Comments on: Basic optics for amateur telescopes.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:11:09 +0000

—I see I wrote “two” when I meant “too”.

I think enzyme breakdown is starting to set in.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:00:09 +0000

I can feel it creeping up two.

Not only am I making more typos, I’m making new ones, and some I’m repeating.

And I’m making grammatical and spelling errors I know damn well are errors. Like I keep on typing “different” without the second “e”.

Its entropy.

By: alcaray

alcaray — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 21:39:21 +0000

My typing/composing was good and has become terrible, for some reason.

By: ER

ER — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 18:50:08 +0000

That’s hinky.

By: bowser

bowser — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 04:00:46 +0000

Had the proper maps, some inexpensive telescopes and a couple of eager amateur astronomer friends going along.

There were so many fires in that area of California we could see nothing, absolutely nothing. Didn’t bother taking the telescopes the last leg of the hike.

By: ER

ER — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 21:27:48 +0000

It was my first telescope, lnnovative design, a good little performer, well built, simple to set up and use, portable and very convenient in the field. Even when I got my 8″ f/5 German equatorial (also from Edmund’s), I always took my Astroscan with me to recce an area at low power before putting the Big Dude on the case. It filled in the gap perfectly between binoculars and my big scope. I wish I still had it.

Damn. That brought back some memories. Yeah, they came out in the early 80s,that’s when I got mine, and they only quit making them a few years ago.

By: alcaray

alcaray — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 20:44:03 +0000

…had one of those cheap reflectors that Edmund used to sell… I should look that up… ah! here we go:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Edmund-Scientific-Astroscan-2001-Telescope-with-Eyepeice-Base-Strap-original-box-/261294269264?pt=US_Telescopes&hash=item3cd65a2350

Although the version I remember was smaller and cheaper looking (or maybe it seemed so because we beat the hell out of it). But we dragged it along with us when we went out to dark skies (and when the hike was not too grueling). It gave us something fun to do at night.

Anyhow, it worked very well indeed, despite its low cost! This was in the 80′s?

By: ER

ER — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 19:01:35 +0000

I should have emphasized more strongly that I was talking strictly about optical properties in the abstract, not imperfections or bad figure in the glass, poor quality in general, or mechanical shortcomings with the tube assembly or the mounting (an oft-neglected consideration). The best scope is worthless without a proper mounting.

The traditional example for this is the “department store” telescope, usually advertised with a magnification an order of magnitude higher than theoretically possible for even a flawless objective of that size.

Anyone considering getting into astronomy, or considering buying a gift scope for a child interested in astronomy should contact one of the astronomy groupies here in the Zone for advice. There’s at least three that I know of, myself, SteveS and RobVG.

By: alcaray

alcaray — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 17:59:55 +0000

…and costing less than $50 are just as good as real telescopes.

I had a girlfriend who bought a nice house that had a large master bedroom with an amazing view. And, without consulting me, she purchased one of these refractors to look cool by her bedroom balcony. And then she rxpecteded me to make it work for her. The optics were not alligned properly and had no means of adjustment (other than the eyepiece focus which was handled by sliding a small plastic tube within a snug cardboard tube). The construction used mainly glue and plastic welds and tight fitted parts to hold together. It gave a fuzzy view of the inside of the tube, on a bright day.

By: Jody

Jody — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 16:14:52 +0000

Thanks ER!