Articles

Time to Lighten Up

I recently relocated to a new house that happens to be closer to town (Tucson, AZ) because of my age and health. Among other things, this move signaled the need for a smaller scope and mount. After years of multiple telescope designs and exotic mounts, I am now officially an “old guy” with a combination of hardware suitable to last until I become that well known computer geek enjoying what everybody else was doing while munching my pizza in my warm recliner watching YouTubers that were still “doing” and not just “watching”.

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Observations of the binary system V548 Cygni using STELLINA smart telescope

In the last couple of years I used STELLINA (Vaonis) to take pictures of classical deep sky objects with some nice results: Now I have decided that it’s time to start using this fantastic small robot telescope for some scientific purpose. In particular my challenge is to explore the capability to detect faint luminosity variations using photometry. Having as a final goal to observe exoplanet transits, I present this first project consisting in the successful detection of the light curve for the binary stars system V548 Cygni during one eclipse.

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Goto Optical responds to Takahashi with a wave of offerings for 1976

I was inspired to write this brief history on Goto Optical Company’s Mark-X era products. The source material I use here is available from several sites on the internet. My objective was to bring those resources together in one document. I want to thank the following persons who contributed and assisted in the research. Goto Telescope Company LTD. For their permission to use documents and pictures. Especially to the President Mr. Makoto Kasahara. Mr. Dave Trott for the inspiration and his patient assistance on translation and context. Mr. Stewart Squires for his exceptional research and expertise on Goto’s Optical history. Mr. Koji Matsumoto for his kind permission to include his insight and writings. Finally to Sapporo Observatory’s staff for their support and confirmation of their 20cm Goto ED-Apo telescope.

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Can a 4” APO ‘beat’ an 8” SCT? (yes and no)

This article is derived from a talk I gave my local astronomy club many years ago. This competition, and variations of it using different types and sizes of telescopes, seems to be a perennial question. Our goal in writing it was not to disparage any type of scope; all have their use and, like beauty, their value to an individual is in the eye of the beholder.

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Converting a GEM to an Alt-Az – and more!

Recently, I decided (after lying on the ground to view Jupiter in my Tal) to see ‘what many rave about’ in using an Alt-Az mount. I didn’t want to give up my slow motion controls, and I also wanted to be able to locate any object in the sky quickly and manually, and with reasonable accuracy (meaning it should be somewhere in the FOV at the end of my targeting). Not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on another mount just to see if I’d like it, I thought of converting the smaller of my GEMs into an Alt-Az, effectively making the transition illustrated here

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What Became of That Big Astrograph?

In short, it fell victim to my age and physical condition! But first it got to go outside and play some. This story will tell the tale of the ultimate fate of the astrograph.

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NV Phonetography: Part II

n 2018, CNers Gavster, Moshen and I wrote about our efforts to take smartphone photos of the images produced by our telescopes using a Night Vision Device (NVD). Moshen has moved on to a dedicated AP camera, but Gavin and I are still using our smartphones to take NV astro photos and we continue to collaborate. We thought it was time for an update to the original article because of changes we’ve made for improved results.

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Amateur Cameras Revealing Airy Patterns

It’s nice to read about Point Spread Functions (Airy patterns) and see images and simulations of them. But to be able to see them, at least the second maxima, numerically, using modest amateur equipment is very exciting.

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Collimating a Maksutov-Newtonian with a Howie Glatter Laser Collimator

This procedure describes how to collimate a maksutov-newtonian telescope such as those from Skywatcher, Explore-Scientific, APM, Intes or Intes-Micro. The same procedure applies to conventional Newtonians as well, apart from the corrector plate.

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Investigation of telescope visual filters; (Part 1 Contrast).

My first set of filters came with the Celestron eyepiece kit I bought. The kit came with the traditional #23 red, #80a blue, #56green and #58green, #12 yellow #21 orange and neutral density filter #ND 0.9 that come standard with most kits these days. They didn’t overly excite me the first time I used them on Saturn and Jupiter all much too dark, although they all worked great on the moon for cutting that intense light back a notch. It was when I viewed Venus for the first time as that brightest of stars and thought to myself what if I try that #25 red. It was then that I really found filters useful, transforming stars into planets. I enjoyed watching Venus go through its shape change that first season.

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