Posts Made By: Don Dahlquist

What would be the point of creating man without free will? Without free will there would be no sin, no moral responsibility, no need for the Bible or Commandments.

Free will allows for man to have choice. Would you want it any other way? Without free will there would be no pain or suffering but you would be merely an animation.

I am pretty new to this hobby and need some help to identify what I saw last night, 7/7/04. It was at about 11:30 PM CDT (0430 UT 7/8/04 I believe), due west and about 30 - 40 degrees up from the horizon.

It was either a pretty bight comet, or a fuzzy globular cluster. I was observing from my back yard in the city (St. Paul, MN) so the sky never really gets very dark.

Can anyone identify this object or have a good guess? To me it looked a lot like comet Neat did a while back, only brighter and larger.

Thanks,

Don

I think the last thread went on far enough to establish that I can now expect to find a globular cluster in the area of M3!

Last night was one of the best in terms of the weather. The first cleardarksky forecast was for better than average conditions and then, for some reason, the cleardarksky forecast for Sunday night was dismal. I decided to wait it out and see and was rewarded with my best viewing so far in my 2+ months of my new hobby. Despite the night glow of the city lights I was able to find M13 with my binoculars - right where it should be. The hard part was trying to get my refractor to point that high. Alex - you're right, I do need to get a 1x finder! It's on my list.

After viewing M3 again, just to be sure it didn't go away, I began my search for M13. At first it was hopelessly vertical for my scope/mount combination. After waiting about an hour, I was finally able to home in on M13. At 28x in my 4" refractor it looked a lot like M3, a dim fuzzy ball. Not much improvement at 58x, just larger. So, not yet having anything inbetween, my next step is 220x (I know, they are on my list too) and what a sight. At first as I was finishing the fine focus I though "just bigger and dimmer." But as my hand left the focuser I was rewarded with resolution of quite a number of individual little pinpoint stars. Perhaps 2-3 dozen. Very pretty to see. Quite delicate but they were distinct even with direct vision. At times they seemed to form patterns, almost like spiral arms, other times they just seemed random. I don't know how much nicer it would be in dark skies, but this was very neat to see.

Hope for more nights like last night.

Prove to me, using the same "law and rules" that you use to declare that there is no God, that an Atheist is different than a Christian. In this context, a law or rule is something that is immutable. In other words, if the rule is in any way mutable, then it can't be used in the proof.

Just checking to see if others just put up with this or not. I just took delivery of a UO HD Ortho, 5mm. I don't have the eye relief spec on this but this is a first for me. When I view with this eyepiece, I have to get so close that my eyelashes are pressed against the eyepiece.

Now, it provided a pretty good view but this was uncomfortable. Is this typical of this type of eyepiece? I also have a 4mm TeleVue Radian, but it has a very long eye relief so I have nothing else to compare this to.

Thanks,

Don

Tom,

See Message #226406 in the Refractors forum for some information that will be helpful to your question. In fact, the entire thread has some useful discussion that should be of interest to you.

Don

Hi Sarah,

Try www.cleardarksky.com and then find a site near you. This is still an imperfect science but I have found this free service to be pretty good.

Good Luck,

Don

Thanks to everyone for their help! I thought that I was going to be able to confirm the identity last night but the clouds rolled in about 10:30 and they are predicting clouds/rain for the next few days. In any case, it is nice to know there are some other objects in my porthole into the sky that I should be able to view.

Clear skies!

Don

OK, I saw it again tonight. It was M3.
Lot of moisture in the air and couldn't find any other DSO in that area. Looked for M22, couldn't find it. I need a lot more practice! :S

Ted,

The following link is primarily designed for following Solar System objects that are not planets. However, click on just about any Near Earth Object and allow the Java applet to load. I think this is one of the neatest apps on the web.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/

Regards,

Don