Telescope Reviews: From the Editors Desk: A tale of two astronomers

Excellent article and discussion, helped me to understand better a number of things, thank you everyone!

For me the main moral of this story is in attitude towards happiness in general.

Alfred is a happy, secure person and he is going to stay happy no matter what, he always looks at the bright side and makes best use of whatever is available to him. There are hard moments in his life but he copes with them well and promptly returns to his normal happy state when everything is well and he is in peace with himself and world around him.

Steve, on the other hand, is not a happy person. He wants to be happy but his attitude towards life will not allow this to happen. Steve cannot be just happy. He must know that there are absolutely no reasons at all to be unhappy. If such a reason exists he must find it and do something about it. Then he might become a happy man but not before. If he can't see anything wrong he starts looking for it. Not because he wants to become unhappy, of course not, he just wants to make sure that everything indeed is well. Than of course he finds something, it is just a question of time. He is always just one step away from obtaining that last thing which stays between him and happiness If he obtains it, it works as a short term fix which does not last long and than everything starts again. Steve's life is a constant struggle, there are bright moments in his life but they don't last long as he is always quick to start yet another fight with circumstances.

And here are several possible Alfred/Steve scenarios:

Alfred have been using his 90mm f/10 achromat for over a year now. He is aware of the limitations of his telescope but that does not bother him. Planets don't look good at magnifications over 130X? Well,he does not push it above that! Limited light grasp? Well, it's plenty of bright objects to look at! Chromatic aberration? Well, he can finally see what his science teacher was talking about! Shaky mount? Well, at least he can lift the whole thing with one hand. Alfred is a happy observer and enjoys his hobby. In the future he might buy a better telescope or he might stick to what he has. If he does - he'll enjoy it, if he does not - he'll never loose excitement about astronomy and will carry on observing with his first telescope.

Steve have been using his 90mm f/10 achromat for over a year now. He is aware of the limitations of his telescope and believes that they turn his telescope in completely useless piece of junk. Planets don't look good at magnifications over 130X? But everyone knows that minimum useful magnification for planets is 150x! Limited light grasp? Of course it is, everyone knows that 150mm is the absolute minimum for observing DSOs! Chromatic aberration? How a telescope which shows a bright halo around Vega and Venus can of any use at all! Shaky mount? How can you see anything if you have to wait whole 3 seconds before vibrations go? Steve is not a happy observer and believes that he would enjoy astronomy only if he had better equipment. In the future he might buy a better telescope or he might stick to what he has but he'll never be happy because it always going to be something to be complain about.

***

Alfred's set-up is already offering best possible image quality but he is always searching for a way to improve it. He talks to telescopes manufactures and optical designers and relentlessly tests new eyepieces. His choice of observing site depends on a wind direction. His observing list is short and contains only objects which he is really obsessed about. When conditions are poor for his main targets he is looking at other objects and calls it "casual observing" even if he is looking at mag. 12 galaxy or running out of fingers while counting craterlets inside Plato. His prompt to return to his main list as soon as conditions improve. Alfred has a bunch of observing friends and they are even worse than him. They all push each other and fiercely compete trying to find a new way to improve performance of their optics. When one of them gets ahead the rest is just as happy because newly found knowledge is shared and everyone benefits from it. Alfred is a happy observer. He loves night sky and has a special interest in a particular area. He is always happy about his equipment but will never stop trying to push it just a tiny bit further. He always appreciates work of designers and manufacturers but never stops hoping that one day things will get even better.

Steve already has the most expensive set-up in his club but he is always searching for a way to improve it. He is always just a step behind his ideal. His telescope is not bad but ideally he would like to have an extra inch of an aperture. His eyepiece collection is OK but he has a horrible gap between 27mm and 25mm and that really hindered his observing last night. Overall performance of his telescope is not bad but he looked at M31 through a new telescope one of the club members just bought and realised how much he was messing. His observing list consist of 10 objects because that is all he needs to evaluate optics and it's never enough time for anything else. Steve is not a happy observer and will never be. By setting up conditions for happiness he ensures that he will never reach it. It is always extra inch of an aperture his does not have, extra item for his eyepiece box he needs, darker skies or better seeing he does not have and so on.

***

Alfred is obsessed about optics. He was buying and selling telescopes for last five years and at some point simply lost count. He started with achromat, than bought Newtonian, that Shmidt-Cassegrain, than Maksutov-Cassegrain, than Maksutov-Newtonian, than he went back to Newtonian, than tried apochromat and now is about to try Dall-Kirkham. He never got round to test Shmidt-Newtonian and heard something about Klevtsov-Cassegrain which he'd like to try one day as well. He is testing different eyepieces all the time and wrote article analysing various designs. He can spend hours talking about comparative performance of two eyepieces and insists that there are no universal solutions, each telescope works best with certain design which should be selected carefully. He is the person that makes useful and meaningfully contributions to "refractor vs. reflector" debates. He is happy to observe with whatever telescope he currently has. He just sold 18" dobsonian and waiting for a delivery of 10" Maksutov. In the meantime he is spending night after night observing M31 with 3" f/15 refractor and is writing a new article on light grasp and resolution. Alfred is a happy observer and is going to stay happy no matter what telescope he ends up with. He appreciates differences between designs and will never complain about lack of light grasp of a small refractor, colour in achromat, secondary obstruction in newtonian, cool-down issues of large catadioptric or a price of an eighth inch triplet. His main obsession is optics but he also manages to make a lot of interesting observations in the process and often he can see more than many dedicated observers. He is going to continue his experiments for a long time.

Steve is obsessed about optics. He was buying and selling telescopes for last five years and at some point simply lost count. His first telescope was achromat but he did not like the colour. His second telescope was a Newtonian but he could not live with the tube currents. He bought eight inch Shmidt-Cassegrain but why nobody told him this thing needed so much time to cool down! Than he bought four inch apochromat but sold it because it was not gathering enough light. Then he learned about ways to speed up the cool down time of large compound telescope and bought 11 inch Shmidt-Cassegrain. This time it was too big. He bought 6" f/15 Maksutov but did not like narrow field. He bought 80mm apochromat but once again was too low on light. He bought 16" Dobsonian but once again had to put up with the size and cool down time! Plus field of view has gone again! And with the eyepieces situation was even worse. He is buying and selling them all the time and at least five are advertised for sale at any given time. He has got four large eyepiece cases and can never remember the content. He never does any observing because he is too busy deciding on equipment. Once he has found his ideal set-up he'll start observing but until than he is too busy trying and testing. Steve is not a happy observer. His target is "ideal set-up" but he does not know what it is nor what he wants to observer with it so it's not likely that he will ever reach it. There is a hope for him however, if one day he gets tired of constant equipment swap (or runs out of money!) and actually begins to observe he might find that he actually already has got everything he needs and life is not so complicated after all!

***

Alfred is a big Dobsonian guy. He has an 18" f/4.4 monster and loves it! It is big, heavy and takes a bit of time to disassemble so it can fit a boot of his small car. None the less he is happy to accept it all as he knows that the views this telescope will offer just cannot be matched by anything smaller. He understands why many people choose more portable setups but he also knows that not many of them will ever get to see the true beauty of some objects. He is a one happy observer.

Steve is a big Dobsonian guy and does not enjoy it. He bought his 20" f/4 monster and does not like it. It's too big, too heavy, too hard to collimate and it is just not enough clear nights to justify keeping such a beast. Steve is not a happy observer but cannot accept idea of loosing a light grasp. Idea of smaller and lighter dobsonian appeals to him but as soon as he looks at the advert for a 12" model he starts calculating mirror area and comes up to a conclusion that such a tiny mirror will never do. He needs at least 14", but than 16" is only a bit bigger and not that much more expensive... And wait a second, 18" is also just a tiny bit heavier, but than again if you for 18” why not to consider 20”? Wait a second, I've got an idea! May be if a bought 22" inch version the increased light grasp would convince me to observe more often! Let's make it 24" just to be sure and that's it! Even bigger and heavier telescope is on its way. Steve will not use it all and will keep complaining about cold, wind, clouds or luck of time but he'll never be to slow to point out how his new 24” would outperform any 80mm...

***

And so on, and so on

Dennis