It looks much like the moon to me too. Maybe it looks like the moon's far side. Just like photos of it, I get a slightly uneasy confused feeling when I look a Mercury shots. It's so similar looking to

several years of east coast humidity I don't know. I mentioned I've never had an eyepiece that was air tight, but I've never owned a Pentax either. I've owned (or do own) just about every TV eyepiece

I've had the same problem when I try and warm an eyepiece too quickly from when it was cold. Obviously, if you take a cold eyepiece inside and expose it to warm air it will fog externally. However, I'

Hi Mark, Great to hear from you. We are slowly getting settled here after over a month. We have a little (temporary) house almost at the center of the little town of Rockwood, TN. Downtown so to speak

It must be in the air. Mine is in mid-October. I like the balloon idea. They say removing the packing is the worst part. Karen had hers done a year ago. Her worst part was getting sick from the anti-b

I'm trying to put a good face on about it and just consider it a prototype for what's to come. The next one I'll pay someone to blister, freeze, sweat and bleed over while its being built. That should

Hi Everyone, I wanted to let folks know that Karen and I have both accepted new positions at the Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and tha

You are welcome to borrow the key to my fenced area any time. I had hoped to make it there this fall, but it doesn't look like that will happen. When I left the area after my visit last September, I h

Thanks Bruce. This one is my neighbor at Star's End Estates in New Mexico: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2007/08/gallery_telescopes?slide=9&slideView=8 The observatory in the two l

Thanks for the link Cliff. That looks pretty definitive. Not that it probably matters, but the trailer I mentioned from Northern that has a tendancy to be unstable at times is 4X6 feet, not 6X8 I ment

My Haulmark trailer (6X12) has a max loaded weight of just under 3000 lbs. That's what I've thoght of as its gross weight? Its unloaded weight is something like 1100 lbs. I was told when I bought it t

Well, two nights in a row out for me. That's doesn't seem to happen much these days in spite of the relative ease of having my scope under a roll-off. Tonight hasn't disappointed so far with Jupiter a

I noted it comin' round the bend before sunset last night with my TMB-203. I had dinner and went back out in the last of twilight to find it near dead center if I remember right. Kent, have you or oth

Despite terrible conditions with only sucker holes to work with and seemingly storm force wind, I did manage to catch the comet and M3 in the same field. Fot those that missed it, there is a rather bl

weeks. You never see the critters. (ps. they do not bury themselves in you and in fact die after biting you (they attach to a hair follicle) and fall off. Cures such as lighter fluid, nail polish and

My daughter Jenna has had two tick bites this summer. In both cases I had to remove the tick as she did not notice it. No sign of infection, but we are watching. Cliff mentioned the dry conditions as

Baader filters are polished parallel and multi-coated. They are top notch in my book as well. I have not used Vernonscope to compare though. Richard Dickson

Paul, I sent a private mail off-line to your original post, but perhaps it was spam-filtered. I have a G-11 set up in my observatory you are welcome to photograph. I assume it is against a Mach-1 GTO?

I spotted IC 4617 with my 18" from the dark, clear skies of New Mexico on a trip there in 2001. The trick was to hunt for the two stars very close by. On the same trip, 6207 was visible with a four in

You are more than welcome. Thank you all for coming. We had a great time too. The seeing actually got quite decent toward 2:00 AM right before thick clouds rolled in. I had one of my better views of J