was
another and more serious reason for Betsy falling behind the CATs. Her weight (sorry, old girl). Every
year, her mirror box seemed heavier. We had built Bets’ mirror box along the
lines of those of the first truss tube scopes, like the old Sky Designs Dobs:
big, heavy, solid. The opposite of today’s ultra lights. Betsy was too heavy
for me now, and I didn't take her to the Possum Swamp Astronomical Society dark
site often.
I finally
got up the gumption to ask Pat if he could figure out a way to knock some
weight off Bets without completely rebuilding her (Pat had just constructed an
innovative ultra light around a 16-inch Meade StarFinder primary). He said he
could, and proceeded to do quite a bit of whittling away with a jigsaw.
The results
hit the field of the 2012 DSRSG for first
light with Baseline Phase III Betsy. Not only had Pat removed quite a bit of weight
from her mirror and rocker boxes, the holes he cut looked professionally done
and improved the airflow around the primary considerably. Yes, the mirror was
somewhat exposed during observing, but that is today’s fashion and doesn't seem
to cause problems. Betsy performed well at the star party. The Herschel Project
was done, so, admittedly, I didn't push her, but I had mucho fun looking at
cool stuff, a lot like I did at the 2008 CSP bash.
Which brings
us up to today. What would I need to do to bring Betsy back online? As above,
not much. A little dusting, a little cleaning, a little application of Pledge
to her wooden body. Actually, there was one last mod I wanted to make. While
the holes Pat cut in the mirror box were a practical help, they left the mirror
a mite exposed when she was uncovered and unattended on the field. Our
expedient solution at DSRSG 2012 was to drape a towel over her mirror box. That didn't seem very elegant, however.
I cut a
couple of removable panels of (yes) corrugated plastic to block those holes
when she is sitting out without me around, affixing them with Velcro. I used
white plastic since that’s what I had on hand and my intention is to remove
them during observing. That was all I did (other than changing the battery in
the Sky Commander). Next step was to get her to the PSAS field for a check
ride.
 |
| 2012 DSRSG |
Which was
not what I’d planned for last weekend. I thought I should get out with Bertha
again to make sure she was 100% after her long layoff. But given a forecast
that predicted clouds well before midnight, I just couldn’t face dragging the C11 and batteries and laptop computer to the dark
site. I am purty confident Bertha is good to go for the upcoming Chiefland
Spring Picnic, but I should get one more chance to test her in the field before
then—if the weather gods cooperate.
While I’ve observed
more in the last year than I have in who-knows-how-long thanks to my retirement, the
observing projects just keep piling up. I still have a few loose ends to tie up on
the Herschel Project. I want to get back to Operation Arp. There’s visual observing
for a new book to work on. Also, there is a new “big” observing project I keep trying
to get started on (more in a minute, y’all). The backlog is thanks to
almost unceasingly punk weather since last summer. The rotten cherry on
top of the mess? I hear El Niño will
be back with us in 2015, no doubt bringing more clouds. Such is the curse of
the astronomer.
When 4 p.m.
came on Saturday afternoon, I was kinda surprised. The clear sky seemed to be
holding. It was humid and warmish, but still clear, so I set about loading up
the 4Runner, Miss Van Pelt. Observation number one? Yes, we’d substantially
lightened Betsy’s mirror box, but it still ain’t light. Or maybe it’s just that
Unk is two years older than he was the last time he hefted it.
Observation
two was that when you don’t have to worry about computers, cables, batteries, and
multiple gear boxes loading sure does go quick. The mirror box and rocker box
(which I toted out separately) went in the cargo area along with my
tackle/accessory box, the little netbook computer, and the case containing
Bets’ Sky Commander computer and altitude encoder. In the back seat went the
upper cage assembly and the truss poles. For a quick run out to the Possum
Swamp Astronomical Society dark site, I leave the truss tubes attached to the
upper cage.
Traffic
wasn’t bad, at least not going the way I was headed, west. The eastbound lanes
of Airport Boulevard were bumper to bumper with folks bound for the night's Mystics of Time (Mardi Gras) parade.
The slightly less than one hour journey out to the old observing field went
pleasantly, with your old Unk passing the time by listening to one of his favorite radio stations,
“Willie’s Roadhouse” on the Sirius XM.
 |
| Loadout... |
Driving onto
the field, I was pleased to see my old friend and observing companion, Max, was
already onsite. He’d snagged Unk’s accustomed spot, but that was OK; it sure would be nice to have some company other than Mothman and the dadgum Skunk Ape for a change.
Before long, one more PSAS compadre, Taras, rolled in bearing his nice 15-inch
Dobbie. It almost felt like a mini-star
party compared to Unk’s lonely solo runs.
Set up with
Betsy, like loading her into the truck, reminded me why it is nice to go visual
occasionally. Plunk down the rocker box, mirror box goes in that. Attach upper
cage and truss poles to mirror box. Cable up Sky Commander…and…that…is it. While I could run Betsy’s computer
and secondary heater off a jump-start battery, I don’t. The Sky Commander will
go multiple nights on a 9-volt battery, and one will power the dew heater for a (short) evening. I stock up on cheap transistor radio batteries at the Big
Lots, and glory in being freed from big batteries and cords.
The bright
stars were soon turning on and it was time to get aligned. Inserted the 1.25-inch
reticle eyepiece and 1.25-inch adapter into Betsy’s JMI NGF focuser—and she
immediately began to sink in altitude. Hmm. Hadn't remembered a balance problem
at DSRSG 2012, but maybe I’d just forgotten it. Pat removed quite a bit of weight from Bets’ rear end, so it wasn’t surprising she’d be somewhat nose-heavy afterwards.
That was easy enough to cure. Removed the counterweight attached to the upper
cage with Velcro and all was well—with a 1.25-inch eyepiece, anyways.
Hadn't aligned the Sky Commanders in over two years, but it is so simple I didn't have
to exercise a single brain cell (good thing). Power up, enter the date, and the
computer defaults to Polaris as alignment star one. Push the scope to Polaris,
center the star in the cross-hairs, press Enter, and pick a second star. I have
two pairs of “Sky Commander stars” that get me through most of the year,
Polaris and Procyon and Polaris and Fomalhaut. These pairs seem perfectly
spaced to yield excellent alignments, but I can’t take credit for discovering
‘em. I was told about them by my Sky Commander wielding buddy and big Dob
builder extraordinaire, Tom Clark.
Second star
entered, it was time for a test, and what better test than M42, which was now
straddling the Meridian. Cursored down to the M objects on the ‘Commander, used
the right-left/up-down keys to get to “M42,” mashed Enter, and moved the scope
till the altitude and azimuth readings on the display zeroed out. In went my
much-loved if hardly perfect 16mm 100-degree AFOV Zhumell eyepiece, “The Happy Hand Grenade” and I had the first look
of the evening.
M42 was dead
center and looking mighty fine in the gloaming. There was a surprising amount
of nebulosity, and, with a little staring, I picked out the E and F stars in
the Trapezium. Seeing was not perfect but not bad, either. Downside? It was
clearly going to be a wet night; there was plenty of moisture on the Telrad’s dew
shield already.
 |
| Plastic covers for the holes... |
What now? I
was close to winter’s only Messier globular star cluster, M79. Boom. Right in
the middle of the big field. As I told Taras, who was having a little trouble
with his Sky Commanders initially, the only trouble I’ve ever had with the S-Cs
has been due to pilot error—usually me being mistaken about the identity of an
alignment star. Which turned out to be his problem. A realignment and Taras’ 15-inch Dob was also hitting every blessed target.
Then it was
my turn to have trouble. Moving down in altitude to snag M79 revealed I still
had balance problems. Betsy wanted to keep going all the way to the horizon. I
was stumped as to what to do for a minute. Then it hit me, “Get rid of the
Telrad or the finder scope, dummy; you won’t need either one for the rest of
the night.” Away went the old 50mm Meade finder, and balance became
perfect no matter how low we’d go with the heaviest eyepieces.
But where would we go? I fired up the little
Asus netbook and took a gander at my list on SkyTools. I’d brought the Asus out since it will run all night long
off its internal battery. That was the good. The bad, as I quickly discovered, was
that with the display turned down to low intensity and a red filter over it, my old eyes had a right hard time reading the small text, even with my
coke-bottle glasses on. I vowed to always use the Toshiba with its big 17-inch
screen from now on. I persevered however, and loaded up the evening’s observing
list, “BCH unobserved.”
If you are
an old-timer, or even a not-so-old timer, in the astronomy game, you probably know
the letters B, C, and H stand for “Burnham’s Celestial Handbook.” This three-volume
observing guide is not state of the art anymore. It pales in depth and object number
in comparison to books like The Night Sky
Observer’s Guide. However, it has never been and may never be surpassed for
its thoughtful, aesthetic take on the Universe. Robert Burnham’s story is a sad
one, but not without its triumphs, and I will say more about him and his books
some Sunday soon. For now, though, let’s just talk about the BCH Project.
With my
grand Herschel Hunt a fading memory, I was after a nice big observing project.
Something wider in scope and encompassing more objects in more constellations
than Operation Arp. That’s what I was ruminating about one afternoon when I
happened to spy Burnham’s on the bookshelf in Chaos Manor South’s den. “Well,
why not?”
It was easy
enough to find a text file on the Internet listing of Burnham’s object numbers. It
was also easy to import that into SkyTools
3 and turn it into an observing list. Then the culling began. I eliminated
variable and multiple stars, far southern constellations, and objects for which
I had recent log entries. That left me with a grand total of just over 700 deep
sky objects, 707 to be exact, of all types scattered all across the sky.
 |
| 20 years down the line... |
What are my
“rules” for the BCH project? Ain’t got nern. Unlike the Herschel Project, I am
not imposing a time limit on myself. I will observe the BCH objects when I observe them,
and will let you know how it goes and will talk about the most outstanding
objects rat-cheer. I’m looking forward to both observing the DSOs and to
reacquainting myself with the Handbook after not having cracked it open in way
too long.
So, Unk got
on the stick with the BCH project and ever’thing went smooth as silk? Y'all know better than that. The evening's silliness
began when I decided to see how M82’s supernova was looking. The first
difficulty was that Miss Van Pelt’s raised tailgate was blocking the galaxy.
Well, shoot, I’d just lower it temporarily. I did that, barely noticing an
audible CRUNCH when I did so. M82 didn't look half bad, though the sky was now a
little hazier than I’d have liked. There was detail along the disk in the 13mm
Ethos eyepiece, and the supernova was still easily visible with direct vision.
The uh-oh came when I was done and lifted the tailgate.
DOH! I
FORGOT THE MONSTER! I use Miss Van Pelt’s rear cargo area as my observing
table, with the laptop and accessory box stationed there. What I had also
stationed there, on the bumper, was a half-drunk Monster Energy Drink. It was
now also half crushed. The tailgate
had squeezed it good, spraying the sticky stuff all over the netbook. Luckily,
Max had brought along paper towels, and even more luckily, the Asus’
semi-chicklet-style keyboard is reasonably resistant to moisture.
Alarums and
excursions over, I got started observing. What was the final total? A somewhat
paltry 21 objects. I’d hoped to do more than double that, but Urania had other
ideas. Her sky was never very transparent, and by 9 p.m. was closing down with
haze and ground fog, something not unusual for this site in the late
winter-early spring. Even before the fog came, this was not a night for galaxies. It
was an evening for open clusters, alas. But, as you know if you have been
observing long, there’s always the possibility of surprises, even on semi-punk
nights.
Often the
greatest observing experiences in amateur astronomy are the unlooked for ones.
Auriga was riding high, just past zenith, and I started running the list
objects there. M38? Check. M36? Check. M37? Check? NGC 1893? Uhhh… The number
was somewhat familiar, but only somewhat. Looking at its vitals in the
information window in ST3 revealed NGC 1893 to be a sprawling 16’ across open
cluster in the southern area of the Charioteer. Hokay. Punched in “1893,” did the
push-to thing, and put my eye to the Happy Hand Grenade.
“Well…cool
enough star cluster, I reckon. But what’s that around it? Nebulosity?” I didn't recall a bright nebula in Auriga. There is the Flaming Star Nebula, yeah, but that is
hardly bright. Let’s look at the POSS plate. A few clicks in SkyTools and I was
viewing at the old Oschin Schmidt picture of the cluster. Which was enrobed in
nebulosity to a spectacular degree.
Removed the
Happy Hand Grenade, and screwed my 2-inch UHC filter onto it. Back in the
focuser, a little focus tweaking, and I sure was rewarded. At first all I saw
was a bright arc of nebulosity, somewhat tadpole shaped, but as I kept looking,
I began to see there was an annulus of nebulosity superimposed on the hordes of
cluster stars. What was this thing?
 |
| Betsy's latest incarnation |
I pulled up
the Interactive Atlas chart in SkyTools,
and saw this was IC 410. The
isophote on the chart showed an elongated patch, and after a lot of staring,
both Unk and Taras, who also homed in on
the nebula, began to see it was a like a smaller version of the Rosette,
only strongly elongated rather than round, extending roughly north - south. Images
show IC 410 enclosing at least two separate dark areas, but visually we only saw one. Anyway,
“Rosette Junior,” as we began calling it, was beautiful.
What did Mr. Burnham
think of IC 410? Hard to say. He has the nebula in his “List of Interesting
Objects,” where he describes it as “F neby [faint nebulosity], diam 20’,
encloses cluster NGC 1893,” but it does not get a full write up in the descriptive
section of the Auriga “chapter.”
I pressed on
for a while, but my view of IC 410 was the high point of the evening. Not long
after I was done with it, conditions began to degrade badly. It was damper than
ever—Betsy’s shroud was dern near sopping wet—and when I pointed my red light
out toward the runway and engaged all its LEDs, I could see thick fog. The
netbook went in its bag. Disconnected the Sky Commanders, and detached the
upper cage and truss tubes from the mirror box. Packing took less than 15-minutes.
Back at the
old Manse, unloading was similarly easy. No, I didn't have a memory card full
of images, but I did have nice memories of the objects I’d seen, and the
BCH Project had finally got off the ground. Time for the
Yell and the cable TV and some strategizing. I arrived home too late for
Svengoolie, but that was OK, The sucka had showed Batman: The Movie. I’ve never been a big fan of the Adam West 1960s Batman.
Oh, it’s campy fun, but it is not THE
BATMAN I’ve known and loved since I was a sprout. I tuned in the Military
Channel, but didn't pay much attention to The
World at War. I was thinking about what was next on my observing calendar
and what was next for Betsy.
The old gal
probably won’t get back out for a while, but she will get out again before another two years elapse, muchachos. She is
a good old telescope, I love her, and I have every intention of turning her
loose on the globulars of Ophiuchus and Sagittarius this summer should the
weather gods permit it.
Next
Time: How Do You Video II...
Comments:
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I am glad it ended acceptably well with the Monster can for you. A few years ago after one of my Herschel 400 observing sessions, leaving in the dark, I forgot to load my laptop bag back into the trunk and backed up the car over it - actually a multi-thousand-dollar "mobile workstation". It is from such experiences that we really learn, right?
Unk said "Every year that passed it got harder to see much out back due to the growth of foliage."
Unk. I know whatcha mean. Over the years, I have watched our trees become such obstructions.
It's like it's so much of a problem to keep our trees for the ecosystem...so hard not to clear out all those 'nasty ole' trees, esp. when they clog the gutters!
Clear skies (yea, don't we pray).....
Don Horne
Unk. I know whatcha mean. Over the years, I have watched our trees become such obstructions.
It's like it's so much of a problem to keep our trees for the ecosystem...so hard not to clear out all those 'nasty ole' trees, esp. when they clog the gutters!
Clear skies (yea, don't we pray).....
Don Horne
# posted by 
: 8:22 PM
: 8:22 PM
I really enjoyed your post as it reflected what I went through with my 10" f/5 dob. U recently sold it after 7 years. My BIG dobbie used to be my most used scope when I lived in a towhouse and had...surprise surprise a white Hyundai Excel hatchback. My baby got relegated when we moved over to Los Angeles and into a 2 bedroom apartment and no lock up garage. I finally sold her last year in favour of my first Celestron C8 SCT, which is my main visual scope at the moment. She rides on a Vixen Porta mount and she gets used heaps more. I can carry her down, with an extra hand to spare for my camping chair and Astroscan. I told myself I will buy a bigger scope in the 12.5" - 16" someday when we move into a house......so until then...
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