Posts Made By: Pete Brayton

I had the scope out last night for its first viewing. I was viewing from my deck in Parker, CO which is a SE suburb of Denver. I put the telescope out on the deck a couple of hours before sunset to help with temperature acclimation. I know, the deck is one of the worst places I could view from but we still have snow here on the ground. The first view was of Jupiter was through a tree and over my neighbors house. Obviously the view was horrible, but my expectations were low. For some reason, I was getting two images of everything that would not merge into one image. I decided to go ahead and try out the Intelliscope system. It was easy to use, point the tube straight up, turn on the hand control and point the scope to two different stars as directed. It took about two minutes. I had the scope take me to the three Messier clusters in Auriga and each time the object was within the view of the 35mm eyepiece that came with the scope. Using the Intelliscope hand control was easy, however it does not like the cold. I'll have to devise a pouch/hand-warmer for it. As the scope cooled down (I was not using the built in fan), the images got better and the seeing also improved. I later switched to a Stratus 13mm eyepiece and looked at the Orion Nebula which was pretty spectacular! The Trapezium was easily split, I didn't see any of the other stars that are in that area however I don't really know where to look. I could have sworn that I was seeing some green colors in the nebula. I took a quick look at Mars which was in the trees, just above a neighbors house and right next to the Moon. I was able to see a polar cap, which seemed to be fairly bright and large. Nice detail on the Moon along the terminator, I didn't look at the Moon for very long, the seeing was lousy (roof again) and I was getting cold. Overall, I am very pleased with the performance of the scope. Everything worked as I expected and it much easier to transport than my CPC1100 was. I need to learn how to collimate the optics, the owner of the telescope store where I bought it showed me how to align the scope with the collimation cap but, I think I can do better with a laser and barlow.

Has anybody noticed what is happening in the Colorado governor's race? There are 2 republicans in the primary and one democrat. The leading republican is having problems with plagiarism and the other republican has issues with his business experience. And, now comes along our former representative Tom Tancredo, who has basically told the other two to drop out of the race because they are unelectable, or he will join the race as a third party candidate. I guess they want Colorado to have another democratic governor.

I have a Meade 6" f/8 achro that has some coating issues and was thinking of replacing it with something better. Any suggestions for purchasing a lens and cell combination without the OTA?

Bought the ota's separate from the mount and now she's all together! I do have one problem though, the latitude adjustment nut/bolt assembly is not long enough for my latitude...it only goes down to 45 degrees and I'm at 39 degrees. Any ideas?

At the risk of exposing my obvious case of BDS (Bachmann Derangement Syndrome), the woman is a nut. Hurricanes and earthquakes are indicators from God that he is displeased with the overspending of the U.S. government! Really? And I thought they were caused by sunspots!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/skeptics-own-study-finds-climate-change-real-but-says-scientists-should-be-more-critical/2011/10/31/gIQAYjXQYM_story.html

A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.

The study of the world’s surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data.

Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.

One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions.

Taken from Black Mesa State Park in the OK panhandle. 7 x 6 min lights stacked with darks and flats in DSS. Final processing in PS with the help of Steve Mathis.

A friend sent me this. Doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/story/2012-02-04/sister-wives-bigamy-lawsuit/52962490/1

A federal judge has ruled there's sufficient evidence to allow a polygamous family made famous by a reality TV show to pursue a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Utah's bigamy law.

The family sued Buhman, Gov. Gary Herbert and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in July 2011, claiming Utah's bigamy statute violates its constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, free exercise of religion, free speech and freedom of association.

I thought marriage was to be between a man and only one woman!

So, I get the notion that it is absurd and probably illegal for politicians to use their clout and government institutions to prevent commercial establishments from building where they want to, just because they disagree with the viewpoints of the owners. I'm just wondering if there is any difference between that and politicians who use their clout and government institutions to prevent religious establishments from building where they want to, just because they disagree with the viewpoints of the adherents. Is there a difference and if so, why?