Jim L

Neal, it was very enjoyable for both my wife and I; very enjoyable indeed. Warm, sunny, comfy lounge chair to relax in, a few short steps to the fridge, and no pesky mountain lions to shoo off mid observation. I happened upon the mountains almost by accident. I had been viewing the eclipse using a 28mm RKE eyepiece to give me a wide, relaxing view of the spectacle, but at some point decided to examine the large sunspot near the center of the solar disk. I inserted a 15mm 62° Celestron spotting scope eyepiece (44X) I purchased from AliExpress for $12, and I was so drawn to the mountains on the moon that suddenly appeared on the backlit perimeter that I can’t recall any of the features of the sunspot, or if I even looked at it at all. The absolutely perfectly black mountains were in stark contrast to the brightly illuminated sun behind, and even fine changes in topography could be easily observed and appreciated. One feature that really stood out was a lone tall mountain bracketed on either side by relatively low, broad, valleys. It remained me very much of the shape and aspect of the Matterhorn I’d seen in photographs, albeit in quite teenie tiny miniature. Seems I intended to observe the sun but instead I mostly observed the moon.

My wife and I observed the eclipse under clear skies from our back yard in California using a 102mm f/6.5 Celestron achro equipped with a Baader Hershel wedge. The coverage was only about 25%, but still, it was fascinating. A large sunspot occupied the center of the solar disk with several other smaller sunspots scattered about. Granulation on the sun’s surface was also visible, which became easier to see as the eclipse neared our local maximum. What I found most interesting was that we could see mountains in profile along the perimeter of the moon that was backlit by the sun. It was a very worthwhile couple of hours of observing.

What can be expected? Didn’t you send your puritans over here? And smart of you to do so! Pre-revenge for the revolution, I suppose. They’re a surly lot, and do not take kindly to fun of any sort. Take them back and let’s let bygones be bygones; we’ll behave, I promise! 😇

It’s the most fun when you fall for a joke. Jon is a very smart and experienced observer. I’m a retired farrier with two years of observing under my belt. Jon humors me with his thoughtful and detailed analyses and I return the favor with my wild imaginings. It’s a symbiotic partnership.

You got me. I can claim at least one victim of my little jape; my wife. She’s visiting our grandson, Achilles, and I texted her: It did not go super smoothly, indeed! I’ll wait to see how long it takes for her to catch on. Maybe throw in a few more disasters for good measure… Did I catch anyone else out there, if only for a moment? I’m looking at you, John.

The Stowaway is a tool, much like any other. Anything that improves its function is a positive step. That said, it appears I’ve discovered a fly in the ointment. In my excitement it appears I installed the dovetail on the wrong side of the tube. I should have looked at the Omni dovetail orientation and not that of the way the Stowaway came from AP. I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I hope not to repeat them. I expect the solid mounted dovetail installations on my Takahashis will go better. Forgot to mention earlier. You want to use the dovetail bar that has raised ridges along the sides. They make much better contact with the OTA, and so provide better support.

I mounted an extended dovetail bar on my Celestron Omni AZ 102 to make it easier to balance. It looks like this: It not only made balancing easier, but it also moved the scope closer to the mount and was lighter than installing rings and a bar. It worked so well I decided to do the same to my AP ‘92 Stowaway. Here’s the before shot: All set to go. Always use a punch to dimple your hole locations so your drill bit doesn’t walk. While in this case any scratches would be hidden by the dovetail, it’s best to practice good habits. Sorry about the text block; I copied and pasted from my how-to post on CN. Moving on… And the job completed. Slick, right! Things went pretty well, but there were a couple of things that could have gone better. First, I secured the OTA in my large shop vice. Don’t worry, of course it has soft jaw inserts. Well, to keep the OTA from rotating in the vice I had to put some torque to it. That turned the tube in the vicinity of the vice jaws into a bit of an oval. No worries; I put the tube back in rotated 90° and squished it a bit from the other corner. It’s not perfect, and a short section is shaped a bit like a roundish square, but most folks probably wouldn’t notice. Next, those latest generation Stowaway tubes are thick! I had to bear down on the drill and snapped the bit. The half that remained in the drill “kissed” the tube a little, which wouldn’t have been so bad except that it was still turning pretty fast at the time. I’m sure I can touch up the tube with a paint match from the auto paint store. So two holes later I look into the end of the the tube and it seems I drilled into one of the baffles. I probably should have learned from my Omni AZ 102 how to avoid them, but apparently I did not. By now I’d gotten the drilling down to a science so the third hole was a cinch. So was the fourth, which I needed because my dovetail hole spacings are fixed and therefore so must be the hole spacings. I probably shouldn’t have tipped the tube vertical to have a look down on my handiwork, but I think I got most all of the cuttings out of the tube and off of the inner lens with a straw taped to the end of my wife’s vacuum cleaner. That was a rookie mistake. That’s pretty much it, or at least what jumps first to mind. So all in all a success. There are a couple of extra holes, which I plugged with plastic caps made for the job, and a scratch that’s mostly hidden by the dovetail. I take those hidden marks in much the same spirit AP took when the anodizing flaked off the draw tube; what you can’t see won’t hurt you! Anyone looking to do this is welcome to pm me for tips and tricks. Good luck!

Here’s FLO’s cleaning methodology explained in a video by Optic Wave Lab: If you’ve just shod a horse, wash your hands first. Then do the dishes. And the pots and pans. Use plenty of soap and warm water. By this point your hands are clean and soft. Use a nail brush if necessary to remove every last trace of dirt from your nails and fingers. Now you’re ready. I’ve not yet had to dab anything off my mirrors as all of the grit and most all of the debris simply washes off under the sink faucet, but you may have to. The fellow in the video dislodges stuck particles with a fingernail, which seems relatively safe and benign. I’ve no experience to collaborate his technique but that’s what I would do also. The sink wash technique also works wonders on neglected SCT corrector plates: As has been stated elsewhere, there’s no need to over-do cleaning, nor to be afraid to clean when it’s needed. My own experience tells me it’s quite safe, and intuitively among the safest method, if you take caution and use common sense. Good luck!

The bright waxing crescent moon was in the Pleiades tonight over clear Northern California skies, and the spectacle was gorgeous. It looked much like this through my AT72EDII with a 28mm RKE eyepiece: It was entirely by accident I came across the fortuitous conjunction. I was looking for the moon through the scope and found it in a field of stars as it moved into view within the eyepiece. The Pleiades weren’t visible to the naked eye, being lost in the glow of the moon and the light of urban skies, but they shone beautifully through the telescope. I briefly viewed Jupiter and the Orion Nebula, but the Moon in the Pleiades kept pulling me back for more. Edit: Whoops, wrong thread. If a moderator sees this would you please move it to the, What Did You See Tonight, thread? Thanks

Here’s another possibly: The battery Velcro’ed to the side of the mount eliminates dealing with the mount’s power cable once and for all. It’s especially helpful when viewing at objects widely separated in the sky.

For mental health, however loved ones have expressed doubts about its efficacy 🙃

Back at StarBase on the Gulf Cost of Texas just a few miles from the Mexican border, under a very bright full moon, good transparency but plenty of moisture and humidity, light cool winds, seeing about Pickering 6 rating, so fair to good. Using my son’s Celestron 6SE SCT my wife, my son, and I were able to easily pick out the E star in the Trapezium of the Orion Nebula, and a bit later in the evening my wife and I were able to see both the E and F stars; in my case using a 25mm Celestron Plössl for a magnification around 60x. The Orion Nebula was bright and distinct, with arms extending in multiple directions and clearly delineated against the dark space background. Quite a contrast to the previous evening when the nebula was almost completely washed out in the background atmospheric water vapor. It’s amazing how much things can change in a single evening. Jupiter was next, but seeing took a turn for the worse so the best views were found at magnifications of 100x or lower using a SV135 7-21mm zoom eyepiece. I could easily see the north and south equatorial belts, and the northern and southern temperate belts, but my less experienced son couldn’t quite make out either of the temperate belts. I guess there really is something to experience verses vision, and patience verses haste. Almost directly above Jupiter was Uranus, and while I couldn’t find it due to the narrow field of view of the 6SE telescope and significant light pollution washing out many of my guide stars, my wife could. I’m a better star hopper than she is, but she’s far better at picking out distant dim planets using dead reckoning. Monica found Uranus almost immediately and it looked quite pretty as a tiny pale aqua blue disk at 60x through the 25mm Plössl. The three of us enjoyed Uranus for almost a half hour until my son turned in and Monica and I turned our attention to Auriga, which had moved off of it’s position very near the zenith to a place more manageable for my alt-Az mount. Messier 37 was first, an almost globular cluster looking and densely packed open cluster with a distinct red star in the center. Very beautiful even under the light of the full moon. The Pinwheel and Starfish clusters we similarly beautiful, but very different than M37, with brighter, fewer, and not as densely packed with stars as M37. We called it quits after the three open clusters in Auriga, but I’m satisfied that we had enjoyed a quite interesting, varied, and productive night of observing despite the full moon.

A 92mm f/6.65 is about as large as I’ve found comfortable with this mount; my 102mm f/7 was a bit too much. The mount arm can be reversed at the mid joint.

That’s the one, Stu, and thank you very much.

Some time ago a gentleman here posted a story about an astronomer who, searching for his next telescope, made the observation that advocates of one instrument or another minimized the defects or their own preferred tool while expanding the faults of others. I thought the observation valuable and kept the story for some time but I seem to have misplaced it. Can anyone point me to the source?