Category Archives: stargazing equipment

stargazing, stargazing equipment

Bright-Eye Telescope Focuses on the Cosmos

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Get Started in Astronomy with a Cool New Telescope

the Bright-Eye Telescope prototype.
A prototype of the Bright-Eye telescope. Courtesy of Everything in the Universe.

A bunch of years ago, I bought my first telescope. It was red and shaped like a grenade-launcher. It has been a trooper. I traveled around Peru with it, and used it show people Halley’s Comet.  Even after I left South America to come home, the scope stayed there another six weeks, traveling with other astronomers through Peru and Chile.

This same trusty scope still does its job from the deck of our house and is still going strong. It’s an Astroscan, and it’s been a great little scope. Portable, easy to use, and cheap. Unfortunately, the company that used to make them broke the molds, and they’re no longer available new. (Lots of them are on sale on eBay, though…)

Well, it seems the trusty scope is coming back, but from a different source. The same guy who designed the Astroscan now has the “Daughter” telescope in development through his own company. Norm Sperling has a Kickstarter going to fund the creation of a better and more modern version, called the Bright-eye Telescope. It looks like a great project, and as a user of Norm’s previous invention, I am pretty sure he’s got another winner on his hands.

Want to get involved and eventually get one of these babies? Check out the Bright-Eyes campaign at Kickstarter. And, also be sure and read Norm’s temporary company website for more details. If you’ve feeling a bit flush, please consider giving some money to help the project along. It sure looks like it’ll be another great idea, and here’s the beauty: using this little scope, you can do some stargazing very quickly, whether you’re a newbie or an experienced observer.  This thing (based on the one I have now) is SO easy to set up and use that you’ll wonder why you didn’t get one sooner! Go help out Norm and let’s get these scopes out to the world!

 

stargazing, stargazing equipment

Friday Musings

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Stargazing

Summer is almost here (for those of us in the Northern climes) and I imagine a lot of folks will head out for some star gazing while the weather’s good. Where we currently live, stargazing also means mosquito-slapping time. No sooner do you get the scope set up than the little bloodsuckers show up for a snack. I remember back in 2001 we were out doing some Mars gazing in the back yard. I had set up my scope and apparently an APB had gone out to the mosquito community — they were swarming in! So, I decided to break out the mosquito coils. If you haven’t seen these things before, they are some sort of clay material that has a mosquito repellent baked into it. You set them on fire and they send up smoke and supposedly ward away the skeeters.

Since the little pests were pretty numerous, I set up five or six coils around the area where I had the scope. We proceeded to check out Mars and some other cool sites, and the coils worked pretty well. It must have looked pretty funny to the neighbors to see us out there with a scope aimed at the sky and what looked like burnt offerings sending little coils of smoke up around us. Wonder if they thought we were appeasing the Mars gods.

But, those are the kinds of things you do when you go stargazing. You slap on bug spray (or Avon’s Skin so Soft — apparently it wards away bugs, too, so there’s a lesson there somewhere), you bring a jacket for when it cools down. You bring your favorite beverage, some food, music, and oh yeah — the star charts. If you’re lucky enough to have a GoTo telescope (with computer, essentially), you use the star charts as backup. It’s a great thing, star gazing. And, you don’t even need all that stuff. You can just do it with the old Mark I eyeballs… oh, and some skeeter repellent.