Posts Made By: Erlend Langsrud

I own a 130ST too, and actually it performs quite well on the planets. If you can see Cassinis division, GRS and white ovals your scope is not bad at all. A small, cheap MAK or refractor will not neccecarily show you anything more!

A friend of mine bought a 90mm f/10 refractor from Orion which was significantly worse than the ST130 on planets. He returned it and bought the Skywatcher version of 130ST.

Club members who own the OMC andIntes MAK's are impressed by my scope. I'm not saying the 130ST outperforms these high end MAK's, but most nights the difference is subtle.

My advise is not to buy a small, cheap MAK or refractor if you want a significant leap in performance. Buy quality (Intes?), quantity(XT8?) or both (Portaball!!).

Erlend


....or keep the 130ST

In Norway we have plenty of guns and little crime. The murder rate is low (2.5 per 100 000). 32% of the households have guns. I think the low crime rate is a result of a good wellfare system (we even help people who refuse to help themselves

So, generally speaking, I don't think gun control would reduce crime that much. Fighting poverty and unemployment is probably more important.

Erlend

I think myths could live longer in the old days.

A book called "Norwegian king Sagas", which was written By Snorre Sturlason in the thirteenth century, is naming kings back to about 100 BC. It tells about the end of the "fire age", when the practice of burning the dead was abandoned (0-100 ad). This is confirmed by of archeological findings.

So, there's solid evidence that an accurate piece of information has been past on from father to son for over 1000 years in an iron-age society.

Still, 40 000 years is a looooong time...

BTW, one of the early kings was called "Gandalf". Apparently, Tolkien didn't invent the funny names in LOTR all by himself.

Erlend

There's something wrong with your scope. Jupiter looks much, much better than that in my cheap, 5.1" f/5 newt.

The problem could also be bad seeing.

regards Erlend

I'm impressed! You managed to make your freak theory sound almost plausible! Are you a lawyer or something? Seriously, I don't think we should rule out anything when it comes to those basic instincts.

Erlend

"contributors, flamers, arguers, athiests, agnostics, fundamentalists, the damned, the saved, the ignorant and the unblemished..."

That describes me, doesn't it? Here's a picture of me and my daughter, Ingrid (who was 1 day old at the time). It's taken January last year. The other picture of Ingrid + my wife is taken last summer. I love that picture (the second one!!)

Best wishes, Erlend

1) I don't think so. Drugs can knock out and make you inconscious. They can turn off the soul, so to speak. The personality and memories can be altered by drugs or brain
damage. Apparently, the soul depends of the body.

2) If all earthly memories were lost, nobody could tell it was me, could they? I mean, if you take all the words out of a story, is it still the same story?

3) I think the most fundamental notions of "self" is the memories stored in the brain. If someone replaced absolutely all my memories with your memories, I think my brain would think it was Paul in a new body. What else *could* it think?

Now, this was deep, wasn't it?

Erlend