If you go dirt biking and camping in the desert, your nights together can be filled with the wonder of viewing the night skies. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky as he was for Harry. Would I, like some curmudgeons, want to go back to the old Sky and Scope? These oculars have their fans, then and now, and can certainly perform well in any scope for a fare a little lower than the Nags. When you get to my age, which, while I will not enumerate it for you, is roughly “almost over the hill, but not quite,” you become a little reflective on your birthday. Yep, Unk just celebrated yet another birthday this past Sunday, muchachos. When we look to the stars, we think of the unknown and the future, but more than any other science, astronomy is deeply rooted in the past. Then there was a brief period of cable TV watching until my eyes closed and I knew nothing more till morning.

There are many interesting facts about Sir Isaac Newton, including facts about his religious inclination, his love for the bible, his philosophical works and his personal life. There are various factors that determine the best binoculars for astronomy, including the aperture range, magnification, field of view and the prism quality. Let’s face it, you WILL notice an increase in apparent field from 100 to 120, and a 9mm eyepiece would, in my CATs, give both a huge picture window and plenty of magnification to reveal detail in small objects. Same old same old: we don’t need all that field. Some of us do, if not necessarily your old Uncle Rod. Not long after Uncle Al established the Naglers as a whole line of eyepieces, Meade, in a fit of expansion fever, came out with their own “Naglers,” the Ultra Wide Angles. A hit. At least as good as a Uwan, and, while I haven’t done a shootout, the eyepiece and those I’ve had the opportunity to try since, are close to the Naglers in my opinion.

Then I grabbed the barrel to remove the eyepiece from the scope, and encountered the dreaded Chinese glue-grease (weasel fat based, I reckon) when I touched the section of barrel exposed by extending the eyecup. If you are passionate admirer of terrestrial applications and astronomy then you definitely certainly need great telescope. Our members have a great range of expertise, from beginner to advanced, with a few professionals. I disagree with a few premises in this. Most of us were lucky to get a few blurry afocal Moon pictures using Rube Goldberg camera mounts. Evered Kreimer did amazing work, sure, but to do that work he had to heavily modify his 12-inch (huge) Cave and build his own chilled emulsion camera (don’t ask, sprouts). Just don’t expect Unk to be there with you. Annual prophesies there also. Oh, there were some small press publications like The Strolling Astronomer, but only one big commercial mag, Sky and Telescope, natch.

If only he had an extra grand lying around, he’d get him one of these argon purged wonders. Hell, you can be sure I’ll let you know as soon as I even get a look through one. I don’t know that is likely to happen anytime soon, but if it does, I’ll let you-all know. Everybody and his sister knows about Explore Scientific (Scott Roberts’ “new” company) and their 100-degree wonders, but did you know they produce 82s as well? Ready to move beyond basic binoculars but don’t know which telescope to buy? Which wasn’t easy. Never mind the films we had, which were either slow or grainy or both, our telescope mountings and drives weren’t up to the task of long exposure deep sky photography. You can actually go even lower in price than the Uwans or the Meade Series 5000s (below) and still get 82-degrees, but you won’t be overly happy with the result.

About five years ago, Meade was still booming and had just released their ill-fated RCX SCT scopes. Thanks to the kindness of a Meade rep, I was checking one of these out at the 2006 Cherry Springs Star Party, where I was a speaker. One of Orion’s new 50mm guide scopes. If you have a stable like some of us do, however, which one to use? Best of all, no stylus; the touch screen is a joy to use. Futurestudyonline is the best platform to do all your online kundali matching process under one roof. He is a field-o-holic and will likely remain one. Which is cool, since I have been itching to get out with the DSLR and take my yearly snapshot (I will not glorify my work with the hoity-toity term “image”) of M13. If you were like me and my buddies in our little club, the BAS, the Backyard Astronomy Society, you had to settle for Ramsdens and Kellners and were happy to have ‘em instead of the truly dreadful Huygenians.