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OpticsBlog – Thoughts and reviews of binoculars, telescopes, scopes, sights, and much more - birdwatching, astronomy, target shooting - pretty much anything related to optics, nature, and life!Friday, January 27, 2012Beauty in astronomy Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, to be sure, but I’ve yet to meet someone that has not been impressed with the beauty of some of the objects I show them in myastronomy binoculars and telescopes. Whether it’s an alien moon landscape, an immense nebula of gas and dust or a glittering open cluster of stars, I always get plenty of oohs and ahs from my guests. This sort of thing convinces me all the more that people go to all the trouble to choose the right telescope for aesthetic reasons as much as they do out of scientific curiosity for what’s out there in the universe. To be sure, a lot of my own observing is a bit esoteric in that I sometimes get lured into the hunt to find nearly impossible to see objects that often appear as little more than faint specks or smudges in thetelescope eyepiece, but even those objects are beautiful when you consider what they actually are. All this is my way of saying that if you have been thinking about trying your hand at astronomy and you are not especially technical by nature, not to fear. Don’t let a little techno mumbo jumbo about telescopes and telescope accessories stop you. Spectacular beauty is only as far away as the night sky in your own backyard.
Thursday, January 26, 2012Spotting scope magnificationIn terms of how much magnification you can use, effectively, in a spotting scope, your geographic location is a factor. Out in the great wide-open spaces of the western U.S., the skies are not cloudy all day, according to the song, anyway. There’s an element of truth to that, because the climate is drier and, in many areas, the air is also thinner due to the elevation. Drier, thinner air makes for better images in spotting scopes and also more usable images at higher magnifications. There were birdwatching days when I had the magnification on my birding spotting scope pegged at 60x for hours at a time and I could have used even more magnification had the spotting scope been able to provide it. When I moved back east to Chicago, where the elevation is much lower and the air thicker, not to mention much more humid, 60x on my spotting scopes almost never happened. Most days, 30x or 40x was about it before image quality began to fade, even though my little Kowa 663 had the optics do deliver great images all the way up to 60x. I currently live in northern Wisconsin where I swear the humidity is even higher, on the average, than it was in the Chicago area. In two years, have yet to see a single day when 60x in one of my excellent spotting scopes could deliver great image quality. I’m long overdue for a trip to my beloved great wide open spaces out west. Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam ... Wednesday, January 25, 2012Northern lights Tuesday nightWe searched for the northern lights in our cold, partly cloudy, northern Wisconsin skies on Tuesday night, but the lights failed to make an appearance, despite the forecast for an auroral display. That’s the way it goes when searching for the northern lights, though. Sometimes you see the lights, sometimes you don’t, even when the odds are in your favor. The aurora borealis (northern lights) are just one of the many ways you can enjoy astronomy without the use of astronomy binoculars or telescopes. Naturally, if you want to see all there is to see in amateur astronomy, you will need to setup & use a telescope or binoculars at some point, but there are astronomical events you can observe without looking in a telescope eyepiece. I love meteor showers, for instance. These tend to be more predictable than auroras, at least as far as dates of occurrence, but showers are as just about as unpredictable as the northern lights when it comes to numbers of meteors seen. This, of course, makes them all the more delicious when you see a great one. I can also tell you from personal experience, that meteor showers can be a rather romantic experience if you share them with the right person, but I’ll let it go at that. ☺ Tuesday, January 24, 2012Small spotting scope, pleaseAt the risk of revealing my age, I can tell you that there was a time in the spotting scope world when 60 mm spotting scopes were standard fare and the big 80 mm and larger spotting scopes had yet to hit the market. Most of us birders did just fine with those smaller spotting scopes, by the way, but once those 80 mm birding spotting scopes appeared, the rush was on to the larger scopes. Bigger spotting scopes are still in vogue in the birdwatching world, but a lot of us who hit the birding trails and carry a spotting scope and tripod for hours at a time all have gone back to the smaller spotting scopes to save on weight and bulk. It’s a good plan if your jumbo wonder scope seems to be getting heavier with each passing year. A smaller 60 or 65 mm class of excellent optical quality will truly do just about everything a serious birder will ask and will do it cheaper than the same model in a larger size. My old Kowa 663 with its excellent 20-60 zoom eyepiece, for instance has never failed me. I still have and use heavier spotting scopes when there is no need to carry them far, but when it comes time to hoof it down the trail, make mine a small spotting scope, please. Monday, January 23, 2012Pistol scope or iron sights? Bill and I have taken up target shooting as an activity and, even in the heart of a north woods winter, we manage to get to the shooting range when the weather allows. Shooting really is a terrific activity for a couple. For me, shooting rifles and, especially handguns, is old hat. For Bill, this is all new, so I get to teach and he gets to buy the guns and all the gun accessories. Hey, we make a great team! One of the first surprises I got as a teacher was just how hard it can be for a beginner like Bill to shoot iron sights. I’ve been shooting “iron” all my life, but Bill hasn’t, so I decided to mount red dot sights (scopes) on a couple of our favorite pistols and it has improved his shooting, considerably. Then, when I found a used 1x handgun scope at a local gun shop, I replaced one of the red dot scopes with it. No magnification, either way, which makes for an easy to steady rig and, of course, no front and rear sights to line up, either. I may trade the 1x scope out for one with magnification, later, such as Bushnell Elite 2-6x32, once Bill is ready to handle the magnification. Still, I just can’t bring myself to go pistol scope or red dot scope on some of our pistols. One of the big reasons I love to shoot handguns and pistols, in the first place, is for their balance, point ability and lack of size and weight, but that all pretty much goes out the window when you add a scope to a pistol. Just isn’t the same gun, anymore, as far as I am concerned. I know you can put a red dot scope or pistol scope on almost any pistol, but, in my opinion, it seems almost criminal to do so on some pistols, such as our Ruger SR1911 in the pic, above. This Ruger (terrific gun, by the way) will stay just as is, thank-you very much. Friday, January 20, 2012Small telescopes in the winter I’ve always had a thing for going light and small on my equipment choices, whether it be cars, fishing tackle, binoculars, spotting scopes, digital cameras and, definitely, telescopes. Make no mistake, I do own a wonderful, fairly large telescope and I love it. There are times when you need the optical muscle of large aperture telescopes to get the job done. Come spring, for instance, I’ll be hunting faint galaxies and for that pursuit, the bigger the telescope, the better. Still, nothing beats small three or four-inch high-grade refractor telescopes for image quality, wide-angle views in the telescope eyepiece and, equally important, amazing portability and ease of use. I especially enjoy using my refractor telescopes in the winter months to “ooh” and “ah” over brilliant star clusters in Auriga, Gemini, Orion, Canis Major and Monoceris. That quick setup time for small telescopes is a huge plus when temperatures head down toward zero. Speaking of the constellation Monoceris: if you own a small telescope, take a look at this constellation on a cold winter's night. It’s an unremarkable constellation to the naked eye since it has no bright and obvious stars, but it is a treasure trove of objects for a small telescope or astronomy binoculars. Stay warm. Thursday, January 19, 2012Telescope locationOkay, when it comes time to setup & use a telescope in, say, your backyard, just where should you set it? The seemingly obvious answer in terms of a physical location is where you can see the biggest expanse of the sky, but that may not actually be the best location. Other factors come into play and you sometimes have to get a bit creative to deal with them. If you are in the suburbs or the city, street lights and/or your neighbor’s yard lights can make or break you when selecting a place to observe with your astronomy binoculars or telescopes. Putting an object, any object, such as a tree, between you an offending light source can make a tremendous difference in how much you will be able to see. When there is no convenient object to block an annoying light, I’ve draped a towel over my head when looking through the telescope eyepiece. Your neighbors might give some odd looks when they see you doing this, so you may want to explain it to them. I know, because I used to drape a towel over my head as I sat outside my patio apartment when I was observing with the binoculars, often in my bathrobe, no less. I’m sure that was quite a sight to see. One of the time-tested Telescope Observing Tips is to always setup your telescope from any radiating heat source, such as concrete, pavement, rocks and, yes, even buildings such as your house. These objects absorb heat by day and release it back into the atmosphere at night. This release of heat produces air currents that can degrade image quality in your telescope. Unfortunately, a lot of us simply have to make-do with what we have for a telescope location. I’ve been known to use telescopes on a wooden deck, for instance, even though it puts me too close to the house and even though it limits the magnification I can effectively use, thanks to a deck surface picking up every footstep and jiggle you make. Wednesday, January 18, 2012Telescopes below zeroWe’re forecast to have clear skies, tonight, so I’ll no doubt grab the astronomy binoculars or, perhaps, one of my smaller telescopes and do a little astronomy. We’re also forecast to go well below zero, too, so emphasis on little as far as astronomy. I’m at an age where I have less resistance to the cold and it’s getting harder to put in long observing sessions with the binoculars or the telescope eyepiece in sub-zero cold. Now, I’m sure that a lot of folks who aren’t astronomers are thinking this gal is off her rocker to setup & use a telescope in those kinds of temperatures, just to do a little astronomy. I even know some astronomers who would have second thoughts about that kind of cold. There is, however, a solid reason for braving the cold to get some time with the telescope or binoculars. The air following a polar cold front tends to be clear and dry and that makes for excellent sky transparency and that, in turn, translates to more objects and more detail seen in the binoculars or telescopes. In fact, these cold, dry winter nights are often the best nights of the year for astronomy in our area. Moreover, even as little as ten or fifteen minutes with the telescope under a magnificent winter sky is enough to recharge my astronomy batteries to get through weeks of cloudy skies. Now, where did I set those mittens? Tuesday, January 17, 2012Reflector telescopes collimationIf you’re the type that likes to tinker, fiddle and otherwise fuss with gear, telescopes may disappoint you. There really is very little maintenance needed with telescopes or even telescope accessories, though some types of telescopes do require a bit more adjusting and upkeep than others. Still, all telescopes are simple to maintain. That includes reflector telescopes, by the way. When it comes time to choose the right telescope, beginners sometimes avoid reflectors out of fear of having to adjust the mirrors (collimation). True, you do have to learn how to collimate a reflector if you want to get the most out of it, but I’ve never considered it enough of a chore to avoid reflector telescopes. True, there was a day when collimation could be a time-consuming undertaking, but laser collimators have changed that and thankfully so in my case. I have to wheel my large Dobsonian telescope (a type of reflector telescope) around the yard as needed to view areas of the sky I want to see ( yes, it is actually equipped with wheels for the sake of transport). It’s a sometimes bumpy ride, though, and just enough to throw alignment off a bit, so I typically collimate the mirrors at the start of every observing session. In truth, the mirrors are never way out of alignment, even using the telescope this way, but the mirrors are optically superb, so why not have them aligned, perfectly? How long does collimation take when I use a laser collimator? On the average, not much longer than it takes me to change a telescope eyepiece. Doing an initial collimation with a new telescope does take longer, but once you’re in the ball park and assuming you haven’t been rough on the telescope, collimation is no big deal. Monday, January 16, 2012Clear nights for the telescopes“…. and the skies are not cloudy all day.” Okay, I don’t know where the heck that is, but I know for sure it isn’t in northern Wisconsin in the winter. If you love to setup & use a telescope and do astronomy as much as I do, clear nights are like gold in this part of the country. In fact, clear winter nights can be so elusive in our area as to make some folks think twice about spending money on telescopes and telescope accessories. For better or worse, I am not one of those folks. I love astronomy too much to give up because of cloudy nights. Okay, I’m definitely one of those glass is half full types when it comes to astronomy, but when the skies do clear in our north woods at night and you do get a chance to use your astronomy binoculars or telescopes, it is worth putting up with a lot of cloudy nights. The images we get in the telescope eyepiece when the sky finally clears will take your breath, away. Sure, we could have retired to the desert in Arizona to get more in the way of clear nights, but no way would I be able to ski right out my back door after a fresh snow in that country. Nope, I’ll stay right here, thank you, but if you astronomers in Arizona could send a few clear nights our way, I would be grateful. |
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