A place for night sky enthusiasts
I was recently interviewed for the Houston Astronomical Society’s newsletter GuideStar. I’ve been interviewed a few times before and have found that the quality of the resulting article depends hugely on the interviewer. Prep is everything. And in this case, Clayton Jeter was a real pro. His questions were thoughtful and interesting, and clearly the result of having done his homework.
The complete interview appears after the jump.
Continue reading “Houston Astronomical Society Interview”
Here is a listing of every article I’ve written for Sky&Telescope magazine up to the end of 2009. The index is in chronological order and gives the year, month, page number, department heading, and title. You can do a keyword search using your browser’s search function (activated by pressing Ctrl and F simultaneously) if you’re looking for a specific item.
Continue reading “Complete S&T Index from 1997 to 2009”
The secondary mirror holder and spider on my 12¾-inch truss-tube Dobsonian is made with scrap wood, a few nuts and bolts, and a stainless-steel ruler.
The curved-vane secondary mirror holders I use on almost all my telescopes never fails to excite curiosity. Most people know that the principal benefit of the curved spider is spike-free stars, but they often wonder if it really works. The “points” adorning bright stars in telescopes with straight-vaned spiders are diffraction artifacts that don’t seriously affect the image but do impose an aesthetic quality that may not appeal to you. Luckily, the remedy is easy to make, works like a charm, and can be retrofitted to virtually any reflector — commercial or homemade.
Continue reading “How To Build A Curved-Vane Secondary-Mirror Holder”
At 10:56 p.m. EDT on July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. That small step really did represent a giant leap. Perhaps as a species, we’ll never again achieve anything quite so grand or monumental.
Continue reading “Apollo 11 On The Moon”
You can enjoy viewing the Moon with nothing more than a modest telescope equipped with a few eyepieces. Even binoculars can show a great deal. But to get the most out of your lunar explorations a few additional tools are a big help. Here are my picks of the best and most essential Moon goodies.
Continue reading “A Lunar Observer’s Toolkit”
Have scope, will travel! This Dobsonian not only gives great views, it also fits into an airplane’s overhead storage compartment.
One of the best reasons for learning to build telescopes is that you can make instruments that perfectly match a particular observing need or circumstance. As an editor at Sky & Telescope, my “circumstance” happily involved a lot of travel, and as a result I found myself dreaming of a telescope that I could take with me as I zig-zagged across North America from one star party to the next. It seemed a shame to arrive under the dark skies of the Texas Star Party or Mount Kobau without a telescope of my own.
Continue reading “My 8-inch Travelscope”
Every stargazer has a “first telescope” story. Here’s mine.
Like many backyard astronomers, one question I get asked all the time is “When did you get interested in the stars?” The truth is, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawn to the night sky. Maybe part of the reason was that my family lived on an orchard under a splendid, dark rural sky. For me, the stars were as much a part of nature as the birds in the trees and the bugs crawling on the ground.
Continue reading “My First Telescope”
With star-party season upon us once again, you’re probably confronting the age-old problem of how to protect your prized telescope from the triple threat of dust, rain, and heat. The traditional big, ugly trash bag or blue tarp works for two of those three (dust and rain), but looks bad and lets your scope to get way too toasty on a hot summer’s day. Alternatively, you can plunk down $50 or so on a proper dust cover, but if you’re like me, that cash almost always seems to go towards another eyepiece instead. Stumped? Don’t worry — a cheap, effective telescope cover is only as far away as your local hardware/camping-supply store.
Continue reading “Save Your Scope!”
Remounting your Newtonian reflector’s primary mirror could lead to better performance and easier collimation.
Many telescopes have mirror mounts that are less than ideal. Some hold the mirror in place with clips that project over its surface and introduce image-harming diffraction effects. Others have adjustments that require tools or are so frustrating that observers rarely attempt to properly collimate the optics. Some cells effectively seal the mirror from the outside air. With no provision for ventilation, it is virtually impossible for the primary to cool down to the ambient air temperature — crucial for sharp images. Some mirror cells have all these problems!
Continue reading “A Simple Double-Plate Mirror Cell for Your Reflector”
When I was a boy growing up near the town of Cawston in the desert interior of British Columbia, the family dining-room window looked across our orchard toward the nearby hills that cradled the Similkameen Valley. These were grey sagebrush-covered mounds with gently rounded profiles like those of the mountains on the Moon.
Continue reading “From Cawston to the Moon”