Tags: green, renovation, salvaged, recycled, interior designer, homeowner, going green, environment, local “ Green” renovation much easier than homeowners might think Some people looking to renovate their homes are leery of words like “green,” “salvaged,” and “recycled” because they wonder if the material can be as high of quality as those that have been manufactured. Cathy Hobbs, a LEED AP-certified interior designer, wanted to assure homeowners that yes, the workmanship is just as good. And a
You have gazed up at the night sky for years thinking one day I’ll buy a telescope. You’ve caught the odd episode of the sky at night and have the whole series of Wonders of the Universe on sky+. Finally after watching stargazing live you’ve decided this is the year you buy one. After doing extensive internet research you have settled on a telescope, the only decision remaining is do you buy the GOTO option or not? The answer to this is YES! Let’s face it, you bought a sat nav for your car and a
This is the first of a series of articles I wrote for my local astronomy society (CLASS) newsletter that I thought I'd post here. They are not meant to be a serious attempt to tackle any of the subjects with any sort of authority. I was aiming more for an entertaining series of articles on the kind of trials and tribulations that are common to amateur astronomers. Or as I recently introduced one of my articles "It's the usual mix of pop culture references and dubious facts wrapped around a vague
After changing my mind in July and going for the SW200 dob, I love it I have come up with a list of 2" eyepieces these include: 32mm panaview which will give me 38X mag, Purchased SW SWA 22mm which will give me 55X mag on wish list SW SWA 8mm which will give me 150X mag on wish list SW SWA 3.5mm which will give me 343X mag on wish list. Well within the 406 mag limit of this dob.
Finally after just over 100hrs work spread over nearly 10 months I've finally had my mirror tested for the first time.
There are good and bad bits.
Good:nice spherical curve and no turned down edge.
Bad:it has astigmatism in the form of a depressed centre.
John tells me this is due to not polishing through centre and not turning my mirror enough but says it should polish out hopefully.so I'm going to do a couple of hours polishing through centre then 're test and see if it's better if not
So it's happened! I've got a scope. My initial intentions of getting a small refractor were well and truly side-swiped by RobH on here doing me a corking deal on his ST120. Having thrown in some extras including the dovetail and scope rings, a basic electronic focuser, an old EQ3 mount and a couple of eye pieces within the price I came away a very happy bunny. Obviously the ST120 is is a BIT bigger than the ST80 size I was intending and certainly not what I consider suitable to go in hand luggag
Well normally I'm a bit of a " give it a go" or "I wonder what happens if I push this button" sort of bloke. Anyway for whatever reason I purchased a couple of ledger type books from Poundland and started two observational logs. One log for visual observations and one for the LVST (the Lowestoft Very Small radio Telescope). So last night, I used the moon to calibrate the focus points for my camera - telescope -barlow lens combinations and wrote it all down in my log book. Train spotting next
In the 1632 book entitled Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (translated by Stillman Drake), he presented his historically important ship thought experiment:
“Shut yourself up with some friend in the main cabin below decks on some large ship and have with you there some flies, butterflies, and other small flying animals. Have a large bowl of water with some fish in it; hang up a bottle that empties drop by drop into a wide vessel beneath it. With the ship standin
After the dissapointment of having many scratches in my lovely polished mirror I've been back through 400 and 600 and have now done another 4 hours of polishing with little or no scratching!This weekend I will make the long journey from Portsmouth up the teeside to see John Nichol at his mirror making seminar and will have my mirror tested for the first time. People who know me know that I'm the ultimate pessimist so you won't be too surprised when I say that I'm expecting a turned down edge and
ok, I thought I'd start with something simple just to get a feel for the scope n camera :-) ...what was very evident was the speed at which the moon moved in the eyepiece! Having said that I was rather pleased with myself, even if to the experts it's unimpressive!
The internet is a wonderful resource. There's almost no subject on which you can't find a plethora of information and opinion. For every possible argument there's a counter and several tangential debates. In my on going hunt for the right starter scope I'm finding that every time I make a decision I'm overwhelmed with opposing or differing views. Every thread opens up some new possibilities and closes others. 24 hours later I read other stuff and make a U turn. My budget veers hourly between £80
and the answer is 'not to see' having had my interest fired I'm keen to get some time out with my cheapie bino's and the planisphere. I'm keen to practice working my way around the night sky manually with no electronic trickery to help me. I was working last night and due to finish at 3am. There's a nice hill about a mile from my house with few trees and no houses or street lamps so I thought I was all set. I had the car rather than my pushbike so I'd have been set by about 03:20. and......... y
The sky is clear tonight, looking with the naked eye I caught sight of a star and there were other twinkling stars round it and also a line, having looked on the sky at night website I realised that it might be Urser majors galaxy. Has anybody else seen this?
Hi All I bought a Nexstar6 se as I have always fancied looking at the planets and stars anyway I am all set up but it's been quite cloudy. I have tried to focus on other things buildings etc but nothing comes into focus I know there is quite a bit turning the knob but nothing seems to happen. When I turn the knob is the inner mirror supposed to move because this doesn't seem to move at all , even when going from one extreme of focusig the the other. Can anyone advise is it me ? oris the scope fa
Where to start? I went into my local library and a chap was there doing a display for the local astronomy club. He had a massive scope and fantastic photographs taken with said equipment. I had a quick chat having not realised we even had a local astronomy club and a quick peruse of the photo's. If I'm honest there may possibly have been a touch of 'geek' about said chap but I've come to realise over the years that there's a touch of 'geek' in me aswell. :grin: (If said chap ever gets to see t
Well as stated in my last entry I had picked up a few small scratches during polishing,nothing that was visible without really looking and catching them in the right light.I had decided to carry on as they wouldn't affect the final finish but tonight after 15 mins of polishing I had ended up with half a dozen bigger scratches.I think I must have got some grit on the mirror when pressing the lap and not cleaned it off properly so to cut a long story short I didb15 mins with 600 alu oxide that did
Started polishing at the start of the week and got a good polish up then decided to do some pressing of the lap for good contact.dried everything off and pressed it with about 30kg and left for a few hours.long story short, the lap stuck solid and had to be banged off resulting in a few pieces staying stuck to the mirror.could have been a lot worse and the only bad part was a scratch that was left.the bits cleaned off the mirror ok and after redoing the channels again(the pressing tightened then
...there was just me, a clear sky and a sense of wonder. If only I could pluck one of the little lights out of the sky, place it in the palm of my hand and admire it's beauty a lot more closely! I finally decided after seeing some rather striking photographs of the the Moon to turn my obsession of photography and of the heavens into a new hobby. So with some research, a reasonable amount of cash (in my books anyway) I took the plunge. Tomorrow my very first telescope arrives (Skywatcher 150P) w
Here is a picture of Ganymede seen through a 10" scope (NOTE THE PICTURE IS NOT MINE). So here is some evidence that It might be possible... I hope I really will see detail on Ganymede and the other moons. Alas Jupiter is not in the sky so i will have to wait :)
Finally began to see something after some helpful advice from a couple of forum members. My error was not setting the white levels etc in relation to the histogram. It's all new to me - except in terms of ordinary photography, so I was in the dark - literally. I now have 'live' images which are essential for alignment and focussing. Conditions were not good, however, with an almost full moon, thin cloud and lots of dew. So I packed in knowing that I was at least on the right road and looking fo
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