Tuesday, October 26, 2021

A Good 70-mm Refractor

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In a kerfuffle on the Sky Searchers astronomy discussion board, a couple of the stalwarts insisted contrary to the experiential reports of a...
Saturday, October 23, 2021

National Geographic 70-mm Refractor Field Test

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With a sturdy mount and tripod (see previous post), I was able to spend more time on targets that I know in order to determine the limits of...
Thursday, October 21, 2021

DIY: Homebuilt Substitute for Vixen Mount

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The Vixen Company, Ltd., of Saitama, Japan, (founded 1949) got the brilliant idea to make all of their telescopes compatible with all of the...
Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Celestron AVX Mount: Twelve Nights of Viewing and Learning

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It is a poor workman who blames his tools. For all of the problems with the Celestron AVX mount and tripod recorded here last month, from th...
Sunday, October 10, 2021

Moon-Venus-Antares Conjunction

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 Astronomers Without Borders asked us to take snapshots of the sunset event.  1949 hours Central US (UZ-5.5) 30d 10m N 97d 48m W iPhone 11 (...
Friday, October 8, 2021

Long ago Miletus was great.

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In five generations from 650 BCE  to 500 BCE --a span from your grandparents to your grandchildren--civilization was transformed by the conf...
Sunday, September 19, 2021

Celestron AVX Product Review, Part 3

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Friday night, the 17 th , I intended to be out through dawn, the sky being clear, albeit with a nearly full Moon. However, after some frustr...
Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Social Stratification in the Academy

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When I was completing my master’s in 2010, at home we were watching  Battlestar Galactica  on DVD. We viewed the episode “Dirty Hands.” (Wik...
Monday, September 13, 2021

Celestron AVX Mount Review (Part 2)

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So far, after four nights, I am something less than sanguine. The smart drive mount works well enough, given some problems noted below. I ha...