ATM [Fwd: RCA: Astro Class wrapup (LONG)]

[Mel Bartels <mbartels@efn.org>]

The Portland Oregon club recently finished a 3 day telescope workshop.

Here are Thurman Miller's comments:

Thurman B Miller wrote:
> 
> I'm pretty much in a daze right now. Three long nights does take it's
> toll. My throat is pretty sore from talking so much, so I'm grateful to
> let my fingers to the talking for now.
> 
> It turned out I was a little agressive on the agenda. What I was hoping
> to cover in 3 hrs was rushed near the end each night, but I think people
> now know how field of view, magnification, focal length, f-ratio,
> eyepiece f-ratio all interract depending upon the scope you have and
> that they now have handy easy-to-use equations that they can plug in
> whenever they choose.
> 
> Through etiquette, I think we'll have fewer people using white lights
> and bringing their pets, and they'll be better prepared.
> 
> I went over how to polar align both a fork mounted and german equatorial
> and was treated to many, many thanks. It seems I wasn't the only one who
> had trouble reading the directions out of those $@!* manuals that come
> with the scopes.
> 
> Had a few people show up with Dept Store telescopes, and it was very
> difficult to look them in the eye and tell them they had their work cut
> out for them. I remember seeing in Astronomy directions for making a
> solid mount that vastly improves these scopes, and someone at one of the
> classes recalled another person who actually built one and it did work.
> Anyone recall which issue that was in? It would be a good thing to post
> on the web page.
> 
> I think Telrad will see a rush on orders from 30 or so people as once
> they looked through a telrad and saw what it does, they were convinced
> that I was right when I told them to throw those stupid 6x30 finder
> scopes in the trashcan.
> 
> The viewing portion was my greatest failure. I was hoping people could
> actually go after a few objects and be successful, but that was way too
> optimistic. Without knowing the constellations and treating the scopes
> like they had viruses, they really weren't too successful. I ended up
> slewing the scopes around, plopping different eyepieces in to
> demonstrate FOV and magnification. I also used a broad band, OIII and
> moon filter to demonstrate how useful they can be.
> 
> I hope Ron has a stack of the Nortons' bright star atlas, because I
> really pushed it. We'll see if he sells out tonight. Also, I think there
> might be a run on "The Backyard Astronomer's Guide" at the various
> bookstores because I pushed it as required reading. I also highly touted
> "Visual Astronomy to the Night Sky" because of it's excellent discussion
> on the eye and some great photo & drawing comparisons.
> 
> Friday night we had 12 people attend the class, a couple of which had
> scopes, and Bob Bond, Byron Will and Ed ??? showed up with their scopes
> for the nights' viewing. It was rather poor with high stratus clouds all
> evening, but the 20" cut through it quite easily, pegging M13, M57, M27,
> M81 & M82, M51, M108 (Owl Nebula?), and the Owl cluster, and a few
> double stars as well as Mars and Venus.
> 
> Saturday night we had 14 people attend class, and Chuck showed up with
> his 8" truss FFT, and Bill Jamieson brought his 16". It was actually a
> pretty decent night considering the moon with hardly any high clouds.
> The dew did shut down quite a few scopes, but the viewing was much
> better with the same objects we hit the night before.
> 
> Sunday night we had 10 people show up. The Night was pretty much a
> washout with about 90% cloud coverage, but we did sneak a few peeks at
> M57 & M13.
> 
> A few funny stories did happen that I'd like to relate:
> 
> On friday night, I told them it would be OK to drive up to the scope
> field. I get up there and they are all parked on the gravel! I had to
> explain to them that the gravel was for the scopes & the cars went on
> the grass!
> 
> One guy Saturday night brought a home-made 12" equatorial mounted truss
> tube dob and we all got a chuckle out of his description on how he made
> it. He managed the entire scope with a power screwdriver and jigsaw and
> a hammer and pliers. It was actually quite ingenious, breaking down to
> fit into the back of his 280ZX, which was his primary design criteria.
> The drive mechanism employed a flywheel out of a car and friction
> bearings. Not pretty, but it definately lightened the evening seeing you
> didn't need all the fancy tools!
> 
> Anyway, a very good turnout for the weekend, but it did demonstrate that
> the next class might better be served over 1-3 days, with a few hours of
> class each night, and I'm on my way to a decent book if I ever
> regurgitate it on paper!
> 
> After going through how to assemble a Dob, pointing out to put the
> focuser mech on the left side, and as I was finishing up, someone
> sheepishly pointed out that I had put it on with the focuser on top! Oh
> well, so much for my experience!
> 
> Thurman
> thurman_b_miller@ccm.co.intel.com

-- 
Clear skies, Mel Bartels    Programmer/Analyst, amateur astronomer
Eugene, Oregon, USA         homepage: http://www.efn.org/~mbartels
mailto:mbartels@efn.org     atm, atm-digest list-owner
Motorize A Dob: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~mbartels/altaz/altaz.html