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My cousin's kids are 7 and 10, and they're both interested in space, especially the younger one. I was at their house for Thanksgiving today and brought my old Tasco telescope that I got when I was in middle school. I aimed it at the moon right along the terminator for a pretty spectacular view of a crater-dense area, and their reactions to seeing it through a telescope for the first time were priceless. My cousin and her husband also hadn't seen the moon through a telescope before, so they really enjoyed it. After that, I showed them Jupiter and its moons, which are kind of a pain to get into view and keep in view with the rickety old wood tripod but were still clearly visible. They were pretty excited when I told them they got to keep the telescope. Every kid should have one.
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Nov 23, 2012 03:38
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 15:08 |
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I recently dug out my dad's old Meade 826. The tube and mirrors are pristine, but the mount is rusty and it looks like the gears on the tracking mechanism are frozen up (can't expect perfection from a guy who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope, right?  ) Cleaning up the gears and motor shouldn't be a problem, although I have my doubts about the clutch surviving the 20 or so years since it was last used. I want to get it to usable condition for sentimental value as much as practical, it was my dad's college graduation gift from my mom, and I fondly remember being 4 or 5 and my dad holding me up to the eyepiece to see Saturn and Jupiter.If I expect the worst and assume that I won't be able to get it working, is there such a thing as an inexpensive tracking mount for a telescope that size? money is really tight for the foreseeable future, so the last thing I want to do is blow money I shouldn't really be spending on something crappy. I don't need a mount that can seek, I'd be perfectly happy with one that could just track whatever I have pointed at it. If that's not feasible, I'll just disconnect the motor drive and deal with moving it manually.
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Jan 26, 2013 05:28
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I hope you don't mind me asking again, but I'd really like some advice about bringing this old telescope back to life.GWBBQ posted:I recently dug out my dad's old Meade 826. The tube and mirrors are pristine, but the mount is rusty and it looks like the gears on the tracking mechanism are frozen up (can't expect perfection from a guy who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope, right?
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Mar 11, 2013 02:10
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I got an email from a relative asking for help identifying something and was wondering if anyone has any ideas.quote:Been trying to watch for the meteor shower since Sunday. But for two days I've seen a glowing orb near the Perseids on the Cassiopeia constellation. it navigates a big distance from down direction to a left then up again it also flickers on and off but it take about 15 seconds to go on and off. Both days watched it for over 2 hours .. Still have no clue what it was ... Seen it Sunday night and Tuesday night.
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Aug 12, 2013 15:59
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I think he's saying he was watching for the perseids, and while looking at Perseus for the radiant point of the shower he saw a light moving in a down-left-up pattern in Cassiopeia that gets brighter and dimmer over the course of 15 seconds or so, repeating consistently. He's near Rome, NY. I think the UFO reports that describe a moving orb that gets brighter and dimmer in several places and times are relevant and it's some combination of atmospheric phenomena like high altitude clouds or ice crystals reflecting and refracting light and producing the illusion of movement.
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Aug 13, 2013 02:35
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Not being in the financial bind I was in when I asked 7 years ago, I took a look at my dad's old telescope and the tube and mirrors are still in great shape. It's a Meade 628 (got the diameter wrong last time). Sadly, 40 year old mounts aren't just sitting around like they used to be, and I'm having trouble finding one. I'm going to give the old RA drive a cleaning and see if I could do anything, but let's assume I need to get a whole new mount. I want something that will work for visual and photography, both film and digital, so I'd like something that can track for a couple of hours if possible. I'd like to keep it on the cheaper side, but not so cheap that I end up with junk. Anywhere I should start looking?
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Jun 10, 2020 02:44
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Is it worth it to do the hot mirror replacement to convert a first generation Canon 5D to full spectrum for astrophotography or should I be looking at a dedicated camera to mount to a telescope? For the sake of convenience, 90% of what I shoot will probably just be some kind of digital camera hanging off the back of a Meade ETX 90, although I've been making some progress on fixing up a bigger scope and definitely want to shoot some film with a few older cameras to see what I can do.
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Nov 2, 2021 06:58
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duodenum posted:B&H has a used 6" dob up for $180 and free shipping.
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Nov 26, 2021 23:28
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It's my first Dob, and I think I'm also going to see if I can get any interest in a local Sidewalk Astronomers club. It's been long enough, I promised John Dobson I would bring out a telescope or two and get people looking at the skies at his 90th birthday party.
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Nov 27, 2021 18:16
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After a closer inspection, I'm going to have to revise my initial assumption about this telescope. It looks like someone opened the box, had no idea what they were doing, took it apart, and then put it back in the box. After 15 minutes of carefully bending the spider for the secondary back into shape (they just stuck it in the tube to bounce around), I got it attached. I'll have to collimate it, but it looks like there's miraculously no damage to the optics.
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Nov 29, 2021 22:52
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Wait, what the gently caress did they do to to this poor thing? How do you bend thumbscrews so much? This can't be post-consumer damage, it must have been an accident in shipping. At least it looks like less than $10 of damage but JFC, how do you even manage to do that? I might need to to drill and tap the focuser to make sure I can put lenses in,
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Nov 30, 2021 18:41
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 15:08 |
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Butterfly Valley posted:Well, silly me, I should have expected that he'd already be known in these parts. It's some consolation to his parents, at least, to see the thousands of comments from people who he inspired or helped in the astro community. I'll paraphrase what John Dobson told me after I met him at his 90th birthday party: If you want to do something to remember him by, find a place to set up a telescope if you can, and encourage people to look at the sky.
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Apr 6, 2024 00:22
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