Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

 

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.

 

 

 

Last season's SeeStar shot...

Muchachos, your old Uncle had been keeping a weather eye peeled—literally. The forecasts for Christmas Eve had been gyrating wildly: “clear” to “partly cloudy” to “mostly cloudy.”  Then, back to “clear,” but segueing to “RAIN” as the 24^th of December approached. So what? If you’re a veteran reader of the Little Old Blog from Possum Swamp, you’ll recall one of my yearly astronomy rituals is taking a Christmas Eve peep at that most numinous of ornaments, Messier 42, usually in as simple a fashion as possible.

This little ritual of mine has been going on for almost as long as I’ve been an amateur astronomer, getting started one Christmas in the 1960s when everything was on the cusp of great change. As it always seems to be when you are young. I kept it up over the years, but if not as an afterthought, not as something of great import either. It seems to have reassumed some of its old significance in these latter days, though. Maybe because I am old now, and the days when my friends, Jitter and Wayne Lee, and I admired the Hunter with new eyes seem strangely close.

Not to sound overly melancholy or sumpin’; it’s been a bright and calm Christmas, mostly, for me and Miss Dorothy. And, not completely ho-hum, either. There was the slightly raucous W4IAX (Mobile Amateur Radio Club) Christmas Party at Heroes Sports Bar and Grill. Your ol’ Unk had “some” cold 807s and a couple of shots of the Cuervo Gold but nevertheless managed not to run amok or even make a scene!

Other than that, though, ain’t no denying it was a quiet Christmas. That’s just the way it’s been with the kids grown and far away as the years of this strange new century have rolled on. Those enormous, storied Christmases at yore at old Chaos Manor South in the Garden District are but shadows of the past. Which is fine, since your curmudgeonly Uncle now much prefers, “Quiet, no rows, no thank you; I believe I shall just stay home.”

Enough of that malarkey and down to brass tacks. The scope I’d use if it cleared would be little Tanya, the rescue scope. Oh, my old Palomar Junior sits next to Tanya in my radio shack/workshop here, The Batcave, and that telescope would be nostalgia itself. Or I could go whole-hog with Zelda, the 10-inch Dob, and really see Orion.  But you know what? I’ve had more fun with minimalist Tanya than I have had with any visual instrument in many a long year.  More yearning for the simple astronomy of my youth? Yeah, prob’ly, and for my youth itself, I guess.

Christmas Eve dawned, and after I’d served the felines their breakfast, I took a critical look at the sky. What did I see? CLEAR AS A BELL! Why, it was a blue-eyed Christmas miracle! Maybe. While the dadgum weather channel admitted there’d be “abundant sunshine” during the day, they were standing pat with “partly cloudy” after sundown. It looked like this year might be a win visually. But I began to back off my idea of also imaging Orion with a smartscope.

That was a mite disappointing, since those CRAZY, new robo-scopes have been a big part of Unk’s amateur astronomy this past year. However, whether I’m using a SeeStar or big sis Unistellar, nothing is more aggravating or conducive to indigestion, actual or metaphorical, than drifting clouds. Why it’s worse than an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. Oh, well. There’ll be plenty of chances to snap Orion with the smarties in the coming weeks.

So, the cats fed, Unk settled in on Christmas Eve morning. I puttered around in somewhat dispirited fashion. Miss Dorothy was away—a dear friend had suffered a fall just before Christmas and D., who is renowned far and wide for her kindness, was staying with her to help. Maybe this Christmas Eve would be a little too quiet. Dorothy would be home for Christmas Day, but the felines and I would be on our own on the 24th. 

 

We preempt your regularly scheduled program… Originally, thisun was gonna be about me, your Old Uncle, turning my SeeStar S50, Suzie, and 10-inch Dob, Zelda, loose on the fall globulars chapter in UAG (“The Urban Astronomer’s Guide,” for the uninitiated). Then, as it sometimes does, everything—well, a couple of things—changed.

Thanks to the kindness of a friend of mine, Jack Estes, who is also a longtime friend of this here AstroBlog, and an amateur astronomer/imager extraordinaire, I was able to level up in the smartscope world. To the tune of Unistellar’s Equinox (the first iteration as opposed to the new Equinox 2).

“What in pea-turkey is they-at, Unk?” It’s a smartscope, Skeeter, you might say the smartscope that set the pattern for what these instruments would be like. Specifically, it is a 4-inch (114mm) reflector with its secondary replaced by an image sensor. It is made by a French company, Unistellar, which now offers several rather advanced smartscopes.

Other specifics? The Unistellar is as above a 114mm reflecting telescope, one with a focal ratio of f/4, meaning its focal length comes in at 456mm. Like almost all other smartscopes, it rides on a one-arm goto fork mount. Other than that? It features a Sony Exmor IMX224 imaging sensor with a field of about ½ degree. Also like her sisters, the Equinox is powered by a USB-C rechargeable battery and operated via wi-fi with an app on your smartphone.

That was what I had gleaned from talking to Jack, reading the manual, and watching cotton-pickin’ YouTube videos. That reading and watching (and downloading of the iOS app) done, I began anxiously awaiting the scope’s arrival at Chaos Manor South…

Your impatient old Uncle didn’t have long to wait. In just a few days, a largish box was on the doorstep of Chaos Manor South, and your decrepit correspondent had somehow manhandled it into the Sunroom, traditional staging area for new (or at least new-to-me) telescopes. I went to work, aided by Wilbur Wright, second in command of our feline detachment.

What was inside that box? An attractive and light—but not too light—and sturdy tripod. With the legs fully extended, it was a smidge over four feet in height; ‘bout the same as my Manfrotto. And there was the telescope herself, a pretty, two-toned black and gray thing on her one-arm-bandit mount. Finally, there was a small box of accessories that contained a charger, some extra knob-headed bolts (for the tripod I presumed), and a set of Allen wrenches for collimation. All in all, Unistellar’s box/presentation reminded me of what Apple might do if they sold telescopes. The lid of the inner box was emblazoned with the words, “Prepare to be Amazed.” We’d see, I reckoned.

Hot dog! New telescope (are there any sweeter words than those?)! I’d get her into the backyard and get ready to go! Not so fast, Unk, not so fast. In the excitement, your silly Old Uncle had forgot this was the evening of the Mobile Amateur Radio Club’s yearly TNXgiving Potluck dinner party with our sister club, the Deep South Amateur Radio Club. 

Being President of the MARC, it was incumbent upon Unk to be there, natcherly. I told Miss Dorothy, “Guess I’ll try the new telescope when we get home.”  She just laughed. Indeed, upon our return I was way too tuckered to do anything other than imbibe a few cold 807s in the company of the cats as we watched silly YouTube videos. “Tomorrow night, for sure!”

Strangely, the arrival of the Unistellar Equinox had coincided with a short span of cool and clear evenings. Only downer? There would be a fat Full Moon on the rise. I hoped to get in a few minutes with the Unistellar before Luna got too high. While Jack had provided me with some instructions to get me started beyond what was in the manual (typical of today’s manuals) and on the Unistellar website, I still felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants when I headed for the backyard with this sizable smartscope (still very manageable for Unk, nevertheless, at about 20 pounds).

Out in the back forty in my customary spot adjacent to the deck, I got the scope mounted on the tripod—by means of lowering its base into the custom-style head and fastening a couple of retaining bolts. Now to wait for darkness, which, thankfully, is arriving at a decent hour now that that dadgum DST has been turned off. Standing there in the gloaming, I had to admit the Equinox looked impressive—and a lot more “telescopey” than the oddly shaped (sorry, girl) Suzie.

When darkness fell, I finally got started. First step was powering up the Equinox via a pushbutton switch not unlike that on the SeeStar. Scope on and button illuminated a purplish hue, I connected to the scope with the Unistellar app for the first time. Now, I relied on what Jack told me to do in his quick start instructions, beginning with leveling the tripod, which I did in rather hurried fashion. Your jaded old Uncle had to admit he was now right excited about this 4-inch telescope.

Hokay, the app said I was connected to the scope, so this was rubber-hits-road. Next step would be moving the OTA to an altitude of about 45 degrees. After a bit of fumbling around to figure out Unistellar’s onscreen joystick trope, I got the tube pointed at said 45 degrees. Hell, y’all, I even remembered to remove the aperture cover! I gotta tell you I was heartened by the sounds the Equinox made as I slewed her. None of that old-timey Meade-style weasels with tuberculosis noise. The sound emitted by her altitude motor was sure and steady.

Next up? Time to do what Unistellar calls “orientation.” What I call it is a “plate solve.” Mash the appropriate button on the app, and the Equinox takes pictures and figures out where it is from the star field. It seemed to me this worked—near as I could tell from what the app said. Before trying a goto, however, I would need to take a manual dark frame, which Unistellar refers to as a “sensor calibration.” I might have figured that out on my own eventually, I reckon, but thank goodness I had Jack’s quick-start instructions.

The Equinox does not have automatic focus, so you focus manually by turning the large knob at the rear end of the tube, which I assume moves the primary mirror forward and back leaving the secondary (the camera) undisturbed. While the quick-start instructions Unistellar furnishes advise you just to focus on a starfield by eye, Jack told me to go whole hog in Bahtinov mask function.

With only a mite of fumbling, I found Altair in the app’s object list (the Unistellar app works with lists rather than a star atlas) and sent the scope there. The Equinox hummed reassuringly, headed in the proper direction, and soon had Altair in the frame. I centered up a little bit and installed the Bahtinov mask—a plastic one that is normally stowed attached to the aperture cover. As Jack had instructed, I used the onscreen live-view controls to make Altair pretty dim, and focused till the star spikes were properly spaced. Focus wasn’t far off to begin with, testament to the scope’s mechanical quality, but I could have done better. I should have zoomed in on the star a bit, but, yeah, I was excited. I got OK focus.

Now came proof in the pudding time. First light object? I figgered M57 would be it. Nice an’ bright, but also small. I wanted to see what a smartscope with more focal length would do for me. So, having found that magic Ring in the apps list, I sent the Equinox that-a-way, and held my breath…

When the Equinox stopped, there was that glorious ring. Was it huge on the phone? No. But it was considerably more than the wee spot it is with the SeeStar. While Suzie’s ring is identifiable, good luck being able to make out the central star no matter how much you zoom. With the Unistellar, even unzoomed on the phone screen, I could see the center of the Ring wasn’t dark and make out there was something else there. Just a bit of zooming/cropping, as you can see here, delivers that central star detail on the Ring itself. Was I happy? You betcha.

Alas, wouldn’t you know it? By now the clouds was rolling in. I did do two other objects in quick succession, M2 and M56. One thing I noted on both objects? The exposures went quickly with no frames dropped. It’s normal for the SeeStar to reject a sizable number of due to star trailing. The Equinox’s tracking was better. In part, that’s attributable to the shorter 4-second exposures, but I suspect the gears are a lot more refined than those in li’l Suze.

Shorter exposures were not a problem, by the way, thanks to the Equinox’s sensitive camera. Almost too sensitive if’n you ask me. My single problem at first light was blowing out the cores of globs (as you can see, M57 is also somewhat overexposed. I didn’t have a clue about settings for exposures on this first night. Ah, well, NEXT TIME. And rest assured, you will learn a lot more about this amazing telescope in the future. And with that, Evie’s first light night with me had come and gone.

Evie? As you well know, all my scopes tell me their names. For some reason, I thought that would take a while with this one. Nope. As we were headed back to Chaos Manor South’s den for cold 807s and TV with the felines, the girl said,

“Hey, y’all! I’m Evie! Unk, are we gonna be friends?”

“We sure are Evie, we sure are!”

Note that the Equinox saves photos both in this format and standard presentation.

But I said changes, and I meant more than one. The arrival of Evie was just the first change at smartscope-crazy Chaos Manor South! I soon learned I’d got the assignment for the Sky & Telescope Test Report on ZWO’s new smartscope, the S30. You’ll learn all about it in a coming issue of S&T. Stay tuned…

Next Time:  As has long been the tradition ‘round Chaos Manor South and the Little Old AstroBlog, next month’s entry will appear on Christmas Eve and will maybe be a mite more sentimental and briefer (well, maybe) than usual. See y’all then.

Nota Bene Department:  I had a request for the observing list from The Urban Astronomer’s Guide in computer form the other day. I rummaged around and found that despite the shutdown of the Yahoogroup that supported UAG with observing planner files, I’ve still got one. Specifically, it’s in SkyTools 3 format (which some other planning programs will be able to import). If you’d like a copy, shoot me an email at rodmollise@southalabama.edu and I’ll get the file on its way to ya.

 

Well, well, well, muchachos… November is almost here, and it looks as if we in Possum Swamp may have dodged a bullet hurricane-wise this season. The skies had been improving since the thunderstorms of summer diminished, and that had got me to thinking it might be time to do some visual deep sky observing in the ol’ backyard. Maybe even with my “big” telescope in these latter days, Zelda, a Zhumell (GSO) 10-inch Dobsonian.

Maybe. While clearer and drier as September came in, the sky could still be hazy, and there is considerable light pollution here at the suburban Chaos Manor South. Not horrible like downtown, no, but enough to make locating objects with a finder scope, much less a zero-power red-dot finder, a right good pain in the rear. I got to thinking I might want to put digital setting circles on Zelda.

If you’re a long-time fan of the Little Ol’ AstroBlog from Possum Swamp, you know I had DSCs on my long-gone truss tube Dob, Old Betsy. Sky Commanders they was, and they worked a treat. I think I saw more with Bets in the first year or two I had the ‘Commanders than I’d seen with her the previous decade. So, I started shopping. But it turned out ordering circles for the Dob wouldn't be so easy this time.

The problem, it appeared, would be mounting the encoders, the widgets that tell the DSC computer where the scope is pointed, to Zelda’s somewhat different altitude and azimuth axes. She is nicely equipped with smooth bearings and large tension knobs for altitude and a lazy-Susan-style azimuth bearing system, but those things make encoder mounting more complicated than with a simpler “Teflon on Ebony Star” Dobbie.

I did find a set of DSCs available with an encoder hardware kit for my GSO, but it was expensive, would have to be ordered from overseas, and it appeared I’d have to ship them one of the mount’s altitude trunnions for modification. All the way to Australia. That seemed like a deal-breaker to moi. I kept looking and found a digital circle vendor stateside who could provide encoders and encoder mountings for Z, but still…more than I was comfortable paying given—to be honest—the limited number of nights I observe with the Z-girl. If only there were another way…

Then, I ran across a YouTube video about that “another way.” It seemed there was a (free) program for smartphones, both iOS and Android smartphones, AstroHopper, that used a phone to replace digital setting circles. Unk was mighty skeptical, however.

Folks tried that years ago when smartphone astronomy apps that could find sky objects with the aid of a phone’s compass became popular. Oh, they worked well enough to point the way to naked eye objects but weren’t nearly accurate enough for use with a telescope. I didn’t imagine anything had changed, but I watched some more YouTube videos on AstroHopper anyhow.

Surprisingly, the consensus seemed to be AstroHopper does work with a telescope and delivers accuracy similar to DSCs.  I did note video posters seemed to have a range of results from “works great” to “well, sorta works.” Sounded to me like I should at least have a look-see at AstroHopper’s website, which I did:  AstroHopper - Web Application for Sky Navigation Manual.

What I found there sounded encouraging and convincing. Obviously, Artyom Beilis, the author, has been working on his app for a while and it seems rather mature. Yeah, it sounded good enough to make me want to at least give it a try:

AstroHopper (formerly known as SkyHopper) is a free and open-source web application developed by Artyom Beilis that helps to find objects across the night sky. It does this by allowing an accurate hop from a well-known and easily identifiable star to other fainter stars or DSO by measuring changes in pointing angles of the cell phone using built in gyroscope and gravity sensors. It is similar to Digital Setting Circles implemented in a smart phone.

Then came the hard part, figuring out how to mount the phone on the telescope’s tube. It needs to be secure and needs to be pointing along the scope’s optical axis. I had a couple of ideas how I might do that if ‘Hopper worked, but I certainly wasn’t going to go drillin’ holes in poor Zelda’s OTA without being convinced this was for real. The solution, then?

What came to mind was a smartphone camera mount for telescopes I’d bought some time back to take afocal Moon pictures for an S&T Test Report. Maybe I could use the phone-holder part of it to affix Siri to Zelda’s tube temporarily?  I taped the holder to Z with blue painters’ tape (to avoid damaging Zelda’s finish) using enough tape to ensure the iPhone would be held as securely as possible. I inserted my iPhone 14 Pro Max into the taped-down camera mount and called that “good enough.”

It looked wacky and Rube Goldberg-ish, and as a mild September evening came in, I didn’t have much hope. Hell, I felt a little silly, y’all. Nevertheless, I got Miss Z into the backyard, inserted a reasonably low power (50x), reasonably wide-field (70⁰) Bresser 25mm ocular into Zelda’s focuser, and got started.

I hadn’t installed the app on the phone yet. You don’t have to; you can just run it as a web page. Obviously, you have to have an internet connection, though, so if you plan to go to a dark site somewheres without a cell tower signal, you need to install AstroHopper on the phone (full instructions are on the ‘Hopper website). Anyhoo, with the web page up (it was in red-screen mode from the get-go), I set out to put it to the acid test.

When you have the app onscreen, you’ll get step by step instructions as to how to align AstroHopper, but in truth there ain’t much to it. Find a bright star near the object of your desire, center it in the eyepiece, tap “align” on the app, and touch the alignment star (or planet) on the displayed star chart.  Once ‘Hopper says it is aligned, enter your target's designation in a search box and you will be given onscreen directions—a line pointing the way and azimuth and altitude distance figures—to your object. Then, yep, just move the scope to the indicated spot and there you are. That’s what the app said, but, yeah, your skeptical old Uncle was skeptical.

Hokay, alignment star… I was after M13 as a first object, and while Herc was purty high on the September evening when I first gave AstroHopper a go, we were still experiencing some of the humidity and haze of summer, and I thought a brighter star than one of Hercules’ suns would be easier. Alkaid in Ursa Major, the end star of the dipper’s handle, was still well above the horizon. A bit far from the Great Globular, but, well, I was after an acid test. If (more like “when,” I thought) it didn’t work, I’d find a star closer to M13.

Alkaid in the center of the 25mm Bresser’s field (could have rounded up a crosshair eyepiece, but didn’t), I clicked “align,” and chose Alkaid on the map. StarHopper claimed it was aligned, so I typed M13 in the little box and followed the app’s directions to the Great Glob. When it indicated we was there, I put my eye to the eyepiece, expecting absolutely nothing…

Damn! There was M13! Not centered, no, but not on the field edge, either. Howsabout M92? Boom! M57? There was the little smoke ring. M56? Looked better than I thought it would. I was frankly amazed. I can only suppose cell phone compasses and accelerometers have improved a lot over the years. And obviously Mr. Beilis is a talented programmer.

Takeaways? Having an alignment star reasonably close to the target object helps, but it doesn’t have to be right next door. As with many alt-az DSC and goto systems, avoid alignment stars that are near zenith. Also, if you let your phone go to sleep, you will have to realign. It will claim to still be aligned, but it won’t be. Finally, yes, AstroHopper worked. It worked as well as many DSCs and better than some I’ve used. Only aligning on one star and using a compass and accelerometers rather than inherently more accurate encoders means it doesn’t yield the horizon-to-horizon alignment of the Sky Commanders, but for my purposes it is good enough.

Convinced AstroHopper at least worked, the next step for your old Uncle was ginning up some kind o’ more elegant mounting for the iPhone than fricking masking tape.  That was easy enough to do. The camera mount came with a knob-headed bolt that screws into the back of the phone-holder portion. I hated to take an electric drill to Zelda’s beautiful black steel tube, but if AstroHopper worked consistently, I judged doing surgery on the girl would be worth it as it might impel me to get Z under the stars more frequently.

I drilled an appropriate hole in Zeldas’s tube, and after I was done spent a little time cleaning up that hole with a file. Done, I inserted that knob-head bolt through the hole and fastened the phone-holder down. The result looked purty darned good, I must say. Now to see if my original success had been a fluke. Why not undertake “A Trio of Fall Globulars” from The Urban Astronomer’s Guide? The sky was clear, and all were riding high…

To cut to the chase? AstroHopper’s performance the first time out was not a fluke; it did every bit as well on this evening. Casually aligning on a star (no high-power crosshair eyepiece) again yielded good accuracy. I didn’t try to quantify it, but it appeared I could hit targets at least 20⁰ from alignment stars. Most objects were near the center of the field, some were centered, and none was “out.” I was happy with my phone mount, and had remembered to set “lock screen” to “never” so the iPhone didn’t go to sleep and ruin my alignment, so this run went considerably more smoothly than the first one.

So, me and Zelda hopped from globular to globular under (once again) humid and hazy October skies. How did those globs look in the 10-inch? That, muchachos, is a story for next time. While it seemed I’d only been out under the stars a few minutes, the falling dew and the wheeling vault of heaven that had sent old Hercules into the horizon told me Z and I had been voyaging the sky for hours, not minutes. I reluctantly covered the girl and headed inside for TV and Yell with the felines (well, catnip for them). Need I say it? It was a good night, y’all.

The Comet…

Of course, your lazy old Unk saw the comet, but being lazy, waited till Tsuchinshan-ATLAS had rounded the Sun and got into the evening sky before hunting her up. A good buddy of mine and a longtime friend of this here blog, astrophotographer Max Harrell, got some lovely pictures from our local dark site. Alas, the evening he and some other fellers headed out there was my teaching day (and night) at the University. So, I had to be content with the front yard of Chaos Manor South, which offers a view low enough in the west to allow me to spot the visitor.

And spot her visually was about all I did. I scanned around in the correct area with my much-loved Burgess 15x70 binoculars, and finally saw…well…a slightly fuzzy star. My SeeStar, Suzie, laughed at me and told me to go back in the house and have some Rebel Yell while she fetched the comet. Which she did in rather impressive fashion (above) given the sky quality and the comet’s low altitude.

Next Time:  A Trio of Fall Globulars with Zelda and Suzie…