Stargazing Feb 4, 2009
When I was a young boy with fairly nerdy tendencies (a love of Star Wars among them), my parents chose to get me one of those department store 3.5-inch refracting telescopes to nurture my interest in things scientific and stellar. We used it a few times on easy objects like the Moon, but even through a telescope most stars look like regular old stars. Nobody in the family knew enough to look for nebula, and although the crappy eyepieces that came with the scope boasted huge magnifications, they failed to tell you that at 500x magnification, a 3.5-inch collector gives you a dim blurry mess that is just about impossible to keep in the microscopic field of view it provides on a the in-the-box shaky tripod. It sat all but idle for nearly a decade.
In college, I took a wonderful astronomy course, and armed with a bit more knowledge I dug out the old telescope and brought it to my dorm. I figured out how to use it and that I could get some better results with the lower magnifications, and I got some more useful views of the Moon and even comet Hale-Bopp. I still hadn’t spotted any cool space battles, however, and it didn’t become a regular hobby.
Another 10 years down the road, still armed with a 3.5-inch department store telescope (a slightly newer hand-me-down, but one plagued by the same problems as the original one) and an internet full of how-to information, I headed out and actually pointed the thing at a planet; Saturn and Jupiter were both visible at the time.
Finally, after more than 20 years of what’s-the-big-deal-itis, I saw something that kind of blew my mind. Through the 3.5-inch scope, Saturn was a small white orb with ears, and Jupiter was an even bigger ball with some little dots hanging around it. It was nothing that Galileo hadn’t seen centuries before, but these details were far removed from the points of light I’d grown accustomed to seeing with my own eyes. Not long after, I took Ashley out to see planets, and I learned firsthand what clever astronomers have known for decades: stargazing is a terrific cheap date.
After some online research into bang-for-the-buck telescopes, a month ago I finally upgraded from the realm of the department store scope to a proper scientific instrument, an 8-inch Dobsonian Intelliscope from Orion. Unlike the department store pieces, this sucker has a big 8-inch primary mirror, a very stable Dobsonian-style base riding on Teflon bushings, a pair of quality eyepieces (25mm and 10mm) and a nifty little computer pad to help find tens of thousands of objects with relative ease.
As is the case with cars or anything in life, the proper equipment makes all the difference. Nebulae are quite visible (Orion is amazing), the Moon’s surface is an open book, and distant star clusters are mind boggling. They’re my new favorite. The other night I observed Saturn (nearly edge-on, with the rings appearing as a straight line); thanks to the light-gathering capabilities of the big primary mirror, Saturn even had the sandy color I’ve come to expect from astronomy books. I’ve read that Jupiter’s Great Spot should be visible in good conditions with an 8-inch mirror, so I’m eager for it to return to view at a reasonable hour.
We’re going to head to a star party sometime soon, apparently people spend a lot of time co-driving other people’s gear at these things, so it should be fun. Nothing compares to seeing these amazing stellar formations with your own eyes.
Comments
- tombumi wrote: Feb 8, 2009 8:34 p.m.
- Reading this is getting me motivated. I was a teacher for 30 years. My buddy and I had the school buy a 10" Odyssey Dobsonian, then we built an 8" together. I got the bug, bought first an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, then a 4" computer controlled SCT, finally a 4" Stellarvue refractor. That scope is sitting in my basement in Michigan and has been for 4 years. I need to drag it out again. By the way, I would recommend a solar filter. We had a Thousand Oaks filter for the 10" Dob at school and it allowed hundreds of our students over the years to view sun spots and the last solar eclipse in Michigan.
- VWguyBruce wrote: Mar 7, 2009 8:35 a.m.
- Our PTA(I'm the VP) just sponsored a Stars Party in the fall and minus being overcast, we had a good time viewing the starscape later in the evening. Kids thought it was quite cool. Based on a recommendation from one of the lunar groupies I bought my son some binoculars, in lieu of a scope right off the bat, to get started looking at the sky. Living in Southern Maryland and Washington DC provides a great deal of comedy if one just listens. The notable quote of the Stars Party was from an adult male overheard on his cell phone, "Hey man, I gotta go, the Astrogologist is getting ready to talk."