Space Forum / Amateur Astronomy / October 2004

http://tinyurl.com/3jngd
I found this article and translated part of it.  It appears testing
and conclusion controversy is not confined to Sky and Tel, Astronomy
alone.

The Skywatcher EQ6 mount with SkyScan goto is on their web site now.
Specs look good, anybody got one?
http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/EQ6SkyScan.html

Because they DO NOT provide those reviews in a context that is
important to the consumer, namely, how does
this scope compare to it's logical competition.
For instance, instead of bull-s-------. people by saying

Hi all...
I'm looking for a 12-15" Dob.  I like Discovery so far---decent quality and
within reason on price.  I did speak with Hardin and they told me they use
BK-7 glass for their primary mirrors.  Orion uses Pyrex.  Which is better?

I have been offered a new Seben 900mm reflector telescope for £65, i can't
find any info on Seben,is it worth it ?
Thanks John.

These cheap junky Chinese "instruments" are rapidly filling the fields
of star parties and replacing traditional quality equipment.  Instead
of an eclectic mix of homebuilt, vintage and high-end instruments, we
now have rows upon rows of garbage from the big 3.  There needs to be

The thread about magazine telescope reviews got me thinking.
Has anybody ever performed a double-blind trial of a range of scopes?
I imagine something like fitting them all with identical focussers and
putting them all behind a screen of some kind, so you couldn't see or

Today I looked up at a setting moon in the west and the face of the
moon was tilted at 90 degrees from the verticle. I even had some others
confirm what I was seeing.  I have seen this often  in the morning and you
don't see this when it rises. Why does this

Pictures here:
http://www.dl-digital.com/astrophoto/moon-eclipse.htm
-Dick L.

Here are my meager attempts at photographing the Lunar Eclipse.  :)
http://traladin123.fastmail.fm/eclipse/index.html
Charles C.

"Altazimuth mountings tend to be cheaper, lighter, less clumsy, and more
quickly set up than equatorial ones, mountings tend to be cheaper,
lighter, less clumsy, and more quickly set up than equatorial ones,..."
OK, I am immersed in FAQs (really, I'm doing my homework before ...

Love it, exempt from it, or hate it, here's a good site about Daylight Savings
Time:
http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/index.html
Including Ben Franklin's original essay from 1784...

Threw this together this morning after a long night of baseball and
eclipse imaging:
http://www.lecza.com/astro/eclipse2004/
All images taken with Canon Digital Rebel prime focus on Meade 12"

I have been searching the web for software which calculates the absolute
position of planets and the sun, which is based on the laws of gravity. All
software I found is based on the trigonometrical calculations with the
current postion and speed of the planets. These programs ...