Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 18
November 20, 2012
Chris' telescope buyer's guide 2012.
A friend suggested that I offer some advice on buying a telescope as a gift for a first-time astronomer. Well, the holidays are fast approaching, so I thought he might not be the only one who could use such advice. Thus my first-annual Telescope Buyer's Guide!
Assuming that a telescope gift must fit a modest budget, my first note is a caution: Do not buy a Wal-Mart telescope! Also beware of "tabletop telescopes," because your view is only as nice as the mount is stable. Remember, if you're using 32x magnification, that also multiplies any vibrations by 32 times. Anything that costs less than about $200 will give you more headaches than pleasure, and ruin the young astronomer's feelings about this wonderful activity.
So, a few basic guidelines.
Optical Design
If purchasing a refractor telescope (one that uses a lens for the primary objective on the business end, with the eyepiece at the opposite end), start looking at one with an objective lens at least 60mm diameter (about 2-1/2"), preferably 90mm. Here's a nice example, the Celestron Omni XLT 102ED (that's 102mm aperture, and better-than-average ED glass):
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Refractors are simple to use but, at the low-priced end, give false color due to the primary-lens design. Achromatic (and apochromatic) designs reduce (or even eliminate) this flaw... but at a cost. Because they have no central obstruction in their light-path as with a reflector, they provide brighter, sharper images at smaller objective sizes. Here is a fantastic apo refractor that is also very portable, the Explore Scientific 80mm f/6 ED APO:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Reflectors vary a lot in design. The current most-popular style is the Schmidt-Cassegrain (SCT), which uses a mirror as primary in the rear of the tube that bounces off a small secondary mirror at the opposite end (which in turn shoots the light down the middle to your eyepiece at the rear), plus uses a sealed corrector lens at the business end (called the "aperture" - the diameter where light enters). A useful SCT starts at 90mm diameter (about 3-1/2") and can grow much larger. Here's a nice example at the small end of the spectrum, the Celestron NextStar 90:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
A similar 'scope is the Meade ETX90:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Both are excellent starter instruments that easily track the sky and even have motorized, automatic go-to features, and are both affordable. I wouldn't go smaller than 90mm in an SCT. Get the nicest one you can afford! That's still portable, anyway; my 12" Meade LX90GPS weighs about 120 pounds, whereas an ETX90 only weighs about 20 counting the mount and everything. Here it is at sunset during the 2012 Venus transit of the Sun:
These are typically the easiest reflectors to use because they're so compact, and their shorter tubes make them even more manageable than a refractor. My 12" Meade LX90GPS (that's 304mm) would have been a nice university observatory instrument in the 1970s with its GPS locating and tracking and massive go-to database of astronomical objects, but now anyone willing to spend a few thousand bucks can buy one and enjoy hero views of the universe. The SCT optical design allows for cheaper mirror production, allowing you to get a lot more 'scope for the money.
You can find many other types of reflectors out there, but the Newtonian design (attributed to Sir Isaac) used to be the most popular, and provides the greatest light-gathering power for the dollar. It uses an open tube with a primary mirror opposite the open end, and a secondary mirror set at a 45° angle, which bounces the light into the eyepiece set at the top-side of the tube. Here's a nice example of a useful Orion AstroView 6" Newtonian reflector on a German equatorial mount:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
I wouldn't buy a telescope smaller than 6" aperture (152mm) in a Newtonian if you want the gift-recipient to enjoy it for more than a short time. Though a 4-1/2" Newtonian - a popular entry-level aperture - will provide lovely views of bright objects, it has very little resolving power (see below).
The Newtonian layout allows for the most-comfortable viewing positions and very stable mounts; to use a refractor or SCT at a comfortable viewing angle, you need to prop it up on a tall tripod, whereas a Newtonian can sit practically on the ground if the optical tube is long enough. On the other hand, it's also the least-compact design, requires occasional collimation to ensure the mirrors are aligned, and gets dirty inside faster. On the third hand, it's also the easiest to mount cheaply, because the heavy part sits low to the ground...
Mounts
...thus was born the Dobsonian design, popularized by the sidewalk astronomer John Dobson in the 1970s. It looks like this Orion SkyQuest 6" Dobsonian (which uses the Newtonian optical design):
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Here's my other telescope, a present for publishing my first book. It's a Meade Lightbridge 16" Dobsonian reflector, with a Newtonian optical design. Because it's so large, instead of a solid tube it uses removable struts. This makes it lots lighter and WAY more portable - so much so that this giant can fit into a small car:
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
On the other hand, it's a pretty large and heavy 'scope, not something I'd recommend for beginners. But if you have the space to store it and the strength to carry around 60-pound components (the base, or the rear mirror-box), a large Dobsonian like this is far less expensive for the optical performance than any other design. Almost anyone, however, can get a lifetime of pleasure out of a FAR smaller 10" or 12" Dobsonian, at a lot less cost, too.
My second telescope was this Crown Optics 6" f/8 (that means the focal length was 8 times the diameter of the mirror, making the tube 48" long) Newtonian reflector on a German equatorial mount with clock drive (which required a REALLY LONG extension cord to track the sky):
The German equatorial design is a bit more cumbersome and a lot more expensive than the Dobsonian box, but it allows for precise tracking of astronomical objects. These days, you can get one with battery-operated clock drives to counter the Earth's rotation and even GPS-precision go-to and tracking.
My first telescope was a very simple and completely manual Edmond Astroscan, a 4-1/2" rich-field (meaning "low power") Newtonian on a ball-and-socket mount:
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
It was ultra-portable, foolproof to use, and nearly indestructible, but really limited in what it could reveal of the heavens. I quickly moved on to the Crown Optics 'scope, wanting more sky and something with a clock drive. It didn't have GPS or go-to, but did track the movement of the sky (countering Earth's rotation), so objects stayed centered in the eyepiece for long-time viewing, star parties with lots of people wanting to look, or astrophotography.
German equatorial mounts do require some setup, whereas the GPS-driven go-to instruments make setting up for a night's observing much simpler. Not nearly as simple as something like the Astroscan or a Dobsonian-style telescope, but way more useful for beginners and experts alike.
What You Can Expect to See
I would recommend one of the simpler, smaller instruments for a first-time astronomer: One of the 90mm or 120mm SCT designs is great for super portability and ease of use. A 6" or 8" Newtonian on an equatorial mount will show you every single nebula, star cluster, and galaxy in the Messier catalog, plus lots more. It'll also show you every planet in the Solar System, though Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto require a good eye to distinguish from stars in the eyepiece. Reflector designs cost a lot less than equivalent refractors.
Want to mostly view the planets, the Moon, and other bright objects? A really nice refractor will give you the best images, and you don't need much light-gathering power. More important is the focal length: In this case, longer is better. You want a focal-ratio of f/8 or longer. SCTs are almost all longer than that, as are low-priced refractors and many smaller Newtonians.
Want to get really nice views of those same objects, be able to magnify them more? Then you need a bigger aperture for better resolution.
Want to go deep-sky, walk across galactic spirals and float through vast nebulae? Go with the biggest reflector you can afford, and aim for shorter focal lengths. They call these "rich-field" instruments, because the field is wider and brighter.
Oh, and if you want to study the Sun, you need dedicated equipment. My SCT uses a big mirror over the open end, which blocks most of the light. This is the cheap route, and provides nice views of sunspots. Optimally, you'll get yourself a dedicated solar telescope if you want to spend a lot of time with the Sun; I just got the older (now out of production) double-stacked version of this one, the Coronado SolarMax 40mm Hydrogen-alpha solarscope:
Where a go-to instrument becomes worth the investment is hunting down dimmer and harder-to-identify objects. They can take a long time to find without a smart telescope pointing the way. On the other hand, like me you might enjoy the satisfaction of finding things yourself. If so, go crazy and get yourself a Dobsonian, which for the same money will reveal many more wonders of the deep sky. Typically, you get two or even three times the optics (diameter, thus light-gathering power) in a Dob than in an SCT or Newtonian, or many times that of a refractor.
A Note on "Power"
Cheapo supermarket telescopes will declare "600x POWER!" and such on the box. That is nonsense. Any 60mm refractor (or 120mm reflector) cannot give you that kind of magnification unless you're using it on a mountaintop, free of humidity and near the edge of the atmosphere. Useful magnifications are around 10x to 40x for most viewing; if you want to roam across the surface of the Moon, play around with different eyepieces to bring yourself "closer" (higher magnification, with worse resolution) or to show more of the Moon (almost no magnification at all, with sharp resolution). The Orion Nebula is stunning in my 12" telescope, but only visible at super-low magnifications.
Real telescope "power" comes from three things:
1) Its ability to gather a lot of light and squeeze it into your eye. The wider the diameter of the objective lens or mirror - the greater its surface area - the more light it gathers. For example, a smallish 70mm objective has 100 times the light-gathering power of your fully dilated eye!
2) Its ability to collect detail. The greater the diameter of the objective, the finer the telescope's resolving power (limited by atmospheric seeing). On any given night, a larger telescope will provide more-precise views of objects and reveal more hidden detail than a smaller one. Up to a point. Dust, humidity, clouds, and wind turbulence all affect this. Observatory-scale telescopes are greatly limited by these things, which is why they live high atop mountains and use fancy software to correct the photographs they take.
3) Its ability to reveal minute detail. Here's where magnification comes into play. Remember, most of the time you don't use much at all - I almost never hit 100x, and can seldom use that much under crappy Eastern Kansas skies. However, the longer your focal length (length of optical path - twice the length of the tube in an SCT, or about the length of the tube in a refractor or Newtonian), the more detail you can find by increasing your magnification. Shorter eyepiece focal lengths give you higher magnification (you divide it into the telescope's focal length to find the x), but you can seldom use an eyepiece shorter than 12mm. My favorite eyepiece is a 32mm monster with huge field of view, because its images are so sharp. So the bigger your primary, and the longer your f/ratio, the higher USEFUL magnification you can get from a USEFUL size eyepiece.
Okay, that one might have gotten a bit complicated, but you see my point. Don't use advertised magnifying power as a selling point. Your 8x binoculars are about right for 40mm objective lenses; more power, and you couldn't hold the image still, and it would be blurry. Low power is best for almost everything.
Eyepieces
People often forget that the eyepiece is just as important as the objective lens or mirror. Get at least two; I'd recommend a mid-power (14mm - 18mm) and a low-power (24mm or larger) for starters. Three is optimal, ranging from 12mm to 40mm or larger. Really short focal-length eyepieces are a pain to use and don't provide much benefit. Really long focal-length eyepieces get pricey, because they use large lenses.
Most beginners (and those wearing glasses while using a telescope) need at least 15mm of eye relief to see the entire field. This means the image formed by the eyepiece is visible from up against it out to 15mm away. The longer, the better.
Aim to get the widest apparent field of view you can afford. Low-priced but nice Plossl designs typically provide 50° or so AFOV. Really nice multi-element designs can provide more than 100° AFOV, providing a sort of "spacewalk" feel.
Finally, make sure it's both fully coated and multicoated. This means all the lenses are coated on both sides against stray light, damage, and so forth. A nice foldable eyecup is handy. Oh, and get yourself an eyepatch to cover the eye you're not using, because squinting reduces your ability to see very well and is fatiguing.
This is the updated version of the eyepiece I use most of the time:
[image error]
Click the image to see this eyepiece's web-store page.
It's a 24mm focal length, so medium power. It has an 82° AFOV, which is HUGE. Even though it has a complex lens system, it gives sharp images (probably because it's fully and multi-coated). And it's great for everyone to use with 17mm of eye relief.
Here's a nice assortment of nice eyepieces available through OPT, a place I buy stuff from a lot. Sort by price to see how little or much you can afford. Remember, it's tough to go wrong by buying REALLY NICE eyepieces, because that's what makes all the difference. A great telescope's images can be killed by cheap eyepieces, and an assortment really enhances the experience.
Final Recommendations
If you have a big budget and want to get a 'scope that'll last a lifetime, consider a 120mm apochromatic refractor, an 8" or 10" SCT, or a 10" or larger Dobsonian. These all cost about the same - let your goals be the guide!
You can get a nice telescope at a lot of local optics shops, plus online dealers. My favorites are Oceanside Photo & Telescope (OPT) and Orion Telescope, both of which I've linked to frequently from the photos above. The two biggest manufacturers are Meade and Celestron, plus Orion.
Finally, remember that patience on the part of the user is the most-important element of a good night's observing. If your gift recipient is young or easily distracted, aim for easy to use, portable, and something that'll provide dramatic views.
In short, spend as much as your budget allows to get the greatest aperture, best mount, and nicest eyepiece assortment. Too small an aperture = dim, fuzzy views. Shaky or challenging-to-use mount = awful experience. Cheap eyepieces = nonexistent or crappy views. But if you go TOO crazy in size or weight, that can also kill portability.
[image error]
Click the image to check out a star-party page.
I hope this helps!
Chris
Assuming that a telescope gift must fit a modest budget, my first note is a caution: Do not buy a Wal-Mart telescope! Also beware of "tabletop telescopes," because your view is only as nice as the mount is stable. Remember, if you're using 32x magnification, that also multiplies any vibrations by 32 times. Anything that costs less than about $200 will give you more headaches than pleasure, and ruin the young astronomer's feelings about this wonderful activity.
So, a few basic guidelines.
Optical Design
If purchasing a refractor telescope (one that uses a lens for the primary objective on the business end, with the eyepiece at the opposite end), start looking at one with an objective lens at least 60mm diameter (about 2-1/2"), preferably 90mm. Here's a nice example, the Celestron Omni XLT 102ED (that's 102mm aperture, and better-than-average ED glass):
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Refractors are simple to use but, at the low-priced end, give false color due to the primary-lens design. Achromatic (and apochromatic) designs reduce (or even eliminate) this flaw... but at a cost. Because they have no central obstruction in their light-path as with a reflector, they provide brighter, sharper images at smaller objective sizes. Here is a fantastic apo refractor that is also very portable, the Explore Scientific 80mm f/6 ED APO:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Reflectors vary a lot in design. The current most-popular style is the Schmidt-Cassegrain (SCT), which uses a mirror as primary in the rear of the tube that bounces off a small secondary mirror at the opposite end (which in turn shoots the light down the middle to your eyepiece at the rear), plus uses a sealed corrector lens at the business end (called the "aperture" - the diameter where light enters). A useful SCT starts at 90mm diameter (about 3-1/2") and can grow much larger. Here's a nice example at the small end of the spectrum, the Celestron NextStar 90:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
A similar 'scope is the Meade ETX90:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Both are excellent starter instruments that easily track the sky and even have motorized, automatic go-to features, and are both affordable. I wouldn't go smaller than 90mm in an SCT. Get the nicest one you can afford! That's still portable, anyway; my 12" Meade LX90GPS weighs about 120 pounds, whereas an ETX90 only weighs about 20 counting the mount and everything. Here it is at sunset during the 2012 Venus transit of the Sun:
These are typically the easiest reflectors to use because they're so compact, and their shorter tubes make them even more manageable than a refractor. My 12" Meade LX90GPS (that's 304mm) would have been a nice university observatory instrument in the 1970s with its GPS locating and tracking and massive go-to database of astronomical objects, but now anyone willing to spend a few thousand bucks can buy one and enjoy hero views of the universe. The SCT optical design allows for cheaper mirror production, allowing you to get a lot more 'scope for the money.
You can find many other types of reflectors out there, but the Newtonian design (attributed to Sir Isaac) used to be the most popular, and provides the greatest light-gathering power for the dollar. It uses an open tube with a primary mirror opposite the open end, and a secondary mirror set at a 45° angle, which bounces the light into the eyepiece set at the top-side of the tube. Here's a nice example of a useful Orion AstroView 6" Newtonian reflector on a German equatorial mount:
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
I wouldn't buy a telescope smaller than 6" aperture (152mm) in a Newtonian if you want the gift-recipient to enjoy it for more than a short time. Though a 4-1/2" Newtonian - a popular entry-level aperture - will provide lovely views of bright objects, it has very little resolving power (see below).
The Newtonian layout allows for the most-comfortable viewing positions and very stable mounts; to use a refractor or SCT at a comfortable viewing angle, you need to prop it up on a tall tripod, whereas a Newtonian can sit practically on the ground if the optical tube is long enough. On the other hand, it's also the least-compact design, requires occasional collimation to ensure the mirrors are aligned, and gets dirty inside faster. On the third hand, it's also the easiest to mount cheaply, because the heavy part sits low to the ground...
Mounts
...thus was born the Dobsonian design, popularized by the sidewalk astronomer John Dobson in the 1970s. It looks like this Orion SkyQuest 6" Dobsonian (which uses the Newtonian optical design):
[image error]
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
Here's my other telescope, a present for publishing my first book. It's a Meade Lightbridge 16" Dobsonian reflector, with a Newtonian optical design. Because it's so large, instead of a solid tube it uses removable struts. This makes it lots lighter and WAY more portable - so much so that this giant can fit into a small car:
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
On the other hand, it's a pretty large and heavy 'scope, not something I'd recommend for beginners. But if you have the space to store it and the strength to carry around 60-pound components (the base, or the rear mirror-box), a large Dobsonian like this is far less expensive for the optical performance than any other design. Almost anyone, however, can get a lifetime of pleasure out of a FAR smaller 10" or 12" Dobsonian, at a lot less cost, too.
My second telescope was this Crown Optics 6" f/8 (that means the focal length was 8 times the diameter of the mirror, making the tube 48" long) Newtonian reflector on a German equatorial mount with clock drive (which required a REALLY LONG extension cord to track the sky):
The German equatorial design is a bit more cumbersome and a lot more expensive than the Dobsonian box, but it allows for precise tracking of astronomical objects. These days, you can get one with battery-operated clock drives to counter the Earth's rotation and even GPS-precision go-to and tracking.
My first telescope was a very simple and completely manual Edmond Astroscan, a 4-1/2" rich-field (meaning "low power") Newtonian on a ball-and-socket mount:
Click the image to see this telescope's web-store page.
It was ultra-portable, foolproof to use, and nearly indestructible, but really limited in what it could reveal of the heavens. I quickly moved on to the Crown Optics 'scope, wanting more sky and something with a clock drive. It didn't have GPS or go-to, but did track the movement of the sky (countering Earth's rotation), so objects stayed centered in the eyepiece for long-time viewing, star parties with lots of people wanting to look, or astrophotography.
German equatorial mounts do require some setup, whereas the GPS-driven go-to instruments make setting up for a night's observing much simpler. Not nearly as simple as something like the Astroscan or a Dobsonian-style telescope, but way more useful for beginners and experts alike.
What You Can Expect to See
I would recommend one of the simpler, smaller instruments for a first-time astronomer: One of the 90mm or 120mm SCT designs is great for super portability and ease of use. A 6" or 8" Newtonian on an equatorial mount will show you every single nebula, star cluster, and galaxy in the Messier catalog, plus lots more. It'll also show you every planet in the Solar System, though Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto require a good eye to distinguish from stars in the eyepiece. Reflector designs cost a lot less than equivalent refractors.
Want to mostly view the planets, the Moon, and other bright objects? A really nice refractor will give you the best images, and you don't need much light-gathering power. More important is the focal length: In this case, longer is better. You want a focal-ratio of f/8 or longer. SCTs are almost all longer than that, as are low-priced refractors and many smaller Newtonians.
Want to get really nice views of those same objects, be able to magnify them more? Then you need a bigger aperture for better resolution.
Want to go deep-sky, walk across galactic spirals and float through vast nebulae? Go with the biggest reflector you can afford, and aim for shorter focal lengths. They call these "rich-field" instruments, because the field is wider and brighter.
Oh, and if you want to study the Sun, you need dedicated equipment. My SCT uses a big mirror over the open end, which blocks most of the light. This is the cheap route, and provides nice views of sunspots. Optimally, you'll get yourself a dedicated solar telescope if you want to spend a lot of time with the Sun; I just got the older (now out of production) double-stacked version of this one, the Coronado SolarMax 40mm Hydrogen-alpha solarscope:
Where a go-to instrument becomes worth the investment is hunting down dimmer and harder-to-identify objects. They can take a long time to find without a smart telescope pointing the way. On the other hand, like me you might enjoy the satisfaction of finding things yourself. If so, go crazy and get yourself a Dobsonian, which for the same money will reveal many more wonders of the deep sky. Typically, you get two or even three times the optics (diameter, thus light-gathering power) in a Dob than in an SCT or Newtonian, or many times that of a refractor.
A Note on "Power"
Cheapo supermarket telescopes will declare "600x POWER!" and such on the box. That is nonsense. Any 60mm refractor (or 120mm reflector) cannot give you that kind of magnification unless you're using it on a mountaintop, free of humidity and near the edge of the atmosphere. Useful magnifications are around 10x to 40x for most viewing; if you want to roam across the surface of the Moon, play around with different eyepieces to bring yourself "closer" (higher magnification, with worse resolution) or to show more of the Moon (almost no magnification at all, with sharp resolution). The Orion Nebula is stunning in my 12" telescope, but only visible at super-low magnifications.
Real telescope "power" comes from three things:
1) Its ability to gather a lot of light and squeeze it into your eye. The wider the diameter of the objective lens or mirror - the greater its surface area - the more light it gathers. For example, a smallish 70mm objective has 100 times the light-gathering power of your fully dilated eye!
2) Its ability to collect detail. The greater the diameter of the objective, the finer the telescope's resolving power (limited by atmospheric seeing). On any given night, a larger telescope will provide more-precise views of objects and reveal more hidden detail than a smaller one. Up to a point. Dust, humidity, clouds, and wind turbulence all affect this. Observatory-scale telescopes are greatly limited by these things, which is why they live high atop mountains and use fancy software to correct the photographs they take.
3) Its ability to reveal minute detail. Here's where magnification comes into play. Remember, most of the time you don't use much at all - I almost never hit 100x, and can seldom use that much under crappy Eastern Kansas skies. However, the longer your focal length (length of optical path - twice the length of the tube in an SCT, or about the length of the tube in a refractor or Newtonian), the more detail you can find by increasing your magnification. Shorter eyepiece focal lengths give you higher magnification (you divide it into the telescope's focal length to find the x), but you can seldom use an eyepiece shorter than 12mm. My favorite eyepiece is a 32mm monster with huge field of view, because its images are so sharp. So the bigger your primary, and the longer your f/ratio, the higher USEFUL magnification you can get from a USEFUL size eyepiece.
Okay, that one might have gotten a bit complicated, but you see my point. Don't use advertised magnifying power as a selling point. Your 8x binoculars are about right for 40mm objective lenses; more power, and you couldn't hold the image still, and it would be blurry. Low power is best for almost everything.
Eyepieces
People often forget that the eyepiece is just as important as the objective lens or mirror. Get at least two; I'd recommend a mid-power (14mm - 18mm) and a low-power (24mm or larger) for starters. Three is optimal, ranging from 12mm to 40mm or larger. Really short focal-length eyepieces are a pain to use and don't provide much benefit. Really long focal-length eyepieces get pricey, because they use large lenses.
Most beginners (and those wearing glasses while using a telescope) need at least 15mm of eye relief to see the entire field. This means the image formed by the eyepiece is visible from up against it out to 15mm away. The longer, the better.
Aim to get the widest apparent field of view you can afford. Low-priced but nice Plossl designs typically provide 50° or so AFOV. Really nice multi-element designs can provide more than 100° AFOV, providing a sort of "spacewalk" feel.
Finally, make sure it's both fully coated and multicoated. This means all the lenses are coated on both sides against stray light, damage, and so forth. A nice foldable eyecup is handy. Oh, and get yourself an eyepatch to cover the eye you're not using, because squinting reduces your ability to see very well and is fatiguing.
This is the updated version of the eyepiece I use most of the time:
[image error]
Click the image to see this eyepiece's web-store page.
It's a 24mm focal length, so medium power. It has an 82° AFOV, which is HUGE. Even though it has a complex lens system, it gives sharp images (probably because it's fully and multi-coated). And it's great for everyone to use with 17mm of eye relief.
Here's a nice assortment of nice eyepieces available through OPT, a place I buy stuff from a lot. Sort by price to see how little or much you can afford. Remember, it's tough to go wrong by buying REALLY NICE eyepieces, because that's what makes all the difference. A great telescope's images can be killed by cheap eyepieces, and an assortment really enhances the experience.
Final Recommendations
If you have a big budget and want to get a 'scope that'll last a lifetime, consider a 120mm apochromatic refractor, an 8" or 10" SCT, or a 10" or larger Dobsonian. These all cost about the same - let your goals be the guide!
You can get a nice telescope at a lot of local optics shops, plus online dealers. My favorites are Oceanside Photo & Telescope (OPT) and Orion Telescope, both of which I've linked to frequently from the photos above. The two biggest manufacturers are Meade and Celestron, plus Orion.
Finally, remember that patience on the part of the user is the most-important element of a good night's observing. If your gift recipient is young or easily distracted, aim for easy to use, portable, and something that'll provide dramatic views.
In short, spend as much as your budget allows to get the greatest aperture, best mount, and nicest eyepiece assortment. Too small an aperture = dim, fuzzy views. Shaky or challenging-to-use mount = awful experience. Cheap eyepieces = nonexistent or crappy views. But if you go TOO crazy in size or weight, that can also kill portability.
[image error]
Click the image to check out a star-party page.
I hope this helps!
Chris
November 16, 2012
Astro-Porn of the Day: Leonid Meteor Shower is Tonight!
I almost forgot to remind everyone: Tonight is one of the nicer meteor showers of the year, and it'll happen when the Moon isn't muddling the darkness much. Best time to watch? After midnight, but any time after 10pm is good.
Click the image to see the Astronomy Magazine article.
This shower is special in that, some years, we get thousands of meteors per hour, and they hit so fast (40 MILES per SECOND) that they leave outstanding fireballs and smoke-trails.
Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, two-and-a-half miles across and passing us every 33 years, is responsible for this light show. Where to look? Toward the constellation Leo!
Chris
Click the image to see the Astronomy Magazine article.
This shower is special in that, some years, we get thousands of meteors per hour, and they hit so fast (40 MILES per SECOND) that they leave outstanding fireballs and smoke-trails.
Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, two-and-a-half miles across and passing us every 33 years, is responsible for this light show. Where to look? Toward the constellation Leo!
Chris
November 14, 2012
How secular humanism is more holy than fundamentalist religion.
Conservatives in the US - especially of the evangelical-Christian variety - have been wailing about our nation's plight in this week since the election proved Romney is no kind of savior. An author whose blog I watch (largely out of "I want to understand the other side" motivation) recently linked to this post by a religious teacher trying to understand what it means that Obama was re-elected. I found reading the post and other people's responses immensely enlightening. I've always wondered why otherwise-seeming reasonable people go off the rails about President Obama. He is not a socialist (far from it), fascist (less so than other recent Presidents, anyway), Kenyan (really?), or Muslim (did they forget his controversy-stirring Christian pastor?). He is not the antichrist (one assumes). So I've wondered why they were so freaked out about him. I've also wondered why I've wondered why they're so filled with bile and venom about gays, secular government, even the new healthcare law - I mean, it does the kinds of things Jesus taught, like helping the poor. Heck, if it had lived up to what many wanted it to be - nonprofit healthcare for all Americans (what the US Right feared, and what the US Left wanted, and which no one got) - we would be living in a much more Christian nation.
Well, now I think I understand the fundamentalist, evangelical Right a lot more:
1) Fundamental religionists (particularly from the evangelical branches of Islam and Christianity) hope to establish religious states not only where they live but to spread their fundamentalism across the world.
2) Those who do not believe as they do are wrong in the eyes of their respective gods, lost, and therefore unworthy of respect. Those gods, I might add, are the same "one true God," only with different prophets reforming His message in slightly but significantly different ways.
3) When fundamentalists pray but do not get what they want, they do not see the opposite result as God's will. Instead, they twist the results to prove that this is God teaching them a lesson... say, to work harder on the thing that someone with clear vision would see as something God did not want. If God really did want, say, Romney as President of the US, and you believe in an omnipotent god, don't you think it would have happened? By simple deduction, Obama's winning re-election despite people praying otherwise proves that God wanted Obama to win. (This sort of reasoning is nonsense, of course, in either direction.)
4) The recent US healthcare law is the work of anti-religion because it includes women's health and family planning as part of "healthcare."
5) I knew this one: Favorite passages from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible are more important than the teachings of Jesus.
This brings me to two conclusions:
A) "Fundamentalist" is another word for "illogical" and "self-contradictory."
B) Most importantly: So-called "fundamentalist" religionists don't follow the fundamentals of their religion at all. They pick-and-choose their favorite messages of hate and exclusion from pre-prophet writings while ignoring their chosen prophet's messages. They use their religion and the strength of numbers it provides in order to get what they want, rather than following the teachings of their prophets.
Fundamentalist religion is just another display of human selfishness. The illogic and ignorance they display is a symptom of their selfishness. They feel they know their god better than God's chosen prophet, who came to Earth to teach us the truer message. I don't claim to be an Islamic scholar, but I was raised Christian in an evangelical, fundamentalist branch of Lutheranism, so I'll talk in terms of Jesus' message.
If Christian fundamentalists were truly "Christian," they would follow the reformations that Jesus taught:
They would love one another as themselves, not fear everyone who is different. They would feel sorrow, sympathy, and compassion for others, not hate the "other."
They would turn the other cheek when attacked and love their enemies, not identify everyone who isn't just like themselves as "enemy" and then seek to destroy them.
They would sell everything you have and give to the poor, not strive to accumulate wealth by sucking dry the middle class, placing corporate profits above human welfare, and exploiting the lower class.
Finally, they would follow Jesus' "greatest commandment," which was, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," followed closely by, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." This precludes hating others, because that is hating God's work. It precludes hate at all, because if "God is love," then hating is turning one's back on God's love - giving in to Satan, to use Christian metaphor.
So this loony little post taught me a lot about American fundamentalist Christians: They are not Christians at all. Fundamentally, they are no different from the Taliban: Selfish hate-mongers who think they understand their gods better than their chosen prophets. If, in all practical ways, they oppose Jesus (or Mohammed), how can they claim to follow the reformed religion with which they associate?
If empathy is the highest goal a human can strive to achieve (in these and many other religions), what happened to make their fundamentalist adherents so blind to their prophets' teachings and spiritually sick?
I can only conclude that ethical humanism is closer to the fundamentalist teachings of these reformist prophets than the modern evangelical religions, and that - in their recent US election defeats, however they perceive them - the lesson their gods are trying to teach them is: You are wrong. Pay attention.
Full disclosure:
I abandoned organized Christianity decades ago. This dissociation started when my church tried to teach me that all unbaptized babies to go Hell. This did not sync with the teachings of Jesus, and when I tried to argue this point, I was told I could not be "confirmed" (accept Communion) without saying the words. This taught me fundamentalist evangelical Christianity is more concerned with human interpretation and the spread of their church than with understanding God's message from Jesus. My disillusion grew whenever I visited my stepfather's Catholic mass, which was less overtly hateful yet more smugly certain that everyone who went against the Pope's message was wrong. My search for spiritual fulfillment led me to study many other forms of religion, including the Christian mystics, Buddhism, Shinto, and countless less-favored forms. At the root of all these, I felt, we can identify God's or the gods' true message.
The mental readjustment for me arrived one day when I was camping in the Montana Badlands. This was the last day I lived in that state. I was the only human being for hundreds of miles around. A lone deer attended me as I hiked through dinosaur-bone-studded buttes. Layers of gray, brown, and black stone and dirt described in measurable form more than 100 million years of time piling upon the Earth. Occasionally the little deer came upon a flowering cactus - the only real color in that dusty place - and munched it, then resumed following me on my quest. At some point, in the quiet of my own thoughts punctuated only by breezes brushing loose mudstone pebbles, I realized that I was walking through a cathedral more holy than the greatest structure built by human hands.
As the sky darkened from cyan to cobalt to black, the endless universe around our little pebble of Earth began to appear in little pinpricks of light, extending the cathedral 12 billion light-years. Through telescopes I've glimpsed the miracle of star-birth amid vast clouds of gas and dust; I've seen stars gold and blue and yellow; I've watched distant galaxies pinwheel around their central supermassive black holes. By sweeping my telescope at random across the sky, I've explored the mysteries of the Milky Way, stumbled upon star-clusters ten thousand times the size of our Solar System, watched planets and their moons spin and orbit around the Sun, the hydrogen-powered ball of plasma and fusion from which all life on Earth depends.
Astronomy shows us the magic of the large-scale universe. It is silence and an infinity of stars overhead, an eyepiece to reveal the secrets hidden among them, Earth's rotation slowly sweeping new stars into view. For me, that's the best way to feel at one with the universe.
Biology and paleontology show us the magic of life, how living beings come to be, how they reshape over time and survive changing conditions, how they eat and mate and bear young and, yes, even love.
Geology and paleontology show us time, manifest. Each layer is an epoch, a million or ten million years of dust and death, compressed into stone. Buttes filled with relics of ancient days: Dinosaur bones literally poured out of those hillsides; you can feel the passage of time locked in rock.
Every science does this. They all seek to reveal the fundamental magic of the universe. Scientists openly share their results with others, and the practitioners who do it right praise the discoveries of others - even when new discoveries disprove part of what they believed until the moment when it was disproven. They then seek to fit this new discovery into their own world-view, or discard their prior belief if it cannot fit. And thus does science progress.
So that night in the Badlands, fatigued from hiking all day through rocks in my cowboy boots, I had to sit atop a dry-grass butte, for I could not stand beneath this beauty and glory that was the universal cathedral. The wondrous thing about the cathedral of science is that you do not avert your eyes from its mysteries; you stare into them to better understand! This is the moment I realized that religion is not the answer.
We will never find God at the core of any human-invented religion. The messages of religion are what's important, when they are appropriately examined, tested, and adapted to fit changing circumstances. By being secular humanists who strive to make the world a better place, who strive to feel empathy for all other creatures, who seek deeper understanding, we become closer to God than any fundamentalist evangelical follower of a human-manufactured organization could hope to approach.
We can only reach a fundamental understanding of our personal spirituality - become "at one with God," if you will - by seeking our individual connection with others and the universe around us. If there is any god, it resides in the energy of the stars, in the life-force of all living things, in sapient species' striving to understand the universe. All of this is God, as close as a secular universe allows. The stars and planets and galaxies form its body, nuclear fusion and other forces power its life, living beings comprise its spirit, and our self-awareness encompasses its mind. Our search for truth and understanding - the scientific process - is the universe coming to understand itself. So science, and sharing what we learn, and being open with one another, and active empathy - these are far better methods to be good followers of God than you could hope for by being part of any fundamentalist religion.
Chris
Well, now I think I understand the fundamentalist, evangelical Right a lot more:1) Fundamental religionists (particularly from the evangelical branches of Islam and Christianity) hope to establish religious states not only where they live but to spread their fundamentalism across the world.
2) Those who do not believe as they do are wrong in the eyes of their respective gods, lost, and therefore unworthy of respect. Those gods, I might add, are the same "one true God," only with different prophets reforming His message in slightly but significantly different ways.
3) When fundamentalists pray but do not get what they want, they do not see the opposite result as God's will. Instead, they twist the results to prove that this is God teaching them a lesson... say, to work harder on the thing that someone with clear vision would see as something God did not want. If God really did want, say, Romney as President of the US, and you believe in an omnipotent god, don't you think it would have happened? By simple deduction, Obama's winning re-election despite people praying otherwise proves that God wanted Obama to win. (This sort of reasoning is nonsense, of course, in either direction.)
4) The recent US healthcare law is the work of anti-religion because it includes women's health and family planning as part of "healthcare."
5) I knew this one: Favorite passages from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible are more important than the teachings of Jesus.
This brings me to two conclusions:
A) "Fundamentalist" is another word for "illogical" and "self-contradictory."
B) Most importantly: So-called "fundamentalist" religionists don't follow the fundamentals of their religion at all. They pick-and-choose their favorite messages of hate and exclusion from pre-prophet writings while ignoring their chosen prophet's messages. They use their religion and the strength of numbers it provides in order to get what they want, rather than following the teachings of their prophets.
Fundamentalist religion is just another display of human selfishness. The illogic and ignorance they display is a symptom of their selfishness. They feel they know their god better than God's chosen prophet, who came to Earth to teach us the truer message. I don't claim to be an Islamic scholar, but I was raised Christian in an evangelical, fundamentalist branch of Lutheranism, so I'll talk in terms of Jesus' message.
If Christian fundamentalists were truly "Christian," they would follow the reformations that Jesus taught:
They would love one another as themselves, not fear everyone who is different. They would feel sorrow, sympathy, and compassion for others, not hate the "other."
They would turn the other cheek when attacked and love their enemies, not identify everyone who isn't just like themselves as "enemy" and then seek to destroy them.
They would sell everything you have and give to the poor, not strive to accumulate wealth by sucking dry the middle class, placing corporate profits above human welfare, and exploiting the lower class.
Finally, they would follow Jesus' "greatest commandment," which was, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," followed closely by, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." This precludes hating others, because that is hating God's work. It precludes hate at all, because if "God is love," then hating is turning one's back on God's love - giving in to Satan, to use Christian metaphor.
So this loony little post taught me a lot about American fundamentalist Christians: They are not Christians at all. Fundamentally, they are no different from the Taliban: Selfish hate-mongers who think they understand their gods better than their chosen prophets. If, in all practical ways, they oppose Jesus (or Mohammed), how can they claim to follow the reformed religion with which they associate?
If empathy is the highest goal a human can strive to achieve (in these and many other religions), what happened to make their fundamentalist adherents so blind to their prophets' teachings and spiritually sick?
I can only conclude that ethical humanism is closer to the fundamentalist teachings of these reformist prophets than the modern evangelical religions, and that - in their recent US election defeats, however they perceive them - the lesson their gods are trying to teach them is: You are wrong. Pay attention.
Full disclosure:
I abandoned organized Christianity decades ago. This dissociation started when my church tried to teach me that all unbaptized babies to go Hell. This did not sync with the teachings of Jesus, and when I tried to argue this point, I was told I could not be "confirmed" (accept Communion) without saying the words. This taught me fundamentalist evangelical Christianity is more concerned with human interpretation and the spread of their church than with understanding God's message from Jesus. My disillusion grew whenever I visited my stepfather's Catholic mass, which was less overtly hateful yet more smugly certain that everyone who went against the Pope's message was wrong. My search for spiritual fulfillment led me to study many other forms of religion, including the Christian mystics, Buddhism, Shinto, and countless less-favored forms. At the root of all these, I felt, we can identify God's or the gods' true message.
The mental readjustment for me arrived one day when I was camping in the Montana Badlands. This was the last day I lived in that state. I was the only human being for hundreds of miles around. A lone deer attended me as I hiked through dinosaur-bone-studded buttes. Layers of gray, brown, and black stone and dirt described in measurable form more than 100 million years of time piling upon the Earth. Occasionally the little deer came upon a flowering cactus - the only real color in that dusty place - and munched it, then resumed following me on my quest. At some point, in the quiet of my own thoughts punctuated only by breezes brushing loose mudstone pebbles, I realized that I was walking through a cathedral more holy than the greatest structure built by human hands.
As the sky darkened from cyan to cobalt to black, the endless universe around our little pebble of Earth began to appear in little pinpricks of light, extending the cathedral 12 billion light-years. Through telescopes I've glimpsed the miracle of star-birth amid vast clouds of gas and dust; I've seen stars gold and blue and yellow; I've watched distant galaxies pinwheel around their central supermassive black holes. By sweeping my telescope at random across the sky, I've explored the mysteries of the Milky Way, stumbled upon star-clusters ten thousand times the size of our Solar System, watched planets and their moons spin and orbit around the Sun, the hydrogen-powered ball of plasma and fusion from which all life on Earth depends.
Astronomy shows us the magic of the large-scale universe. It is silence and an infinity of stars overhead, an eyepiece to reveal the secrets hidden among them, Earth's rotation slowly sweeping new stars into view. For me, that's the best way to feel at one with the universe.Biology and paleontology show us the magic of life, how living beings come to be, how they reshape over time and survive changing conditions, how they eat and mate and bear young and, yes, even love.
Geology and paleontology show us time, manifest. Each layer is an epoch, a million or ten million years of dust and death, compressed into stone. Buttes filled with relics of ancient days: Dinosaur bones literally poured out of those hillsides; you can feel the passage of time locked in rock.
Every science does this. They all seek to reveal the fundamental magic of the universe. Scientists openly share their results with others, and the practitioners who do it right praise the discoveries of others - even when new discoveries disprove part of what they believed until the moment when it was disproven. They then seek to fit this new discovery into their own world-view, or discard their prior belief if it cannot fit. And thus does science progress.
So that night in the Badlands, fatigued from hiking all day through rocks in my cowboy boots, I had to sit atop a dry-grass butte, for I could not stand beneath this beauty and glory that was the universal cathedral. The wondrous thing about the cathedral of science is that you do not avert your eyes from its mysteries; you stare into them to better understand! This is the moment I realized that religion is not the answer.
We will never find God at the core of any human-invented religion. The messages of religion are what's important, when they are appropriately examined, tested, and adapted to fit changing circumstances. By being secular humanists who strive to make the world a better place, who strive to feel empathy for all other creatures, who seek deeper understanding, we become closer to God than any fundamentalist evangelical follower of a human-manufactured organization could hope to approach. We can only reach a fundamental understanding of our personal spirituality - become "at one with God," if you will - by seeking our individual connection with others and the universe around us. If there is any god, it resides in the energy of the stars, in the life-force of all living things, in sapient species' striving to understand the universe. All of this is God, as close as a secular universe allows. The stars and planets and galaxies form its body, nuclear fusion and other forces power its life, living beings comprise its spirit, and our self-awareness encompasses its mind. Our search for truth and understanding - the scientific process - is the universe coming to understand itself. So science, and sharing what we learn, and being open with one another, and active empathy - these are far better methods to be good followers of God than you could hope for by being part of any fundamentalist religion.
Chris
November 12, 2012
World War Z (coming to a theater near you)
Who knew? Next summer's blockbuster will be
World War Z
, based on Max Barry's novel. Looks like they've combined the various storylines into a single character played by Brad Pitt, which changes everything. Also, the zombies are runners rather than walkers, and the movie takes place starting with Z Day instead of afterward. But let's forget that for a moment and watch the excitement:
So let's think of this as just another cool zombie movie, and save the "But it's not World War Z!" ranting for afterward. This going to be awesome.
PS: Go see the new Bond movie if you haven't yet. I LOVED IT ALL. If you're a Bond fan, you'll be pleased, too.
Now I'm back to work.
Chris
So let's think of this as just another cool zombie movie, and save the "But it's not World War Z!" ranting for afterward. This going to be awesome.
PS: Go see the new Bond movie if you haven't yet. I LOVED IT ALL. If you're a Bond fan, you'll be pleased, too.
Now I'm back to work.
Chris
...oh, and in "The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella"
...our young heroes have been tracked down and taken into custody by their stepdad and other operatives of the Alien Management Agency. Right now, they are being subjected to interrogation and tests - which, because the results are inconclusive, are about to escalate to brain biopsy....
The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella progress:
Look at that! According to my estimated total, I'm now over a quarter of the way done. Cool beans!
Chris
The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella progress:
Look at that! According to my estimated total, I'm now over a quarter of the way done. Cool beans!
Chris
One of the most charming car stories ever.
Had to share this article about a woman who has been driving for 94 years:
Margaret Dunning, a charming, energetic 102-year-old from Plymouth, MI, burst onto the national car scene last summer, becoming a popular and honored guest at motoring events from coast to coast, most recently at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
"It’s a dream come true," Dunning said, standing near her 1930 Packard 740 Custom Eight Roadster on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach. "They’ve treated me very well. A lot of people want to talk to me, but I don’t know why everyone is making a fuss. I just love cars like everybody else."
Click the image to see the article at Hagerty.
The truth is, Dunning isn’t like anyone else. She is a walking treasure, eager to share first-hand knowledge of life in pre-Depression America. Certainly there are few people - if any - with more driving experience than she has. While growing up on a dairy farm in southeastern Michigan, she served as a tool chaser for her automobile-loving father, of whom she said, "I adored." Dunning’s dad taught her to drive at the age of 8, and when he died four years later, she was awarded a driver’s license so that she could drive her arthritic mother wherever she needed to go. That means Dunning has been driving for 94 years and has carried a license for 90.
"Oh, yes, I’ve driven my share, that’s for sure," she said.
Dunning still enjoys getting behind the wheel of her cream-colored Packard, which she has owned since 1949. "I love third gear. The car just sings," she said. "I never used it as my everyday driver, but I do like to get it out at least once a month. They were made to be driven, you know."
Daniel Clements, son-in-law of Dunning’s best friend, Rachel Churches, maintains Dunning’s collection of classic cars, which includes a 1931 Model A, ’66 Cadillac DeVille and ’75 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. Clements is also something of a caretaker for Dunning whenever she travels. "Not like she needs to be taken care of. She’s like the Energizer bunny," Clements joked. "I’ve been around the hobby for over 30 years and have been taking care of her cars for 15-20. She doesn’t like to sit; she wants to be involved. She could stand here all day and talk to people."
Dunning did a lot of that at Pebble Beach. Among her many well-wishers were NBC "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, popular actor and Concours Master of Ceremonies Edward Hermann, and the Maharana of Udaipur (India), Arvind Singh Mewar, who kissed Dunning’s hand and offered her a gift. "It was all very exciting,” she said. “It certainly makes your heart thump."
Dunning has a great sense of humor, and she isn’t afraid to share it. Asked the key to her longevity, she said, “I never got married.” Whether or not there is truth in that statement, Dunning proved long ago that she can stand on her own two feet. She built her fortune in the retail clothing industry, sold her business in the late 1960s and now enjoys serving her community, particularly the Plymouth Historical Museum. Dunning’s love of history, particularly classic vehicles, makes perfect sense considering that she grew up just down the road from Henry Ford, who knew her parents and would sometimes stop by to visit. "I was told he even rocked me in my baby carriage," Dunning said, repeating a story she shared with Henry Ford III and Edsel Ford II while at Pebble Beach.
"Meeting all these good people just shows that car people are car people," Dunning said. "We come from difference places and different backgrounds, but we all have that in common."
One thing is for certain: None of the car aficionados that Dunning met at Pebble Beach has driven as long as she has, and few - if any - can match her 63-year "marriage" to her award-winning Packard.
"I’m so pleased to see that the old car is still desirable," Dunning said. "It gives me such pride. It’s quite a thrill."
I want to be like Maragaret when I grow up.
Chris
Margaret Dunning, a charming, energetic 102-year-old from Plymouth, MI, burst onto the national car scene last summer, becoming a popular and honored guest at motoring events from coast to coast, most recently at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
"It’s a dream come true," Dunning said, standing near her 1930 Packard 740 Custom Eight Roadster on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach. "They’ve treated me very well. A lot of people want to talk to me, but I don’t know why everyone is making a fuss. I just love cars like everybody else."
Click the image to see the article at Hagerty.
The truth is, Dunning isn’t like anyone else. She is a walking treasure, eager to share first-hand knowledge of life in pre-Depression America. Certainly there are few people - if any - with more driving experience than she has. While growing up on a dairy farm in southeastern Michigan, she served as a tool chaser for her automobile-loving father, of whom she said, "I adored." Dunning’s dad taught her to drive at the age of 8, and when he died four years later, she was awarded a driver’s license so that she could drive her arthritic mother wherever she needed to go. That means Dunning has been driving for 94 years and has carried a license for 90.
"Oh, yes, I’ve driven my share, that’s for sure," she said.
Dunning still enjoys getting behind the wheel of her cream-colored Packard, which she has owned since 1949. "I love third gear. The car just sings," she said. "I never used it as my everyday driver, but I do like to get it out at least once a month. They were made to be driven, you know."
Daniel Clements, son-in-law of Dunning’s best friend, Rachel Churches, maintains Dunning’s collection of classic cars, which includes a 1931 Model A, ’66 Cadillac DeVille and ’75 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. Clements is also something of a caretaker for Dunning whenever she travels. "Not like she needs to be taken care of. She’s like the Energizer bunny," Clements joked. "I’ve been around the hobby for over 30 years and have been taking care of her cars for 15-20. She doesn’t like to sit; she wants to be involved. She could stand here all day and talk to people."
Dunning did a lot of that at Pebble Beach. Among her many well-wishers were NBC "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno, popular actor and Concours Master of Ceremonies Edward Hermann, and the Maharana of Udaipur (India), Arvind Singh Mewar, who kissed Dunning’s hand and offered her a gift. "It was all very exciting,” she said. “It certainly makes your heart thump."
Dunning has a great sense of humor, and she isn’t afraid to share it. Asked the key to her longevity, she said, “I never got married.” Whether or not there is truth in that statement, Dunning proved long ago that she can stand on her own two feet. She built her fortune in the retail clothing industry, sold her business in the late 1960s and now enjoys serving her community, particularly the Plymouth Historical Museum. Dunning’s love of history, particularly classic vehicles, makes perfect sense considering that she grew up just down the road from Henry Ford, who knew her parents and would sometimes stop by to visit. "I was told he even rocked me in my baby carriage," Dunning said, repeating a story she shared with Henry Ford III and Edsel Ford II while at Pebble Beach.
"Meeting all these good people just shows that car people are car people," Dunning said. "We come from difference places and different backgrounds, but we all have that in common."
One thing is for certain: None of the car aficionados that Dunning met at Pebble Beach has driven as long as she has, and few - if any - can match her 63-year "marriage" to her award-winning Packard.
"I’m so pleased to see that the old car is still desirable," Dunning said. "It gives me such pride. It’s quite a thrill."
I want to be like Maragaret when I grow up.
Chris
November 8, 2012
Astro-Porn of the Day: Huge Saturn Storm.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this true-color photo of a huge storm churning through Saturn's atmosphere a couple years ago, but it's still raging. This storm is the largest and most intense observed on Saturn, about 500 times the area of the biggest storms ever observed there; in this shot, it's about 6000 miles by 10,000 miles. That's about the size of the planet Earth. However, at its biggest it extended nearly one-third of the way around the planet, about 62,000 miles. That's a single storm that's almost eight Earth diameters. Big sucka.
Click the image to see NASA's Cassini mission page.
The shadow cast by Saturn's rings has a strong seasonal effect, and scientists theorize that the seasonal change kicked off the powerful storms. Periodic, huge storms called Great White Spots have been observed in previous Saturnian years (each of which is about 30 Earth years), usually appearing in late northern summer.
Here's what it looks like now (in infrared):
Click the image to see the Sky & Telescope site.
Chris
Click the image to see NASA's Cassini mission page.
The shadow cast by Saturn's rings has a strong seasonal effect, and scientists theorize that the seasonal change kicked off the powerful storms. Periodic, huge storms called Great White Spots have been observed in previous Saturnian years (each of which is about 30 Earth years), usually appearing in late northern summer.
Here's what it looks like now (in infrared):
Click the image to see the Sky & Telescope site.
Chris
November 6, 2012
Woohoo!
My faith in Ameicans is (slightly) restored. Also, now my stress level has dropped sufficiently that I can sleep. I felt a knot in my stomach (which I didn't know was there until after Obama's speech was done) let go. *whew*
G'night, all, and here's hoping for a better tomorrow.
Chris
G'night, all, and here's hoping for a better tomorrow.
Chris
November 5, 2012
Three things for a Monday
First, a bit of Doomsday Astro-Porn: On February 15 (just a few months from now), Asteroid 2012 DA14 will whoosh between the Earth and our geostationary communication satellites. You read that right. Not between the Earth and the Moon, but below high Earth orbit. Current estimates have is blasting past at just 22,500km above the surface of the Earth - the closest call in regards to asteroids of this size since 1908 (if you believe the Tunguska impactor was an asteroid, not a comet) or the Barringer impactor (which made Arizona's Meteor Crater) 50,000 years ago. That one blasted a hole 1,200 meters in diameter and 170 meters deep, exploding with the force of a nuclear bomb. This puppy is a little bigger than that one, about the size of a city block: approximately 45 meters in diameter and massing about 130,000 tons. Here's what it looks like, lurking in the dark:
Click the image to see the Cosmos Magazine article.
Next: It's Election Day tomorrow in the US! If you haven't already voted early (like me!), get out there. On a totally unrelated note, Frederik Pohl writes about how the failure of our social support network appears to be leading the elderly into a life of crime. I wonder how many incarcerated seniors end up in prison by choice, considering the 63% rise in their prison population and all. Now, if Fred were writing this (as fiction), we could see some very interesting outcomes....
Speaking of doomsday and politics, Doonesbury nails it on the head:
Click the image to see the Slate Doonesbury page.
And third: Check out this article about how some kids in totally undeveloped Africa not only learned how to use tablet computers - and hack them! - but figured out all this on their own, in another language. As I started reading this, I thought, "Whoah, that sounds like Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age." And then the article's author says the same thing. Very informative about human nature and about ways kids learn.
Oh, and despite Halloween socializing, I got another 1000 words written on The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella ! (Okay, technically that's five things.)
Chris
Click the image to see the Cosmos Magazine article.
Next: It's Election Day tomorrow in the US! If you haven't already voted early (like me!), get out there. On a totally unrelated note, Frederik Pohl writes about how the failure of our social support network appears to be leading the elderly into a life of crime. I wonder how many incarcerated seniors end up in prison by choice, considering the 63% rise in their prison population and all. Now, if Fred were writing this (as fiction), we could see some very interesting outcomes....
Speaking of doomsday and politics, Doonesbury nails it on the head:
Click the image to see the Slate Doonesbury page.
And third: Check out this article about how some kids in totally undeveloped Africa not only learned how to use tablet computers - and hack them! - but figured out all this on their own, in another language. As I started reading this, I thought, "Whoah, that sounds like Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age." And then the article's author says the same thing. Very informative about human nature and about ways kids learn.
Oh, and despite Halloween socializing, I got another 1000 words written on The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella ! (Okay, technically that's five things.)
Chris
November 1, 2012
Halloween
Had the most trick-or-treaters last night than have ever visited the house. About 40 showed up between 7:00 (when I got home from class) and 8:30 (when I had given away all the Lara bars). Had to turn off the outside light so the little monsters and superheroes stopped coming! In recent years, our neighborhood has had about zero kids.
An observation: Most of the kids were very little, leading me to believe that they only just recently got old enough to go trick-or-treating without Mom and Dad.
Some amazing costumes! Perhaps my favorite was a robot made of cardboard, painted green. My favorite line, when a group of pre-teens were standing in the doorway picking their treats: "Wow, I love books! It's like a library in here." I built a story-and-a-half bookcase in my living room, which you can kinda see in this photo:
Hooray: Kids love books!
Chris
An observation: Most of the kids were very little, leading me to believe that they only just recently got old enough to go trick-or-treating without Mom and Dad.
Some amazing costumes! Perhaps my favorite was a robot made of cardboard, painted green. My favorite line, when a group of pre-teens were standing in the doorway picking their treats: "Wow, I love books! It's like a library in here." I built a story-and-a-half bookcase in my living room, which you can kinda see in this photo:
Hooray: Kids love books!
Chris
Christopher McKitterick's Blog
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