SuperSatellite

Help me find a telescope

// August 9th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // General, Tech

Eyepieces

As a kid, I was an astronomy nut.  I wanted to be an astronomer, and was learning all things space.  As I grew, I got out of that phase, though I still retained my interest.  About six or seven years ago I managed to lay my hands on a serviceable 8″ Meade Newtonian reflecting telescope for $20 at an auction.  It was older, and made from a kit (cardboard tube, not aluminum, and clearly put together by hand), but worked well enough aside from the dec. motor having a gear broken on it.

A few days after buying it, I got a call from the former estate owner.  They had come across a set of eyepieces to went with it, and wanted to send them to me, no additional cost.  That was where I really scored.  Nine eyepieces and a stack of color filters, including a very nice Plössl and Super Plössl (there was also a laser illuminated reticle, but it was missing the laser).

The telescope itself wasn’t bad.  You could easily pull out cloud bands on Jupiter, and the ice cap of Mars.  Saturn’s rings were no challenge, and I even picked up  a comet and a nebula or two.  The problem was the finderscope didn’t have an eyepiece, and the area to thread one in was dented.  The spider support for the secondary mirror was actually broken, and I had realigned it and epoxied it in place (this only worked marginally well, and currently is rebroken).  And lastly, the tripod was just a nightmare.  I know tripods are heavy and all, but this one was also probably twenty years old, and was very much steel and very much lacking in the subtle refinements of tripods today.  There was also some play in it, so if you got something in the eyepiece, you had to be careful as not to lose it while tracking it, because you had to overadjust to have it stop where you wanted.  All told, it wasn’t particularly portable in the least.

I still have the scope, but it’s not really so usable these days.  And last night I caught myself with my binoculars outside looking at the moon and Jupiter.  I think I want to get myself a brand new scope, but need some advice on what would be the best choice for me.  I know the rule “get the biggest mirror you can afford.”  Bigger mirror, more light to gather.  Obvious.  I’ve seen a lot of suggestions on Google that Dobsonian reflectors are popular for a nicer amateur scope these days.  I’d like to be able to use all my old eyepieces if at all possible, most of which are Meades (not sure how interchangeable they are with other brands of scopes).  I could also sell them on eBay, and use the winnings to buy eyepieces for a new scope.  Here’s some wishlist details

Wants:

• Compatible with my old Meade eyepieces
• Computer controlled motors (like Autostar or similar)
• 8″-10″ mirror
• <$1000
• Reflector of some kind

Nice to have:

• Somewhat portable (like, the scope can be easily cased, and the tripod collapses or similar)
• Laptop connection
• Auto-tracking of targets (I think this would come with the computer controlled motors in the first place though…)

I’m not looking at getting into astrophotography or anything at this point, and don’t have the equipment for it even if I wanted to.  I just want to be able to see the planets, maybe a galaxy or two, and be able to do it without a ton of setup time.  I’d like to get into something better than what I had previously.  Obviously, I won’t be seeing anything real deep field for the most part, but it would be nice to see a handful of the more common and popular Messier objects in enough detail to tell what they are.  So, what would be good for someone like me?  I’m open to all suggestions, or information on how to make the best informed decision on buying a good scope.  I just have been out of the nomenclature and technology long enough to know that I have a lot of research ahead of me I think.

Liveblogging from HighEdWeb 2008

// October 6th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // General

Just so everyone knows, I am no longer liveblogging tech conferences from here.  Instead, that’s all going down at .eduGuru.  You can keep up with things from there.  So far you can read Day 1 and Day 2.

And since you might have missed it, enjoy Kyle and my’s battle of the Guitar Heroes:

Shop Smart, Shop S-Mart

// January 22nd, 2008 // 3 Comments » // General, Life and Times

Sorry to disappoint you, but this is actually a serious informational blog, nothing at all to do with Bruce Campbell, skeletal armies, or books bound in human flesh. Though you can always hope. No, instead I just wanted to inform my friends and readers about something my grandmother introduced me to. She’s a sharp lady. Seriously. She can still hurt me, and takes pleasure in doing it when possible. So I have to credit her with showing me this, because I value my life. A little.

There’s a group called the Angel Food Ministries, a non-denominational group that operates in 35 states, helping to bring lower cost foods to communities once a month. And let me tell you, for $30, you get quite a bit of food (I just spent $70 today for two people for one week at the grocery store, by comparison ). Plus they always have special add on boxes for $18-$20 more that have all kinds of steaks or chicken or stuff. I can’t find on their site where the money goes, but I’m sure beyond paying for the operating costs, it probably goes to some Random Good Cause™. At least we can hope. I’ll ask the nice person at the church here if they know.

Their web site offers up the following sample menu for a random month. Keep in mind that the menu changes every month, and this is not an actual one:

• 4 lb. IQF Leg Quarters
• 4 oz. Beef Back Ribs
• 1 lb. 80/20 Lean Ground Beef
• 2 lb. Breaded Chicken Tenders
• 1.5 lb. Bone in Pork Chops (4 x 6oz.)
• 1 lb. Ground Turkey
• 18 oz. Stuffed Manicotti (Cheese)
• 12 oz. Smoked Sausage
• Betty Crocker Seasoned Potatoes
• 7 oz. Cheeseburger Dinner
• 16 oz. Green Beans
• 16 oz. Baby Carrots
• 2 lb. Onions
• 1 lb. Pinto Beans
• 1 lb. Rice
• 7 oz. Blueberry Muffin Mix
• 10 ct. Homestyle Waffles
• Dessert Item

If you want to see for yourself, go look at February’s menu. Sirloin strip steaks, chicken breasts, ribs, produce, not to mention the special boxes with New York strips, prime rib, or tons of chicken. You go to whatever church is serving your area (there’s a locater on their web site), place your order, come back later that month, and pick it up. It’s terribly simple. For Pittsburg, there are three churches doing it, of them, only Trinity Baptist Church is online. They do keep their menus and ordering forms current though.

You should probably prepare for a bit of a wait, as the service is getting popular, and there will generally be lines. You can see a sample image to the left of what one of the boxes looks like. Actually, I think you end up with like a couple boxes, or a box and a bag or something. Also be prepared to make a lot of room in your freezer. But, if you’re anything like me, this is a crazy good deal, because I don’t cook a ton right now, so that’s easily 2-3 weeks worth of groceries for me, and I never buy that much fresh meat (now, spoiled and bad meat is another story…) to just have on hand.

So there you go, consider yourself informed.

Holy Crap: Luck, good and bad

// December 11th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // General

Wow…this has been an interesting couple of days. As if I needed more stress right now. Southeast Kansas has been hit by a sort of surprise ice storm the past two days. Pittsburg itself looks nearly like a war zone. Trees are down absolutely everywhere. Twice yesterday I was out shoveling the walk and took off running when trees fell and hit houses across the street. Luckily, no damage or anyone hurt. But it’s a crazy weird sound to stand outside and you can just hear that *snapcrackchshhhhh* sound every few seconds around the neighborhood.

Where our luck went bad was with power. We’ve been facing constant random power outages. Fortunately, the last one wasn’t long, and was fixed before it got down to 53 degrees like it did in the afternoon. We had been planning to stay with Steve and Cassie to stay warm after that one, but the power came back before it got to that. Then it went again, and this time took Steve’s place with it, so by then, it was blanket time. That was fixed fairly fast though, and we have been good since. Where our luck also went bad was when I nearly lost the front of the house. We have a big tree in the front yard. It’s one I knew I’d need to get rid of soon, I just hadn’t planned on an ice storm in early December. Well, yesterday campus closed, so I went home early and found this tree, and several tons of it’s branches and ice, split right down the middle. It was happily ready to fall right on the house.

I have no clue what was holding it together, given the trees around town that had broken under lesser circumstances. Spit and willpower on my part, I think (well, maybe not spit, but definitely willpower. Lots and lots of willpower). Luck went good when it turned out A-1 Tree Service made me a priority and got it chained back to the good part of the tree and trimmed a bunch of weight from the top. Let us not discuss the cost this has dropped on me, aside from saying goodbye to Christmas, but hello to an insurance claim.

So right now, I’m pretty on edge. The tree, while less of a threat, is still a concern until we get it gone completely. And there’s more storm on the way. The money is probably going to come from a credit card, just when I was nearly out of credit card debt. All and all my stress level, which has been on the decline, has now spiked in impressive fashion. I really need to work on my meditation. But, it could have been much worse, and we are probably totally in the clear now, so, let’s call it Epic Luck.

Evolution

// March 7th, 2007 // No Comments » // General

After conferring with the SuperSatellite co-founder this evening, I wanted to let everyone know that Greg has set up a new site over at SimiusMagnus.com. There’s nothing up just yet, but he’ll be doing a lot of the familiar stuff from the old SuperSatellite: reviews, articles, thoughts. Be sure to drop by and check it out.

Also, I’m sure you’ve noticed some changes here. I have decided on a nice theme I think, using Hemingway Reloaded. I’ll be doing some heavy modifications to it to mold it to my liking, but why re-invent the wheel, right? Once that’s done, it will be off to the races with articles I have planned.