Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

I’ll fess up right from the get- go, muchachos... No, I didn’t get a telescope into the backyard this month. I am old and lazy and, frankly, there weren’t many even partially clear nights in June. This week? This week brings ARRL Field Day and y’all know Unk is gonna be up to his ears in that. I have been ruminating about amateur astronomy, though. A day rarely goes by that I don’t. My ruminations at the moment? Which telescopes are best for boomers? What’s a practical scope as we watch our 60s recede in the rearview mirror?

If you’re a young sprout, you can punch out rat-cheer. But you might want to hang around. You’ll be faced with this question almost before you know it. And having a nice, portable scope is something not to be sneezed at at any age.

Before we get to useful telescopes for the over-the-hill gang, though, there’s a question you might venture: “Should I get rid of the scope herd I have?” That mostly depends on the nature of the herd you have and your circumstances. A 30-inch Dobbie you haven’t used since the 2019 Almost Heaven Star Party? Let it go. I know you love it, and it holds some wonderful memories, but doesn’t it deserve to be used?

You might say, “But Unk I’ve got a nice observatory for the Dobbie (or the C14). It is no trouble for me to use it, and I still like to. Sometimes.” Maybe so, coach, maybe so. But can I clue you in to something on the not-so-pleasant side? You ain’t gonna be here forever and neither am I.  Final exam time isn’t quite here, but spring semester midterm has come and gone. You don’t want to leave a lot of STUFF for your spouse, or partner, or children, or relatives to deal with when you exit stage left. At the very least make firm arrangements as to what happens to your gear when you’re gone, and make sure your family knows what the arrangements are. 

Hokay, that outa the way, let’s talk telescopes…

Newtonians

Us kids' dream scope in 1966...

And by “Newtonians,” I’m talking about German equatorial (GEM) mounted reflectors, and particularly those of focal radios of at least f/6. Yeah, I know Dobs are Newts, but they deserve their own category here. Bottom line? Most of us who still own the 60s-style scopes of our youth haven’t used them in years and probably should get rid of them. Those of 8-inches and above aperture, certainly, and those of 6-inches and under, probably.

Moi? I was lucky enough to have one of the more legendary telescopes of that distant age, a Criterion RV-6 Dynascope 6-inch, fall into my hands some years ago. It was a very fine telescope. The DYN-O-MATIC drive still worked like a charm, and the optics were every bit as good as I remembered them being.

I used the RV-6 some. Hell, I even did a little public outreach with it. But, Jeez Louise! That pedestal! It was even worse than the one on my Palomar Junior when it came to getting it into the backyard. I mean clumsy and downright dangerous. In my salad days as a star-struck kid, I damaged myself (and Mama’s prized mahogany coffee table) more than once trying to get the Pal out of the house. Despite its damned pedestal, the RV-6 was a lovely telescope and worked oh-so-well—it was a downright marvel on the planets. How long had I drooled over the Criterion ads in Sky & Scope? Give that up now? No way!

One summer I was visiting my friend and former Editor, Kelly Beatty, and his wonderful wife in Boston when I spied a real monster in Kelly’s garage. An Edmund Scientific 8-inch GEM reflector. How I dreamed about owning one as a young teen. And Kelly scored one back in the day! Man on man! Just looking at that huge mount and OTA, though... I didn’t ask if he still used it; I hoped so, but it would be way beyond me now.

Which got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing)… I decided the RV-6 needed to go to a new home. I knew I wasn’t going to use her. Frequently—or maybe ever again. And a Good Telescope doesn’t deserve that fate. But just to make sure, I set her up in the back forty. Beyond the pain of moving that fricking-fracking pedestal outdoors (with the GEM head on it, since it’s not easy to detach), I soon recalled what a pain a GEM-Newt can be to use. The eyepiece always seems to wind up in a lousy position for viewing. Sure, if your scope, like the Criterion, has tube rings, you can rotate the OTA to put the eyepiece in a better position. But that invariably causes you to lose that hard-won faint fuzzy.

So, my RV-6 went to a younger person who used her, and, I hope, continues to use her. How about a more modern 6-inch or larger GEM Newt on a more modern mount, though? The same things apply: GEM Newts are large and not fun to move and not fun to use. Let them go… 

CATs

SCTs and Maks are supposedly the perfect compact telescopes. But are they really? For those of us who’ve crested the hill, if not yet gone over it? Maybe. If…you set 8-inches as the aperture limit and eschew fork mounts. Oh, a fork 8-inch isn’t terrible, but I find a GEM the size of a Celestron Advanced VX or maybe a Losmandy GM8 makes for a telescope I’ll use more often.  I loved and used forks for years, and an 8-inch fork-scope is still useable for me but, one that became less desirable years ago.

If you’ve got an C8 or Meade on a goto fork that can be used in alt-AZ mode, you may be good for a while. But putting even an 8-inch on a wedge? I can still do it but don’t want to. Why? Forks are OK, not great, for imaging—or visual use. Once you move to the northern (or southern) polar area or close to it, that old bugaboo of poor eyepiece placement rears its ugly head again.

Oh, Bertha, how I still miss you!

A larger SCT? Fuhgeddaboutit. I sure did love my NexStar 11 GPS, Big Bertha, but hefting that big gal onto a tripod? It was becoming difficult over a dozen years ago. Oh, I still hauled her down to Chiefland and occasionally into the backyard, but it was becoming a task I dreaded. One afternoon I nearly did serious damage to myself and the scope while trying to get her down the front steps of the old Chaos Manor South. As I recounted last month, I deforked the girl and put her on a Celestron CGEM in hopes of using her a while longer. It worked, but only for a short while. Bigger CATs like 14-16-20-inches? No way in the world. Those are for younguns with permanent observatories.

How about MCTs, Maks? Since most are in apertures of 7-inches or smaller, they are a definite possibility. The good ones can produce exquisite images of the deep sky as well as the Solar System. Do be aware, though, that one on a goto fork mount, even a 5-inch like my own Charity Hope Valentine, an ETX-125, is not much less of a hassle than a fork 8-inch SCT.

In my opinion (and you know what they say about opinions), a practical choice for a Boomer who wants a CAT they will use is a C5 or C6 if’n you want an SCT. A Mak? A Celestron C90, old or new, ain’t bad and neither are the 4 – 5-inch class MCTs from China.

How you gonna mount that CAT?  Maybe on an undriven alt-AZ mount like the SkyWatcher AZ-4, or a “custom” alt-AZ, or some kinda big video tripod? Not for me. The high magnification nature of CATs larger than the C90 makes them much better on a tracking mount. There are quite a few smaller goto alt-AZ mounts available from Celestron, SkyWatcher, Ioptron, and others. A C90 or C5 on a goto mount might be a sweet little setup and just the thing to get you into the backyard if you are one of us Reluctant Astronomers.  

Don’t like that consarned goto; you still want to STARPHOP? There are some smaller manual GEMs still around, and since you ain’t likely wanting to make 6-hour exposures with your C5, one could make for a nice, portable package. The Celestron Omni CG-4 is a good candidate. I would get the optional RA drive, though, since tracking with a manual slow-motion control is a recipe for THE SHAKES with lighter GEMs

Dobsonian Mounted Newtonians

Is a Dobsonian telescope the perfect Boomer rig? In some ways, yes—as long as you keep that gull-dern aperture down. If you’re content to stay at 8-inches or smaller and are in reasonable health and physical shape, a Dobsonian just might be IT. Even if you think you need to keep it down to 6-inches, 150mm will show you plenty of wonders. Remember, when we were kids a 6-inch was a large and powerful telescope we dreamed about.

Which brand to get? I don’t know that it matters much. I haven’t heard of any real punk smaller Dobs in a long time. It is true one of their prime purveyors, Orion Telescope & Binocular Center, is gone with the wind and that is a shame, but remember, they didn’t make the scopes, they only sold them. SkyWatcher has plenty of models and plenty of dealers offer them. So does GSO (their scopes are sold by Apertura and several other concerns).

But you might say, “Unk, I gotta have more than 8-inches.” Be careful. While there are truss tube scopes available in less-than-monster sizes, in 10-12-15-inches, you may find having to disassemble/assemble the telescope for set up deters you from using it frequently. You might also discover the mirror box alone is a lot heavier than you thought it would be.

How about SkyWatcher’s FlexTube Dobs with collapsible OTAs? Being smaller when collapsed helps some, but they ain’t much lighter than a solid tube scope. Yes, there are dodges like wheels and wheelbarrow handles that make getting larger Dobsonians, Flextube or truss tube, where you want ‘em easier… but… come on. You know if you can’t just plunk the scope down and be observing in five minutes, you ain’t gonna use it.

Stick with 8-inches. Hey, don’t look at me with those puppy dog “Why don’t you do as you say, Unk?” eyes. Yeah, I know I’ve still got my 10-inch GSO solid-tube Dobbie, Zelda.  But I probably shouldn’t. Last time I got her out, I nearly had a little accident with her. She’s not quite too much, yet, but she is becoming too much. I think I shall reserve her for use at the yearly Deep South Star Gaze (which, I’m excited to relate, may be held at its former home, the Feliciana Retreat Center, again) in the future. 

Refractors

Unk's Pretty Little Patriot...

Yes, a Dobbie can be a good telescope for a Boomer. But not one without some problems. Chief among them being their need to acclimatize to outdoor temperatures before they deliver their best images. Which takes a half hour at least. You gotta ask yourself, pilgrim, “Does that really fit in with the way little old me observes now?” What if there were a telescope that didn’t require any cooldown, and didn’t require much of anything in the way of maintenance?

That’s, of course, a refractor, campers. But which refractor? How big? APO or achromat? Let us address size first. 6-inches? Probably not. The 6ers most of us will want to or be able to afford are import achromats, and while they may be well made, they will almost always be on the heavy side. How do I know? My own 6-inch achromat, Big Ethel, stymied me the last time I tried to get her on a mount. I just couldn’t get the telescope in the saddle and wound up cutting myself on the dovetail bracket before, yep, giving up. Now, I have some ideas as how to get the big girl onto her mount safely and hope to do so soon, but I counsel against a refractor of this size unless you are in much better shape than your broken down Uncle.

The next click down, a 5-inch, can be very manageable. Weight and bulk don’t scale linearly with aperture, and many 5-inch refractors are much easier to handle despite “only” being an inch smaller. My own 5-inch SkyWatcher f/7 APO is light and easy to set up and does well on an AVX mount. But what do you lose compared to, say, a C8 by going 5-inch APO refractor? Not much. In fact, in side-by-side tests (at a dark site) my 5-inch compares very favorably to a C8. If you want to observe the deep sky from suburbia with a refractor, a 5-inch class telescope is my recommendation.

A 5-inch still seems too large and maybe too expensive? Can you go even smaller? Sure. A 4-inch can show tons of deep sky wonders from suburban skies. I did a large amount of the observing for The Urban Astronomer’s Guide with a 4-inch Palomar Junior Newtonian from the city. The 4-inch refractor doesn’t have to be an APO, either. I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff from the backyard with Miss Dorothy’s fast Explore Scientific 4-inch achromat.

Even smaller than that, say 80mm? A dedicated and practiced observer can see mucho cool stuff with a Short Tube 80. However, going smaller in aperture than 100mm is where outstanding optical quality becomes important. My 80mm William Optic fluorite APO can beat the Palomar Junior, being able, for example, to resolve, or at least begin to resolve, several Messier globular clusters my Pal has trouble with. There's no denying an APO can present a superior image in any aperture. However, you may find an achromat might suit you just fine. And on most objects, there isn't much difference. Many of the folks who looked through 6-inch Big Ethel at star parties commented on what a nice APO she was. Neither Ethel nor I corrected them. 

Smaller still? Well, I sure did like the 66mm SD scopes popular some years ago, but at less than 80mm, we begin to enter grab ‘n go territory. Telescopes where ease of use and setup are their most important characteristics.  The tradeoff? 60 or 70mm is small for the deep sky and small for the planets and even a little small for Luna. My own grab ‘n go of choice? An f/5 Celestron 4-inch Newt, Tanya. Yes, she takes a little while to acclimatize, but when I’m using her I’m not after high magnification or high resolution and can be observing with her in minutes.

The New Breed

Them dern smartscopes take better pictures than Unk can!

That new breed is, as you might have guessed, smartscopes. The little robotic telescopes that allow you to take amazingly good images of the deep sky while you watch TV in the den. I won’t belabor the subject, since I’ve certainly said a lot about it the past couple of annums. I’ll simply say smartscopes have become not just my primary, but my only astrophotography tools. I just don’t have the gumption to spend hours at a laptop in the bug-infested environs of a dark site.

Smartscope minuses? You just don’t lose the visual experience; you lose the joy of being out under a starry sky. Also, they are not well-suited for imaging the Moon and planets. That carping aside, smartscopes have allowed me to continue taking pictures of the night sky frequently, and not just shooting my yearly snapshots of M13. I am all for the little widgets and believe they are the biggest thing to hit our avocation since goto.

And I sure have gone on this morning, ain’t I? Before I say “vaya con dios” (the legend on the Prude Ranch sign you see as you are leaving), here’s my Boomer scope lineup:

Special occasions/events, Zelda, the 10-inch GSO Dob or Mrs. Peel, a Celestron Edge 800 SCT (often on the AVX mount, but sometimes on a Losmandy GM-811).

“Serious observing” (whatever that is), 5-inch SkyWatcher APO, usually on the AVX mount.

Grab ‘n go, 80mm Skywatcher f/11 achromat on an altazimuth AZ-4 mount. OR…maybe more frequently lately, Tanya, the 4-inch Newtonian on her little alt-AZ fork.

Even more informal grab ‘n go, the C90 on the AZ-4 or my well-loved and oft-used Burgess 15x70 binoculars.

Picture takin? Smartscopes, Smartscopes, Smartscopes. Game over. End of story. Zip up your fly. 

Up next? I haven’t forgotten my vow to set up the 6-inch refractor and the GM-811, but I ain’t gonna do it on one of these “partly cloudy, scattered thunderstorms, poor transparency” nights! I do hope to have a look at the Moon (at least) through Ethel before July is in the rearview mirror.

 

                                                                                           

What’s been going on here at good old Chaos Manor South out on the borders of the Great Possum Swamp? Well, muchachos, it’s been wet. I mean thunderstorm after thunderstorm. Sure did put a damper on my latest (ham radio) contest, the CQ WPX CW. The antennas spent more time disconnected than connected. As for any astronomical endeavors? Hell, there was no chance of observing anything but clouds…and the month began to run out…

Specifically, I didn’t get to do something I’d really been looking forward to, getting my Losmandy GM811G and my six inch refractor, Big Ethel out into the backyard for a tour of spring deep sky wonders, which will soon be on the wane. Well, if I can’t use the GM811, at least I can talk about it. For such a nice and capable GEM, I don’t hear much discussion of it, and maybe I can help rectify that. If nothing else, this one fulfills my vow of not missing a month posting a new article to the AstroBlog, even if said article is a short one.

“But wut in pea-turkey is a GM-811, Unk? Wut is one, huh?” That’s easy enough. I think most working amateur astronomers know about the Losmandy (Hollywood General Machining) G-11. It’s a medium GEM that has been around for decades, including being sold with a Celestron nametag on it once in a while. It’s a reliable general-use mount that is a known quantity.

The G11 is a well-respected and reasonably priced mount, but some, like your decrepit, old Uncle would have trouble handling the hefty G11, not to mention big sister, the Losmandy Titan. There’s the smaller GM-8, but that doesn’t help those of us who need more payload capacity than is offered by the littlest Losmandy. Scott Losmandy and his colleagues had an idea… What if their mounts could be mixed and matched? As in, produce a mount that uses the RA assembly of the G11, but the declination assembly of the GM-8. And one with the RA of a Titan and the dec of a G11. The mix and match mounts provide extra payload thanks to the bigger RA assemblies, but keep the weight down.

So how did Unk wind up with one? Round about a dozen years back, he was tooling along happily with his Atlas EQ-6 and Celestron Advanced VX GEMs, and his beloved fork mount NexStar 11 GPS, Big Bertha. Getting a little older was what happened, mostly. I suddenly found I could no longer safely lift the NexStar 11 onto her tripod. Oh, I still did it, but I felt nervous about it. At that time, I really wanted to continue using a C11—or thought I did—and it ‘peared to me the way out was to defork the OTA and put it on a GEM.

Unk being Unk, he didn’t want to spend much/any money on a new mount and wondered if the Orion Atlas would suffice.  After a few weeks of thinking, asking, and reading, I reluctantly ruled that a “no.” The small counterweight bar and Vixen saddle argued against it. A 9.25 is really the upper limit for an EQ-6, though some have exceeded that. Also, I never got friendly with the SynScan HC. It just never seemed as accurate goto-wise as my Celestron NexStar hand paddles. Sure, the use of the EQMOD software corrected the SynScan faux pas, but I was never real comfortable with that, either. What I wanted, I decided, was a GEM mount that would handle a C11, one equipped with the familiar and accurate NexStar HC.

There was no mystery as to which mount that should be. It had been obvious for a long while that I should not have bought the EQ-6. What I shoulda done was wait a few months for the Celestron NexStar CGEM, which I knew would soon be released. But I got new GEM fever and bought the Atlas. I regretted that decision for years. So, I sold the Atlas—which was a good mount, really, just not the mount for me—and bought, yep, a CGEM, which to avoid offending my penny-pinching personality, I financed in part by the sale of the Atlas and the NexStar 11 GPS fork mount and case.

CGEM and C11:  That's a lot of telescope, paw-paw.

So, Unk, the CGEM, and his (pretty carbon fiber tube) C11 lived happily ever after? For a little while, yeah. The CGEM was indeed just what I’d wanted all along. A GEM with a NexStar HC, a dual Losmandy-Vixen saddle, and all that vaunted NexStar goto accuracy. It was nothing for it to put objects dead center in the field with the C11 at f/10. That honeymoon went on for a while, with a couple of outstanding star party expeditions with the CGEM, but by 2017 the blush was decidedly off the rose.

The problem? Damned, old Father Time (and a spate of rather serious back problems). That rascal had made the CGEM and the C11 both heavier and heavier. Honestly, I was back to where I had been with Bertha on her fork mount. To be honest, I knew the 11 and CGEM were too much from the day the big Celestron mount came to Chaos Manor South. I practiced the art of denial for a couple of years before giving-in to the obvious. Both mount and scope were way too much for me, the situation would not improve, and both had to go.

So, I made a hard choice: To sell the C11, which was the SCT I had honestly loved more than any other I’ve used over the last half century. Luckily, I was able to send her to a good home where I knew she’d be very well taken care of and used. Likewise, the CGEM went to a new owner. The good part was I really hadn’t had enough time with the mount to get attached to it. I’d think about setting it up, even with a C8 instead of a C11, and usually find reasons I just had to use the Celestron Advanced VX mount instead. So, there I was. C11-less, with my workhorse mount being the AVX.

So, what would I do? What would I do? Or…why do anything? I had a nice Edge C8 and a nice AVX. Both worked fine. But the lack of a larger mount began to eat away at me. While this was toward the end of my time as a semi-serious astrophotographer, I didn’t realize that at the time. I wanted more payload and better guiding for the very manageable 5-inch APO Veronica Lodge, who’d replaced the C11. Mostly, though, I think I just wanted to have one really nice mount. Something nicer than the Chinese GEMs that had been my bread and butter for years.

But what?  I immediately ruled out Astro-Physics or an exotic European mount. I was never an “8 hours of exposure” kinda guy, and it was clear even my relaxed take on imaging with a DSLR was slowing down. So, if I wasn’t going for the high-priced spread, and I was done with the Chinese mounts, then what? Actually, I did consider an iOptron CEM60, but for various reasons, not just that it was of Chinese manufacture, I decided against it. That left Losmandy, and their new mount that had caught my eye, the GM811G.

Next up? Unk did some digging. What I found out about the 811 was encouraging. As above, it consisted of the big G11 RA axis, and the GM-8 declination assembly. All metal construction. Mucho stainless steel. Worm gears on both axes, not just on the RA axis as I’d been accustomed to with my Chinese mounts. Annnd…most of all, maybe, a payload for imaging of 50 pounds despite the GEM head only weighing 27 pounds. Would I ever again put anything approaching a load like that on a mount either for imaging or visual? Unlikely, but overkill is good.

Only one thing deterred me: I’d have to learn a new goto computer system, the Gemini 2 by Rene Gorlich. Luckily, Rene, who’s had Gemini going for 25 years now, had and has an excellent webpage that makes it easy to get an idea of what Gemini is and how to use it. It even includes an HC simulator that I found incredibly valuable. By the time I got the mount, I was able to use the goto system with only a few hiccups.

As for the system itself? It’s not too much different from those we’ve been accustomed to. There’s a hand control, which is connected to a computer that bolts onto the tripod. Different alignment options are available, including the ability to build models with multiple stars on both sides of the Meridian, something my beloved NexStar systems lacked.

The Gemini HC is quite something. On one side of the hand control are normal tactile pushbuttons for slewing the mount, the other side is, yeah, quite something. It’s a full color touchscreen. Objects? Gemini falls behind Celestron and Meade with 40,000, and that gave me pause. However, realistically, how many more would I really need? You can enter RA and dec values and go anywhere you want. Or send the mount to any object in the sky with a PC.

And how about a PC? The Gemini computer is incredibly flexible if you want to use a laptop in the field with the mount. You can connect via good, old serial, something I’d really gotten tired of on the Celestron mounts. Or you can use a USB cable. Or—get this—you can control the mount over Ethernet. That would turn out to be my usual choice. No fooling with com ports, no worrying about a too-long USB cable.  

So… I decided I was gonna do it, buy me a Losmandy. I wondered, however, whether I should order directly from the company or use a dealer. I decided to call Losmandy and find out. I spoke to the famous Miss Tanya and asked if I ordered direct, how long the wait would be (I’d gathered from dealer websites that it could be weeks). She told me to hang on and she’d ask Scott. She was back on in a minute, “Scott says if you order now, it will ship this afternoon.” You can bet I whipped out my credit card. In addition to the GM811G Gemini, I ordered an AC power supply and the lightweight field tripod (no way I wanted to carry around the big G11 tripod). I did not order the polar alignment scope. I’ve always hated those things and by this time had progressed to using Sharpcap for polar alignment.

I was in an agony of anticipation, natch, but in just a few days some big boxes labeled “Hollywood General Machining” were on the Chaos Manor doorstep. You can read all the unboxin’ stuff here (and even watch a little video), but it went very smoothly indeed. Then I encountered a problem. The mount tended to experience “motor stalls” when slewing in dec to a position near the horizon. A quick call to Tanya told me what to do:  Many mounts need an initial gear adjustment depending on the nature of your payload—like my 6-inch refractor. The procedure has a webpage at the Losmandy site, took only a few minutes, and I never got a stall again with any telescope I’ve used on the 811.

From the evening of the day the Losmandy arrived, it’s performed splendidly in the field—I looked on the fact the sky didn’t cloud-over the minute I received the new GEM as a good omen. As long as I didn’t try to carry the mount head with its BIG counterweight bar in place, setting the Losmandy up was no problem for my poor back. The lightweight field tripod? It was very steady even with my 6-inch refractor onboard, and I sure was glad I’d eschewed that G11 tripod.

Gemini 2 touchscreen HC.

“But how about imaging, Unk?” The mount did well with both my SCT and my APO refractors. In particular, I was thrilled with how easy picture taking was with the 811 at one Deep South Star Gaze. I can’t give you a figure on guiding errors—it’s been a long time since I’ve taken pictures with the mount—but I’m pretty sure it guided at 1 arc second or better (and I never did get around to training its PPEC).

It's been a long time, yeah, since I imaged with the mount. In fact, I haven’t even used it for visual in a while, about five years as a matter of fact (ulp). But why? The near-fatal accident I suffered in early 2019 put an end to my observing for almost a year. When I was (more or less) back setting up scopes in the backyard? The aftereffects, particularly with my right arm, which still doesn’t have much strength, discouraged me from using any but the smallest and lightest instruments. Five years ago, just to say I could, I got the mount assembled but almost dropped the 6-inch refractor in the process of getting it into the mount’s saddle, which further discouraged me.

Now? Well, campers, I’m five years older, but I feel good. I have a better idea now of what I can lift safely and how to lift it. I have every intention of cruising the deep sky with Big Ethel and the Losmandy. As soon as the sky clears. Whenever that is…

 

Near-about a year down the line, this is something I haven’t had much to say about, muchachos. Quite a few of y’all have asked my opinion on it, though. Why haven’t I dished on this earth-shattering (in a small amateur astronomy sort of way) subject? It just didn’t seem possible, I reckon, not till I did some ruminatin’ on it, anyhow. “Unk, what in the hail are you goin’ on about now?”

I’d be amazed if you haven’t heard, but to recap, last July, July of 2024, that is, a rather disturbing rumor began circulating in the small world of online amateur astronomy:  Meade Instruments, once the largest telescope maker in the world, had ceased operations at its California offices and its Mexican factory. The workers had been sent home, and Big Blue was dead in the water. At first that sounded plumb impossible. Not Meade! How could such a giant—well, formerly, anyway—fail? Many were in denial. The Cloudy Nights BBS soon locked the thread on the subject.

Unk? I got word from my editor at S&T, Sean, that pretty much confirmed Meade was closed. Then the other rumor bubbled up, that not only had Meade closed its Watsonville, CA office, but that its parent company, Optronics Technology, the owner of Orion Telescope and Binocular Center, had shuttered its Orion brick and mortar stores.  I wasn’t too surprised about Meade, but at first I was really gob-smacked about Orion, who, like Meade, had been a fixture in astronomy since the 1970s.

How could both Meade and Orion suddenly be kaput? Some in our community simply refused to believe it. After all, their websites were still up, and they seemed to be taking orders. But then, as the days and weeks passed, the Orion website dropped off the air, followed, finally, by Meade. The threads on the subject at Cloudy Nights had been unlocked well before that, and few doubted any longer that both were gone (and also Coronado solar scopes, which Meade had purchased years before) and gone for good. How? A little cogitating about both companies answered that question…

Meade was lucky to still be around in 2024 in any form if’n you ask me. They’d been through at least four different owners and had been making most of their amateur telescopes in Mexico since 2009. The enormous and iconic Meade plant/offices in Irvine, California full of giant SCTs and serious, white-coated workers (according to the pictures in their catalogs, at least) was long gone.  

The Meade of 2009 claimed that move was intended to expand production. Few believed that. Most of us suspected Meade was going maquiladora (and buying a lot more from China than they had been) to save money and remain competitive. After all, their number one rival, Celestron, was now owned by Chinese optical giant Synta and didn’t have to pay California wages. Whatever the reason, it didn’t seem to help much, and a mainland Chinese firm, “Ningbo-Sunny,” picked up the obviously ailing Meade Instruments in 2013. Some hoped for the best. Unk wasn’t so sure…

Meade soldiered on under Ningbo, but took a one-two punch in the gut with the disastrous introductions of the LX-80 alt-AZ/EQ goto mount and the LX-800 GEM. Neither mount worked well, or sometimes at all. Now, it’s true that both had been developed pre-Ningbo, but the fact that post-Ningbo whoever was calling the shots decided to go ahead with two Nowheresville products showed the company’s basic problems hadn’t gone away. Despite that, for a few years their bread and butter (amateur astronomy) products like the LX200 seemed OK. But then, around 2016, your old Uncle began to hear about QA issues with just about anything with a Meade sticker on it.

Three years later in 2019, was the beginning of the end for the Ningbo bunch. Optronics (Orion) filed suit in federal court against Meade’s owner claiming price fixing and suppression of competition. It’s all a little confusing, but best I can tell, given the convoluted nature of Chinese corporations, Ningbo = Synta (Celestron). Be that as it may, the judge awarded Optronics 16.8 million. How much of that was paid, I don’t know, but in the end Optronics wound up owning what was left of Meade in 2021.

My opinion was “rut-roh.” Given what I knew, I didn’t believe there was anybody at Orion/Optronics capable of running Meade. I also didn’t believe anybody left over from the Ningbo years had much of a clue, either. The result? Orion was able to continue Meade for three years but at a reduced level of activity.

“Orion Meade” offered at least one newer product, an update of the LXD-75 GEM (a competitor for Celestron’s VX mounts), the Chinese-made LX85, which debuted toward the very end of the Ningbo period. I wrote the Sky & Telescope Test Report and was able to use the LX85 extensively. I was frankly impressed. It seemed like a lot of mount for a little money. But then, a year or two after the Orion buyout, I began to hear not everybody who used one was quite as sanguine about the LX85 as Unk.

It was apparent the QA problems had not gone away with the coming of Orion. Worse, the difficulties didn’t seem to just be the usual Meade Achilles heel, electronics, but variations in mechanical quality involving the gear system. I wondered whether the mount I used would have continued to be a good performer if I’d been able to use it longer. I suspected the answer was “nope.” A really bad sign? Few people I talked to, few amateur astronomers, were excited about Meade products anymore.

The end? Which straw, exactly, broke the Meade camel’s back? There’s been a little that’s leaked, indicating disarray at Meade in the months before the end, but who knows? Maybe somebody will write a book. I don’t think you need a book, though. I suspect the culprit was just the accelerating decline that began after John Diebel, who started Meade on his kitchen table in 1972, retired for the second time in 2003. Nothing seemed quite right after that, and I don’t know of anybody who thinks Mexico-made Meade SCTs were as good as those produced in Irvine, California. Above all, their fate was linked to that of their final owner, and Orion hadn’t been doing well for a while, either…

Orion’s story is much the same as that of Meade. It was a little California company founded on a kitchen table (in 1975) by someone interested in astronomy, in this case, Tim Gieseler of Santa Cruz. The company was originally known as Gieseler Electronics due to his first popular products being the “AccuTrack” drive correctors for the AC telescope clock drives of the day. Before long, Tim’s company became “Optronics Technologies,” and finally “Orion Telescope and Binocular Center.”

The business model? Orion products were always a little more expensive than the same or similar things elsewhere, but they made up for that with customer service that was top-notch. They were especially known for helping beginners get their start in amateur astronomy. Oh, and their wonderful old catalogs—which customers got in the mail at least once a month. In those days, in addition to Orion-branded equipment, they sold products from various sources including Vixen and Celestron.

So, what happened? Same-old, same-old as Meade. Orion’s founder sold out and retired and the company went through a couple of new owners, neither of which had Gieseler’s vision. Orion diminished with every ownership change. The business model also changed. The second and third owners, Imaginova (Lou Dobbs’ space.com company), and the “new” (employee-owned) Optronics Technologies went almost exclusively to Chinese imports.

Imported products were certainly nothing new for Orion. Gieseler noticed this little Chinese telescope (from Synta), an 80mm f/5 refractor, and thought his customers would like it. Man, did they ever! Even after the coming of the Short Tube 80, though, Gieseler didn’t go Synta 24/7. But, to keep up with the competition, I reckon, there were ever more "Orion" Synta scopes, mounts, and accessories. 

At first, the shift in focus to Chinese products was a winner for them. Orion had a pretty good lock on Synta’s SkyWatcher gear for quite some time. But that changed. Suddenly there was SkyWatcher USA, and folks noticed you could get an EQ-6 mount branded “SkyWatcher” or an 80mm f/5 refractor branded “Celestron” for less than an Orion Atlas EQ-6 or a Short Tube 80 cost. Synta was not at all shy about selling to Celestron. Toward the end, Orion did go back to selling products from a wider array of makers, but I'm not sure that helped in any way. 

The almost exclusive emphasis on imported stuff wasn’t the only thing that changed, though. Soon enough, those good, old catalogs became less frequent and then disappeared. You might say there’s no need for print catalogs today, but lots of folks still liked them, and they set Orion apart. Then, their customer service began to circle the drain.

One thing that POed a lot of people (“put out,” this is a family-friendly blog) was an ongoing policy of not providing service or parts unless you were the original purchaser of the product. That made sense for Orion, perhaps, but drove a lot of potential customers away. By the end, their customer service wasn’t A level anymore. To hear some tell it, it wasn’t even F level.

As for what exactly brought Orion down and Meade with it? Supposedly, it was supply chain issues that began during the pandemic. We do have some numbers, though, and from what I’ve seen, the amount of stuff they shipped had been on the decline for years before the pandemic. Ironically, covid was a boon for some astro-merchants (including Meade), what with people wanting something to do safely at home. Likely, it was just that Orion didn’t have anybody in charge who knew the astronomy business, even if they were equipped with a nice MBA. Taking on a Meade that was already, like them, in poor economic health, probably hurt more than it helped.

Yep, same story for both. Two legendary (in a small amateur astronomy way) companies change hands and lose more and more of what made them stand out with each change. So, goodnight, Meade, goodnight, Orion. I still have fond memories of you both, and I reckon we will just leave it at that. Might somebody buy the rights to either name and crank either up again? Why bother? As both wound down, those names acquired plenty of baggage. It would probably be best just to start afresh.

What happened to all those Meade telescopes, you ask? Apparently, there was a pretty good amount of gear left over, and dealer High Point Scientific bought all those pallets of scopes and accessories at the auction of Meade’s remains and is selling them at a discount.  I believe they also acquired whatever inventory Orion had on hand. I see the various domain names are also up for sale, and wouldn’t be surprised to see telescope.com and telescopes.com, at least, come back to life.

Despite it all… Meade gone? Orion gone? I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that one. But that’s just the way she goes, I guess. It has always happened. Giants in the business—Unitron, Criterion, Cave, Edmund, Jaegers—are gone and leave not a rack behind. Hell, even Questar appears to have fallen on hard times. Nobody is immune to that old devil CHANGE.

Next time? A happier subject for sure: The Return of Unk’s Losmandy.

 

 

I know, Muchachos, I know, thisun was ostensibly going to be about me getting my 6-inch refractor, Big Ethel, and my Losmandy GEM into the backyard. My intentions were good, but between stormy late-winter weather and your dilapidated old Uncle being under the weather for a while, that didn’t happen. I still intend to get Ethel and the mount back up and running, and I definitely want to try the SeeStar smartscopes’ new equatorial mode, but that will wait for clear skies—whenever we get those. I am feeling much better this week, though, so that is something, I reckon.

Anyhow, what’s that title about, you ask? “Armchair astronomer”?! Ol’ Unk’ was once purty hardcore observing-wise. His observing runs, particularly during the vaunted Herschel Project, routinely went on till three or four in the a.m. or not infrequently till dawn itself. He was often known to snicker, “Astro-wimps!” at the sight of observers leaving the field at midnight or one. Has that changed?

You betcha. I won’t bother you with my litany of aches and pains, nor more complaining about growing older, nor (again) recounting the close-to-fatal accident I had in ’19. I’ll just say, I’m in my 70s now, and have had to slow down in a lot of areas not just to include astronomy. Why? Well, I have a more difficult—much more difficult—time hauling gear around, even into the backyard. I have a lingering (and mostly irrational) fear of falling in the dark. And a late night for me is now ten or eleven.

That don’t mean I don’t get out with telescopes, though. The coming of the smartscope is, as you know if you’re a regular reader, been a boon for your aged hillbilly of a correspondent. I still do visual observing, too, usually with modest telescopes like Miss Tanya or one of my smaller refractors. I did get the 10-inch, Zelda, out over the summer, however, and, as above, I’ll have the 6-inch refractor up and running again soon (I hope).

Almost all my observing is from the backyard now, yes, though I did get to the Deep South Star Gaze autumn before last and would like to go back again. I still teach astronomy, and helping my students do their outdoor labs with telescopes ensures I’m under the evening sky once in a while. I continue to write for Sky & Telescope, mostly Test Reports, which also requires my little self to be under a starry sky.

Night by night and day by day, though? I won’t lie to y’all. I am purty much that astronomer we Active Amateurs laughed about through our 30s and 40 and 50s and even into our 60s: THE ARMCHAIR ASTRONOMER. That is, much of my contact with the Great Out There day by day and even night by night is now in the form of books. I snuggle down on the couch, open a tome about my astronomical obsession and let my mind wander the Universe. What are the ones I most often turn to when I go voyaging?

Galaxies, Timothy Ferris (1982)

This large-format coffee table book from 1982 has been very important to me. What is it? Oh, there’s some text on the subject of galaxies, natch, but mostly it’s just big—BIG—13” x 14” color photos of island universes. I still like to look at it, but in the early 90s, it was a lifeline. I was in the midst of the dissolution of a truly misbegotten marriage, and Galaxies allowed me to fly free for a while.

How does it stand up today? It holds up well. Sure, the images from top ground-based observatories of the day began to look a little second-class with the coming of the HST, and amateur imagers have now exceeded some of what’s in the book. However, many of the astrophotos here are still amazing, and the large format makes the best breathtaking. I don’t think Galaxies is still in print, but it is readily available from Amazon.

Burnham’s Celestial Handbook: Robert Burnham Jr. (1978)

Everybody who’s even begun to earn their stripes as a deep sky observer knows about this one. There are “better” field guides to the universe beyond the solar system today, like Night Sky Observer’s Guide. But none are written in the thoughtful, poetic style of Bob Burnham. When talking about a constellation—the book is arranged by constellations—we may, for example, take a side-trip with Bob and talk about ancient coins for a while. It worked all those decades ago when the book was initially released in looseleaf installments, and it works today.

I don’t go to Burnham’s for eye candy. There is none in its pulp pages. When I snuggle down in that armchair and read this now, it’s for Bob’s writing. And for the nostalgia. All those long-ago days when I sat with these three volumes and a steno pad and made lists of “need-to-sees” for the coming of night.

Skywatching: David Levy (1994)

You’d a-thought that by the time we got to the freaking 1990s, your old Uncle Rod would have been way past a beginner’s book on astronomy/amateur astronomy like Skywatching. Nope. Mainly because this one, published by The Nature Company (who’ve been gone for nearly three decades now), is profusely illustrated as were most of their books. It’s just fun to look at those pictures of everything from telescopes to deep sky objects. That’s not the only reason, though. The authoritative text by David is to be relied upon. When my increasingly forgetful self can’t remember some astronomy something, I can turn to Sky Watching.

What really draws me back to this one on evenings when it’s cold or cloudy or I just don’t feel like even dragging a small telescope into the yard, though? Dorothy and I received this as a wedding gift upon our marriage in 1994. Looking through it takes me back to the wonderful times when the amazing Miss D. and I were newlyweds.

All about Telescopes/How to Use Your Telescope: Sam Brown (1967)

Yeah, I probably know a fair amount about telescopes this far down the line, but I still like to browse Sam Brown’s magnum opus published by the old Edmund Scientific Company (still around, but nothing like they were in the glory years). Why? While Sam knows his stuff, it’s those wonderful old 60s-style illustrations. They are nostalgia itself.

Yes, All About Telescopes is now available as a free pdf download from archive.org thanks to the people who now own Edmund. But you can still get a print version, and that is just what you should do. As for me? The thunder is booming; think I’ll take a stroll through this wonderful book—or maybe just the excerpt How to Use Your Telescope that was included with my Palomar Junior.

Norton’s Star Atlas: Arthur P. Norton (15^th Edition, 1964)

While wonderful for cloudy night browsing, you probably wouldn’t want to use this as an accompaniment to even binocular observing. It’s just not deep enough. It has stars down to magnitude 6, the Messiers, and a selection of deep sky objects from the NGC (but with Herschel numbers!), 500 deep sky objects in all. Course, when I was a little nipper with a little telescope this took me—I thought—way deep into the Universe. The nostalgia factor? I still cringe at how many lawns I had to mow to pay for this one in 1966. Yeah, I cringe, but it’s a good cringe.

Norton’s was updated some years ago for the current epoch, the charts redrawn, and the text rewritten. Not surprisingly, it’s just not the same and I ain’t interested in it.

Stars: Herbert Zim (1965)

You can read all about this here, so suffice to say this book by Herbert Zim, a “Little Golden Guide,” is what made me an amateur astronomer, game over, end of story, zip up your fly. What draws me back is the nostalgia brought on most of all by Jame’s Gordon’s wonderful little illustrations (up above).

And that’s kinda it for a rainy Monday when I have to make my way to the university to teach astronomy to the next generation. I hope the storms rolling over us aren’t a foretaste of what April is to be in Possum Swamp. I really do want to get that big glass into the night, and I am a-gonna do that—scout’s honor!

Below you'll find a link to one of the little companies serving the astronomy community. One that deserves your support. I go a long ways back with Daryl and his Shoestring Astronomy store. How far back? To when I needed to do ST-4 guiding through my first laptop's parallel port!

That doesn't mean Shoestring Astronomy is a thing of the past—not hardly if you use a SkyWatcher mount. Daryl sells a top-quality EQDIR cable that allows you to run your mount with the excellent (and free) EQMOD software rather than the somewhat clunky SynScan hand control. I had to sell my Atlas EQ-6 some years ago because it had become too much for me physically as a portable (!) mount. But almost every time I used it for anything but quick looks, the Shoestring EQDIR cable was there. 

Not that I've stopped using Shoestring products. Y'all know I ain't the world's most up-to-date and advanced astrophotographer, that I still like using my (very) old Canon Rebel DSLR. We are growing old together and still having fun. But to enable long exposures, a shutter control cable connected to the PC is required. That's Shoestring's DSUSB. 

Those are just a few of the useful but hard (or impossible) to find products Daryl makes and makes well. There's plenty of other useful stuff on offer, and he has some interesting new products coming. Support him, we need Shoestring to stay around for a long time to come!

Project Burnham, wherein I plan to visit all the deep sky objects highlighted by Robert Burnham in his famous handbook, will continue, muchachos. But I thought you might like something new; that you might like to hear about a fun challenge NASA is running this year, “Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge.” Wut’s they-at? NASA says:

Do you have a telescope? Would you like to see some of the same night sky objects from the ground that Hubble has from space? We invite you to commemorate Hubble’s 35th anniversary by accepting our year-long stargazing challenge. On a clear night, find a safe location with a dark sky away from bright lights, point your telescope skyward, and with the help of star and finder charts, gaze upon some of the same iconic nebulae and galaxies Hubble has observed. How many of them can you find?

They go on to explain NASA is working with the Astronomical League (yes, it’s still around, apparently) who will handle issuing certificates of achievement for those who successfully sketch or photograph the objects.

I’m not very interested in certificates these days (though I admit I did my happy dance when I realized I finally had enough countries to qualify for the ARRL’s DXCC CW). Certificates or no, it looked to me like it would be mucho fun to get out and observe/image as many of these nice DSOs as possible. If you are interested in certificates, you can read all about ‘em on the Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge page.

There’ll be a list of deep sky targets for each month of 2025 with the selected objects, naturally, being those Hubble has imaged over its long career. The targets thus far have been a nice mix of five or six objects ranging from the easy to the slightly more difficult. For example, January’s challenge included M42 on the easy end and NGC 2261, Hubble’s Variable Nebula, on the more difficult.

NGC 2419

My only complaint? Other than the Messiers, the objects are identified with their “Caldwell” numbers. If you’ve forgotten about the Caldwell, it was the “best of the NGC” list composed by the late Sir Patrick Moore and widely published way back in the 1990s. Hey, I’m as big a Moore fan as anybody—I likely wouldn’t have taken up amateur astronomy without his wonderful books—but his Caldwell list never caught on with me or most other deep sky observers. Not that it was bad…it was quite good, but had been done as well or better before.

Few of us know the C numbers. I don’t recall ever hearing anybody talking about getting out in the back forty and observing “C7,” for example. So, when perusing the Hubble’s Challenge lists, you'll have refer to a cross reference to the Caldwells’ NGC numbers, which is slightly annoying. Also, I recall some of our colleagues were slightly annoyed with the list itself, which they thought was overreach and self-promotion on the part of Patrick (though he didn’t call it the “Moore List;” Caldwell was his mum’s maiden name). I didn’t care about that. Patrick Moore was an icon, and if he’d called it the “Moore List,” I’d have been fine and dandy with that. In terms of Hubble’s Challenge, it is not a huge deal, since each month’s list only includes a handful of C objects.

So…anyhow…I don’t know if I’ll bring Hubble’s Challenge to you every month, but I will for sure bring some of them to you, and I believe you’ll have as much fun with it as I have so far.  This time of year, it’s nice to have a simple little project to tone up the deep sky observing muscles many of us (including your cold-averse old Uncle) allowed to atrophy this stormy winter.

M46

I’ll begin with February (the nasty January WX prevented me from getting a telescope into the backyard last month even though I wanted to). How will I observe these wonders? I suspect as nice (warmer) weather comes in, I’ll do some visual looking and sketching, but I will begin with the two Smartscopes, Suzie, the See Star S50; and Evie, the Unistellar Equinox.

Hokay, let’s go… ‘Twas a pair of quite acceptable late winter nights when I set up each smartscope in succession. It was damp, but not unacceptably so; at the end of the evening Evie and Suzie had fine patinas of dew, just a hint of what we can expect when spring comes.

This was only my second night out with the Unistellar, and I still felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants when it came to her iPhone app. Luckily, I had a set of simplified (always a good thing for your simple, old Uncle) instructions from my Smartscope mentor, Jack Estes. Mostly it went smoothly, and I think Evie did a good job despite my fumbling.

When I first connected Evie to the phone, I was prompted to do an update. I’m not quite sure what that accomplished, but it was my impression the wi-fi connection was more robust. I had the phone in the Sunroom and Evie out in the backyard, and, unlike first light night, didn’t have a single disconnect. Main takeaways? I think I dialed in focus fairly well, but believe I can do a little better. It also appears to me that some collimating may be required. Verdict, though? No fuss, no muss, though not as much no fuss no muss as Suzie.

NGC 2403

With Suzie the SeeStar, there was the good and the bad with this outing. The good? The app really is to the point where all I had to do was turn on the scope, attach her dewshield, and turn on her dew heater. Everything else is automated. Pick a target on the star atlas, she goes to the field, aligns, focuses, and gets to work. The not-so-good? For many of these objects, the longer focal length of 114mm aperture Evie took the gold ring.

All pictures here are the simple .jpgs that came out of the scopes with only the most minimal processing…

NGC 2419

Ah, yes, the famous Intergalactic Tramp in Lynx. Or famous when your Uncle was a young man, anyhow. This 9^th magnitude, 4’36” diameter fuzzball discovered by Sir William Herschel is a distant globular cluster now known to lie a staggering (for a glob) 275,000 light years from our little rock. It has long been known to be a far-far-away cluster, and in the 1920s legendary astronomer Harlow Shapley speculated it was not bound to the Milky Way and sailing through the night on its own. Which led to the “Intergalactic Tramp/Wanderer” appellation. In the 1990s, however, it was determined it does indeed orbit the Milky way despite its distance. Which killed some, but not all, the romance of this distant ball of suns.

What was it like for the smartscopes? Suze had no trouble at all finding and centering the fuzzball, but, alas, given her wide-field nature, was unable to resolve more than a few of the cluster’s halo stars. Would it have been different from a dark site? Maybe, but a dark site isn’t often on your old uncle’s agenda in these latter days. Evie? She made this globular look like a globular, her image showing off plenty of resolution.

Messier 46

Puppis’ bright, magnitude 6.0, 20'00" across cluster is known and loved by even novice observers. It’s not so much that it’s an outstanding open cluster in a telescope…it’s kind of large, is set in a rich field, and doesn’t pop out from the background as much as the best-of-the-best open clusters do. Its popularity with observers is because it holds a hidden gem, a small planetary nebula, the tiny ring of magnitude 10.8, 1’10” diameter NGC 2438. Even small scopes will show this ghostly little thing, which, incidentally, is thought to be a foreground object not associated with the star cluster.  

Caroline's Cluster

In the smartscopes? Make that scope. When I tried to shoot M46 with Suze, the cluster was in the trees. Luckily, I’d got it with Evie the night before. There’s a bit of a gradient from a neighbor’s porch light, but the Unistellar did a fine job with the planetary nebula, which is a striking green with red tinges. Yay, Evie!

NGC 2403

There is no doubt this big (21’00”) bright (magnitude 8.9) spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis is one of the wonders of the northern sky. The true wonder of the thing, though? How Charles Messier missed putting this one on his list. Be that as it may, it was finally observed and cataloged by William and Caroline Herschel in the 18^th Century. Yes, it lies in a subdued and often bypassed constellation, the camel-leopard, but you owe it to yourself to give it a visit.

How did the girls do on this one? It was pretty much a tossup. Suzie’s image is maybe a little smoother…but I prefer the color in Evie’s portrait of the galaxy. Also, it was verging on the hazy on Suzie’s night, giving Evie further advantage.

NGC 2360

William Herschel’s sister and fellow observer, Caroline, doesn’t have many objects attributed to her alone, but there are a few, including this outstanding open cluster. Lina found this one—maybe during one of her comet “sweeps”—on the evening of February 26^th 1783, and it became the second object in her personal list. As y’all know, Unk goes ga-ga over most anything having to do with Willie and Lina, but Caroline’s Cluster is a purty outstanding galactic cluster (in Canis Major) on its own. This magnitude 6.2, 14’00” across clump of stars is just about perfect for small-medium size scopes.

Well, finally…a win for Miss Suzie. While Caroline’s Cluster isn’t too large, it’s set in the richness of the Milky Way, and the SeeStar S50’s extra field made it just look better. But it was good in Evie as well, no doubt about that.

NGC 2392

And, yet another Willie Herschel discovery, the famous Eskimo or Clown Face magnitude 9.6 planetary nebula in Gemini. It is another object well-known and beloved of deep sky observers old and new. Small scopes show a greenish puffball with a brighter center/central star, while medium-large instruments begin to unlock details, like the ruff of the Eskimo’s parka.

The Eskimo

At 48”, it’s difficult to get past the fuzzball stage with shorter focal length telescopes. And a fuzzball is what I got with Suze, a small, bright green fuzzball. Evie?  Better, but only marginally better. You know what, though? I believe that was more about me than her. I’m still learning the ins and outs of setting exposure, etc. with the Unistellar, and think there might have been some internal detail visible in the Eskimo if I hadn’t overexposed the center. Well, next time, y’all!

And that was that. Easy-peasy. Both smartscopes knocked off every challenge object. In fact, they laughed at the idea these were “challenges.” That said, I believe as I gain more experience with both telescopes, I will improve on what they can deliver.

As for NASA’s Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge? I had fun. I was afraid the rather well-known nature of the objects would make for a ho-hummer of an experience…but no. In fact, I had a terrific time. So terrific that maybe I’ll continue next month after all…

M3 with Intelligent Denoise and cropping...

I don’t mean “where” as in “location.” I know where they are, they are in the backyards of a lot of imagers old and new. No, muchachos, I’m a-talking about where I stand with smartscopes and what their manufacturers are up to…

Oh, before I forget—easy for me to do these days—happy new year, y’all! I decided to forego the summing-up of last year I’ve been accustomed to doing as a January AstroBlog entry these many years. Doesn’t seem to be much point to it anymore. If you are curious as to what your Old Uncle was up to in ’24 (for some unfathomable reason), just cruise through 12 monthly installments. Easy enough to do. Ain’t like the olden days when there was a new article here every fricking week.

Anyhoo, this will be a fairly short one…maybe…y’all know how Unk do run on. Mainly because a lot went on at Chaos Manor South the previous week. Beginning with Winter Storm Enzo, which brought Possum Swamp more snow than we’ve seen since that hallowed, long-ago year of 1973. Then there was (amateur radio) Winter Field Day, which I was determined to participate in (and not from home) despite the cold. Finally, I had assignments from two astronomy magazines to get out the door. Be that as it may be… following the little old AstroBlog’s renaissance, I swore to get an article up every month, so here one is…

Unk

M33 stacked and processed manually.

Moi? One of those above-mentioned assignments was a Sky & Telescope Test Report on the ZWO SeeStar S30 smartscope. What did I think? I thought—well, you’ll have to wait for an upcoming issue of Sky & Telescope to find out exactly what I thought. But I will say this: the tiny 30mm APO amazed me. How? It allowed me to (easily) take images of legendarily faint nebulae from my backyard. Ones I didn’t think were doable from Chaos Manor South. Objects like the Heart and Soul Nebulae, The California Nebula, The Flaming Star Nebula, and the Horsehead. Scary dim ones like that. All fell before the S30 as dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly.

What else was notable about my time testing the S30? It showed me this scope (and the S50) are capable of a bit more than I thought they were. I am lazy these latter days, but I thought I should at least take a shot at downloading the fits subframes from the telescope and stacking and processing them manually with Siril (the free image stacking/processing program). That process will be the subject of a future blog post but let me say even for your bumbling old Uncle it wasn’t that difficult and hinted at what the S50 and S30 are capable of in skilled hands.

What didn’t I have time to do? Between the need to get those articles done, and the storm, I haven’t been able to get my “new” Unistellar Equinox back under the stars. Believe you me, that is Unk’s number one (astronomy) priority for the coming month.

ZWO

Is ZWO the king of smartscopes? Well, maybe in a way. Their two units, the S50 and S30, are inexpensive and are in the hands of a lot of amateur astronomers, old and new. Their app is also full featured and capable. Frankly, the company had a leg up thanks to years of work on their ASIAIR, which is a Wi-Fi-enabled widget that can turn your conventional telescope and goto mount and camera into something like a smartscope. Applying this technology to the SeeStars has made the little smartscopes nearly impossible to beat for their prices and ensures they really punch above their weight class. The company also continues to update their app/features at a nearly dizzying rate.

So, what’s the latest with the ZWO? A lot of folks are speculating about a “better” SeeStar. Maybe one with more aperture, say 80mm, yeah, an S80. Bigger chip. Built-in wedge for equatorial mode. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see some/all of that happen. But… Size doesn’t scale linearly with aperture, alas, as somebody who’s only gone up a mere 2 inches of aperture from 10-inches to 12-inches sure can tell you. And neither does price, my friends.

20mm more aperture makes the S50 considerably larger and heavier than the S30. Goin’ another 30mm larger than the S50 will do the same—on steroids. The result will be noticeably less portable and quite a bit more expensive. I would be surprised if ZWO could bring in an 80mm f/5 for 1000 US$ and keep the quality comparable to the 30/50. Going to a good 80mm APO objective will eat a lot of money all by its little self. Still, could happen. Probably will. However, the S30 is still new, and I don’t think ZWO will want to rain on its parade too soon.

What has the company done in addition to releasing Little Sister, the S30? Hoo-boy! They’ve added a feature to their app (same app works with both scopes) some thought was pie-in-the-sky: Mosaic (“Framing”) Mode. The SeeStars can now assemble multiple images into larger ones. The feature is easy to use; you just stretch and rotate the image “frame” in the star atlas. 

And ZWO ain't done yet updating their app yet. Not hardly. Next up according to the company is Equatorial Mode, which will make it possible to tilt the scope over to polar align it. That done, pictures will not suffer from the problems of field rotation inherent in altazimuth scope mounts. Some users have already been able to use EQ mode by tilting the scope over to point at the Celestial Pole and “fooling” the app. An official equatorial mode will make workarounds unnecessary and will also add polar alignment tools. ZWO says this will be in the app’s next update.

Unistellar

Equinox 2

Unistellar divides their five smartscope offerings into two classes, the Expert range and the Odyssey range. The former containing the new Equinox 2 and the Evscope 2 (which possesses an electronic eyepiece). The latter, their Odyssey, Odyssey Pro, and an Odyssey with a red tube and mount. They are all similar, though, with the big difference being the Odysseys have 85mm mirrors while the Experts are equipped with 114mm primaries (all the scopes are reflectors).

The latest? The Equinox 2, which improves on the original with a more advanced, higher resolution imaging chip and improved optics. My take from what little I’ve been able to do with my Equinox 1 so far? They are well-made telescopes, and it’s nice to have more aperture and focal length. The app that controls them is fine. I do wish it featured a Station Mode ala’ ZWO that would allow you to connect the Equinox to your network rather than to your smart device directly. But all in all, works well. Stay tuned for more on Unistellar when I gain more experience with this impressive instrument.

Dwarf Labs

All I know about the Dwarf II and III is what I’ve read on the Internet and seen on YouTube. I’ve yet to get my paws on one of these odd-looking little Smartscopes. That said, I haven’t been overly impressed by what I’ve seen of the Dwarf II’s output. The Dwarf III? That may be a different story. The new scope (Dwarf Labs is taking pre-orders now) appears to produce impressive wide-field images with its 35mm f/4.2 optics.  One big plus is it is EQ Mode ready and includes polar alignment software in its app. The app seems a lot more like ZWO’s take than Unistellar’s, containing a star atlas and other things comparable to what ZWO offers.

Caveats?  If you can believe what you read on the Cloudy Nights BBS, Dwarf Labs has had significant problems producing the Dwarf 3. Including QA problems. At any rate, when I last checked, there’s a 4 – 5 month waiting list.  

Vaonis

The latest from Vaonis, the Hestia, is an inexpensive ($300) smartscope. Or maybe it's not a smartscope or a telescope of any kind. It's a device that attaches to your smartphone and allows limited imaging of the sky. Maybe "advanced telephoto adapter that runs from an app on your phone" is a better description than "telescope." At this time, it is capable of producing decent solar and lunar images. It can image deep sky objects, too, but due to the Hestia's lack of tracking, they are mostly in the "I'm surprised you got anything at all" category. Vaonis says they intend to introduce a tracking mount for the widget in the future. We'll see. 

Celestron

I’ve still haven't used heavy-hitter Celestron’s Origin smartscope. Well, that ain’t quite right. I’ve used pieces and parts. Celestron, you see, was able to put a smartscope together from off-the-shelf/near off-the-shelf components. The mount is based on their time-tested Evolution Wi-Fi enabled mount. The tube is a downsized model of the Rowe-Ackerman astrograph— this model is 6-inches. The camera mounts to the scope via Celestron’s good, old Faststar corrector mounting. The app is based on SkySafari—Celestron has had a long working relationship with the SkySafari folks.

Celestron's Origin.

So, is the sum greater than the parts? Based on what I’ve seen and heard thus far, “yes.” The Origin appears to work well and produce impressive photos. But… Yes, there’s that dadgum “but.” The price, $4000, seems a trifle much for an altazimuth-only (currently) mounting, and a fairly low-resolution 6.7-megapixel camera.

Might Celestron fix some or all of this? Maybe. I haven't heard new smartscope news from them lately. The possibilities are there, however. There’s no reason to think the mount couldn’t be used in equatorial mode with an updated app. The Faststar camera mounting means a more advanced camera could replace the current one or be offered as an option. And the price might be brought down some after Celestron (Synta) earns back development costs.

Me? I am impressed by the Origin’s images…but… Remember, all I’ve seen is pictures of the scope. But… it looks to me as if we are getting into the realm of too-big telescopes, telescopes I am too lazy to use or literally unable to use anymore.

STOP THE PRESSES! The word on the street, the rumor, the scuttlebutt is the next release of the Origin app/firmware will provide support for equatorial mode and the StarSense autoguider.

On the Horizon at Chaos Manor South…

As above, my next goal astro-wise is to get friendly with the Unistellar Evolution. When? When it ain’t so freaking cold. Oh, its warmed up compared to our frigid conditions last week, but—wouldn’t you know it?—the warming trend has brought clouds with it.