Space Forum / Amateur Astronomy / February 2004

I hope I'm not being too forward here, I know it's been a while since I've
participated in the group.
A possible change in jobs has got me thinking I may be doing quite a bit of
travel for business in the coming years. One upshot is the chance to travel

Anyone know where I can buy a brand new Celestar 8 in an unopened box?  Is
there one still "out there" somewhere?

   Approximately 9:40pm 02/24/02 Eastern time while looking at Jupiter I
seen a tiny black dot run across the disc of Jupiter.  It took a total of
maybe 3/4 to a full second to do this.  The size of this thing relating it
to what I seen on the planet would be about 1/4 to 1/2 of a ...

My website shows CGI images of Earth from Space, as seen from Mars, seen
from the ISS, includes visible satellites, all earthquakes of the past 48h,
current cloud cover, hurricanes, active volcanoes, day/night zones, and the
moonphase. Updates happen every 20 minutes...

I posted a new image of Jupiter from last night on the club website.
There is an interesting relatively new oval in the belt adjacent to the
Red Spot on the opposite side of the planet in this image (I know,
those who have been imaging the planet are well aware of this,

Bear with me. Helped a schoolkid with a quote originally from Carl Sagan:
"A handful of sand contains about 10,000 grains, more than the total number
of stars we can see with the naked eye on a clear night. But the number of
stars we can see is only the tiniest fraction of the ...

Anyone heard about this , or tried it? It's supposed to contain nutrients
for your eyes to help improve night vision.
rogisen.com is the site, and no I have nothing to do with it.
Just wondering.

Dear Astronomy Experts
Is it possible to see the Horsehead nebula with a reasonably small
telescope - and recognize it?  I know the pictures on the side of the 3"
reflector are just for looks, but a 6 or 8"?  I know the colors are not

I've always been interested in astronomy, and just recently decided to
impulse buy a 4.5" reflector for a local photography store. Its focal
length is 500mm, but bear in mind I knew little or nothing about
apertures/focal lengths at the time I purchase the telescope, i bought

It's been weeks since JPL has given us any results of the spectrometer
surveys.  The last was Feb 4
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-images/feb-04-2004/captions/image-8.html
Since then, the beads have been analysed and other rocks but they just keep

Two  freezing  nights  with   my   tak   fs102   and
modified b/w vesta pro webcam in raw mode produced a
good collection of deep  sky images.
5 objects tracked during the night of 2004/02/16, at

I am writing a what-if history fiction and need some help.
If you were suddenly dropped in Rome say in 200 CE and you needed to
build a telescope for mass production. What sort of telescope would you
make and what would it look like?

I have been closely following the Mars mission and understand the importance
of the experiments, but certainly all of that gear ads complexity. Then I
look at the photo's Cassini is sending back and am in awe. So I got to
thinking, what the complexities be, in designing a probe that ...

I understand thaat there is a yahoo group for owners of the orion dobs
to talk about mods/fixes etc, yet I cannot find it.
Can someone point me in the correct direction?
Thanks,

Temporary setback.  My worst fear mentioned in my first report came  
true.   Not a single  one of the Speers-Waler WA's will reach focus in my  
very low profile 2" Helical Crayford focuser, which has only ~1.25" of  
total travel.  They all need a lot of in-travel of the focuser.  ...