k9wis

I spent a lot of -20F nights at the Milwaukee Astronomical Society's observatory in New Berlin, Wi. way back when we were introduced to the term Siberian express. After the 3rd or 4th night you don't notice it any more, you just hoped you didnt freeze your face to the telescope and that you can close up the dome when you're done. Now days they would call it the "Bomb" blizzard....lol Brian K9WIS

First Clear night in 3 weeks here on SE Wisconsin, Started on compiling a book of easy Deep Sky objects for beginners for our binocular loan program at the planetarium, Verifying the easy ones M42 NGC1981 Col70 M45 M44 Mel 20 and (a bit more challenging) M41 M35.We'll be adding more as the seasons roll by. The binoculars we have in the kits are 12x25 (5.2) degree FOV. we wanted use easy objects for instant gratification and positive re-enforcement. We are looking for anything 4th mag or brighter and big enough to standout in the FOV. I am using Cartes du Ciel to create star hopping charts. The sky around here is getting a bit light polluted so need big bright objects within the grasp of our binoculars. I could just barely dig out a couple of 7th mag stars in Mel20 with my 10x50's

Very cool...Mercury is an elusive one to catch, always hiding in the glow of a rising or setting sun...congrats.. Brian Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium Waukesha, WI

I just finished reading a book titled 'The Stargazing Year'. It was about the struggles of an amatuer astronomer trying to build and observatory in his back yard. Looking forward to reading your book Brian Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium Waukesha, Wi

the last two nights have been incredible...its been a long time since Ive seen a sky this clear and steady and no moon. I started my night looking for Deep Sky objects with my 10x50 binoculars and when I found M41 and M35 I blew the dust off the old 10 inch f/6 newtonian and dragged it outside. It was easy to find them in the 11x75 finder and WOW..they were big and bright and sparkling like a firework..steady as rock, I never saw M41 before and Ive been stargazing since I was a kid. Ive seen m35 before but tonight it seemed to sparklel.. But low and behold I couldnt find M1..I've seen it before but just couldnt find it. M42 and M43 were spectacular and really bright tonite. And after all the years Ive been observing tonite was the first time I noticed NGC1981..very cool. I took a look at it through the binoculars. Well just had to say that its been a few years since Ive been out with the telescope..Sky conditions here arent the best anymore. So this night was a particular treat and just may rekindle the fire to start observing again. Brian Horwitz-DeRemer Planetarium Waukesha, Wi

I buy a lot of my robotics supplies from ADAFRUIT, SparkFun or Hobby Engineering..both have websites..if you need heavy duty stuff check out Grainger. Brian K9WIS

this is a great project...I finally retired from my job as an embedded systems programmer and have been eyeing up my old newtonian..an autofocuser looks like it might be a great start project. I was always hesitant about using the arduino, guess it was just an unfounded bias by those of us who who felt we had to start from scratch..but since playing with the arduino and raspberry pi I decided life it too short to keep redesigning hardware...lol...so plans are a small stepper on the focuser knob, some sort of arduino, and a control cable to start, maybe go wireless later. I'll keep you posted.. Brian K9WIS