Posts Made By: Phillip Jones

Our modern literalistic culture places a harmful interpretive shade over our eyes as we read ancient texts written during a time rich with allegory. We are an information-fed culture where analogous language has been reduced to clichés, rendering us symbolically challenged. Our default interpretive mechanism is to interpret literally all textual objects of communication, unless instructed otherwise. Couple this with the technological, linguistic, generational, and cultural gaps between now and the time that Genesis was written, and the challenge for us to understand the original intent being expressed by the author(s) becomes evident.

Since a formal education system was non-existent, the use of allegory played a vital role in ancient cultures. An allegorical narrative was entertaining, communicated an underlying principle, and easy to remember so that it could be passed on. The Hebrew language and the cosmological understanding of the Hebrew author(s) were not flexible enough for God to reveal a detailed explanation of creation. The primary objective of the Genesis creation texts was to declare God as the sole Creator of an intentional existence, and that He alone should be worshiped.

Herb,

When you gonna offer some AstroMartian shirts for sale? I'd love to have a t-shirt saying I'm an AstoMartian junky.

And what's with all the fuzzy math ads you been running lately? 8O

-Phil

Looks great! More modern, improved navigation. Most importantly, the ads allow photos to be enlarged for viewing.

The ad doesn't identify the scope, and the photo showing the Tak label with specs cannot be enlarged, so I can't see what it says:
https://www.astromart.com/classifieds/details.asp?classified_id=964794

Thanks Dan, Russell, and John. I'll try out a Narrow-band filter instead.

-Phil

Jason,

My criteria for a good ep is (in order):

1) image sharpness
2) eye relief
3) field of view (less so with high power eps)

The Tak 5mm LE is the first Takahashi ep I've owned. I have owned others in this range, and compared it with others (especially TeleVue eps). The 5mm has remained one of my favorites. I was so impressed with it that I bought the Tak 3.6mm LE, and plan to buy the Tak 2.8mm in a couple of months. I use them with my FS-128 refractor. The image sharpness surpassed my expectations. I figured with the generous eye relief, image would suffer. Not so. The field of view is perfect for planetary viewing.

-Phil

Baader's Contrast Booster is by far the best filter I've used for planetary viewing. I use it with both my 5" APO refractor and 9.25" SCT.

Wow...Taychert's scope delays made the news:
http://tinyurl.com/3cv97v

AstroMart is free for us to use. I have no qualms about the owner of the site benefitting from the site. Afterall, they have to pay the expenses, deal with the maintenance, and play referee on the forums. Thus, they have earned the right to use their own dang site for transactions.

Did I mention AstroMart is free?

Herb,

I am curious as to why Bruce is being charged.

-Phil