Eastside Astronomical Society: promoting interest in astronomy to Seattle's eastside community

Eastside Astronomical Society

EAS Meeting: Tuesday January 26, 7:00pm - Lake Hills Library: The weather this last month has been lousy for Seattle astronomers, and our last clear night was on Christmas morning. No new backyard images, but we'll show some of the latest images from the NASA spacecraft, updates on what is going on in the sky, and maybe a few photos from other amateurs who have clearer skies than we do.
We'll also show the video from BBC that was on a couple months ago "James May on the Moon". This was a well done documentary featuring James May who is on the show "Top Gear". He takes a look behind the scenes at NASA, takes a ride on a gut crushing centrifuge, and bet of all - I ride to 70,000 feet in a U2 spy plane.
There will be the usual drawing for a free book, refreshments, and non-members always encouraged to come to our meetings.

| Lake Hills Library Directions |

EAS Student Bog: EAS board member, Tommy Kraft, is a senior in high school this year. He is doing his senior project on Astronomy (good choice!) and he will be writing a student blog for the club over the next few months. He'll be focusing on the government and the private sector of space travel and exploration.
So be sure to sign up on his blog as a follower and give him support for his project. So, EAS will now have 2 active blog sites. Our main blog site is fairly broad and covers Astronomy, from Earth and space as well as a lot of manned and unmanned exploration with an occasional Earth based science topic tossed in there.
The blogs are updated several times a week, so check them out for current events and happenings in the skies.

| EAS Astro-Blog - Tom Gwilym |
| The EAS Student Blog - Tommy Kraft |

Tis the season for junk telescopes - or not! Some telescope buying tips.: Since the shopping season is here again, EAS has received several emails asking about buying a telescope as a gift. Great idea! But....be careful about what you are buying. It could either get a child interested in a lifelong hobby, or just a brief peek a the sky through a wobbly, blurry toy from Wallmart - then back to the Nintendo. I have answered a few emails lately with advice, and figured I would post a response here to share some tips on what to look for and run away from. This was an email to a guy that was looking for something for around $500. If you have a limit of around $300, change the scope sizes down to about 8-inches and this advice will work out too. Read on...

There are a few things to look at when getting a new or used scope. First you need to realize that the bigger the aperture (diameter of the mirror/lens) the better for light gathering. Don't worry about magnification since it's the light sucking ability that you really want. You don't want to fall for one of those boxes that have the pretty color photos on it, and say "Magnum Turbo Superscope with 450x magnification - only $99.95!" Turn around and walk the other way....keep going until you are out of the store and back in the parking lot. That store has junk.
But then again, for a first scope, you don't want to go too big or you'll most likely get frustrated since it will be too much to move around.
When I got back into the hobby about 10 years ago I started with an ETX-90EC. Great little scope, and the Goto thing is a real huge help when you have light polluted skies or don't want to spent a lot of time searching for things. Then on the other side of things, the scope has a fairly small aperture, so the dimmer objects will appear even dimmer than with a bigger scope. Basically the same size, but harder to see.
Another really good option for the most scope for the $$$ would be something like a Dobsonian scope. For about the price of a new 4-inch ETX, you could probably get an 8 inch Dobsonian. Sure, there are drawbacks again.... Dobs don't have the tracking like the ETX, and you have to find objects yourself. But, when you find that galaxy, it will be quite a bit brighter than the view in a smaller scope. There are dobs that have a "manual goto" similar to the ETX, but you have to push the scope while looking at the electronic guide to find the object. I've played with these before, and they do work and are easy to use. A couple examples:

Here is a 12" Dob for $600.

Another example. Here is a really nice deal on a 10-inch, for $550 AND he includes the electronic finder.

So I guess it really depends on how portable you want, if you want to try photography through it (that's where things get complicated, ask me about that!) or just want to explore easily without to much extra setup or gadgets.
I started with the ETX90, then I started trying photography with it, then realized I needed something bigger, so then I got the 8 inch LX 90, then now I'm the caretaker of the club's 12" LX200 (this is where portability ends - unless you are strong as a gorilla).
So basically, start out small but don't go too cheap. Spend a bit extra for something good. www.astromart.com or Ebay is a great source. Also, read stuff on www.cloudynights.com, there are tons of good information on that site.
I have a 10 inch mirror in my basement off another scope that was donated to our club. It's a monster Newtonian that is just too big to deal with. I hope to use the mirror and other parts and build a Dobsonian out of that stuff. Something more portable that what it has now, it's probably over 180-lbs when on the mount. I'm thinking of a tube or maybe a truss mount type that could easily be hauled out to schools or star parties.
Hope that helps, I tossed a bunch of info at you, so think about it and ask me more questions when you come up with some. I'm sure you'll have plenty! :-)

--Tom

| A great site with a nice summary of what I mentioned |
| Questions? Feel free to email me. -Tom |