October 12, 2002
Fun with Telescopes

BBCnews is carrying this story about a guy who used an 8" reflector and a webcam to take some pretty decent photos of the ISS.

When I was a kid I had one of those classic 3.5" refractor telescopes. As I recall it was $55 from Sears (in 1978 no small sum), a classic style you pointed one end at a star and looked through the other end.

I could never use it to look at stars because:

  • In the summer, when it was warm enough to stay out, giant man-eating mosquitos the size of my head could be heard discussing the best way to completely drain the small pink thing in the middle of the yard.
  • In the winter, it was too much of a b*tch manipulating the telescope with mittens on. Mom would also yell at me to come inside most of the time.
  • There was only one telescope, which meant instant battle-to-the-death competition with my brother. It's hard to look through a telescope when you're in a wrestling match.
  • It's quite a bit harder than it looks to get the thing pointed at anything interesting. A star through a telescope is still pretty much just a bright light.

So instead I used it to track airplanes. I'd scan the fall and spring sky for contrails all the time, and when I spotted one I'd snatch the scope out, follow the contrail up, then see what was making it. Most of the time it was some boring Delta flight or another, but I did also see a B-52, a Quantas jet, and what had to be either a Russian or British airliner (four jet engines mounted on the tail). So I did have fun with it after all.

We used to live so close to DC you didn't get much of a night sky. In all honesty we haven't had time to see what the sky looks like out here. Maybe we'll get another telescope some day.

Posted by scott at October 12, 2002 01:21 PM

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Since you are "grown up" men(an oxymoron) maybe you could help Jeff set up that monster he owns.

Posted by: Pat on October 13, 2002 04:01 PM
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