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!

I have a horrible confession to make and I hope I don't step on any toes, but here it is. Time the world knew about Joanie and her additicion.

I'm a refractor addict. Have been since my first telescope - a cheap 60mm Jason on a flimsy alt-az mount. No way that telescope should have kept me up for hours and hours into the night, long after my mother and the rest of the family retired for the evening. But it did. Just something about that lens at the front that mesmerizes me. At a star party I head for the nearest refractor to drool. The big reflector on the back of a semi-truck I ignore.

What's the cure? Astrophysics, Televue, Takahashi and don't forget ...

Saw my first weather forecast for "haze" today. Wow! Doesn't compare with global warming, eruption of the Yellowstone caldera, asteroid/comet impact or invasion by aliens bent on planetary conquest, but it is something new for me.

How am I supposed to astronomy and birding through haze? Haze filters? No, that seems a little too pat and too technical a response. Maybe it's time to go swimming, instead. Surf's up!

Like everyone else, I am excited about the upcoming NASA mission to impact a comet with the Deep Impact spacecraft. I can't deny the possible scientific benefits of the mission or the interest I have in this mission as an amateur astronomer. Hey, it will be interesting.

On the other hand, my spiritual belief in Earth Mother and the natural world makes me a little nervous about playing pool with celestial objects. Okay, call me a New Age nutso, but is this a wise move? Do we really want to start picking a fight with these space wanderers? I mean, hey, don't expect me to volunteer when it comes time to sacrifice a 55 year old virgin to appease the Comet Goddess.

Tested the Celestron C90 today which has been out of stock for sometime. After yesterday's pleasant surprise with the Celestron Refractor ED 80mm, have to say this time I was disappointed. Part of the problem is that I remember the old pre-Chinese version of the C90. As Maks go, that was a pretty decent telescope.

Well, have to say the new version is not quite up to the old version. The current C90 tested no better than any other Chinese scope in the $200 range, which is to say, several cuts below the Meade ETX or LOMO 95. Of course, the current C90 is much cheaper than either, so no one is getting robbed.

I'm getting to know the local Chicago weather patterns by now. This time of the year, a wind from the east is more likely to bring pleasant days, but a wind from the west or south and look out. Today is 90+ and tomorrow is supposed to be worse.

Oh well, I've been living on the prairie long enough to get used to the heat in the summer. Spend 40+ years in a state like Nebraska and you get to know hot (and cold and windy and tornado, blizzards and more).

I used to think that getting away from it all meant the mountains of the west in the summer. Wrong. Everyone hits the mountains in the summer. If you want to get away from it all 365 days a year, try the Nebraska Sandhills. Some counties there are as large as a small state and have a population of less than 10, 000. A crowd there is two people on the same road at the same time.

After fighting traffic here in Chicago, that would be nice.

Stay cool.

Tested another spotting scope, the Celestron Refractor ED and was quite impressed with the optics. Resolution compared nicely with the much more expensive premium grade scopes like the Swarovski, Nikon Fieldscope ED, Leica and so on. Of course, we replaced the cheap diagonal with a high grade Lumicon and used excellent eyepieces, but the scope was solid. Who said you can't get a decent scope at a good price? I mean $500 isn't cheap. but compared to over a grand and even two grand for the big names, this is a solid value.

Just when I was getting high on this Celestron, though, another guy called in and complained that the $60 Celestron C65 wasn't working for him at 1000 yards. Somehow I doubt whether he would agree that the $500 model is a great value, but then again, after looking through a $60 wonder, he might.

I lit my candle last night for the Solstice and spent a long time on the phone with a friend. She lives in Wisconsin and does the Solstice right. She builds a fire on the bank of a river and spends a quiet evening with some wine and a prayer or two to the Goddess. So we talked in hushed tones as befits something so special to both of us.

I should have been there with her, but my job is all-consuming. Never seem to be caught up and must fight to keep from falling behind. Sometimes, though, it takes a special occasion like the Solstice to remind me just how earth bound we humans really are.

Perspective restored, I returned to work today with a new found spirit. I know the day is coming when I will be able to sit on a river and spend a quiet evening with Earth Mother, too. This life in the city does not suit me.

Earth Mother smiled and the sky was clear here in Chicagoland on Saturday night. Stacey and I started the evening with a nice meal at a local Thai place, then on to her place for some astronomy.

As usual, here Meade Autostar was being cranky and after fighting to get the thing to function, we just swapped it out with the hand control from her other scope. I've been observing with her on six different occasions now and only once did we avoid computer glitches. So guess what I think of computerized telescopes? Aaaarrrggghh!

On a brighter note, I did test our new line of Japanese made Vixen binoculars with the Vixen 12x80. Overall, it was very good, though not quite up to the much more expensive Nikon Astroluxe, but still a definite step up from the usual Chinese stuff. Edge to edge sharpness was very good with only a little hint of flare on some of the brightest stars.

Also played around with my Nikon 82mm ED scope to see what it could do. At 75x was able to see cloud belts of Jupiter very well. M13 was gorgeous and even managed to get M57 and M27 under very light polluted and moonlit skies. If it wasn't strictly limited to Nikon eyepieces, this scope would give a Televue a run for its money.

No birding on Sunday - astronomers have to sleep sometime!

My friend and I were hoping for clear skies tonight so we could pull out our scopes and do the astronomy thing. The weather is nice and cool and if the sky would just clear, we might have great seeing conditions.

From here in suburban Chicago, astronomy for me is as much nostalgia as it is actual observation. I know what objects look like under a really dark sky, so when I see them here, I have to add a little imagination to make more than what I am actually seeing. In a way, it's remarkable that we can see anything at all with such severe light pollution.

But when you love something, you just do it anyway. Since I cannot travel (telescope on a bicycle?), I do the best I can.

May the sky clear for me and for all of you as well.

Love
Jne

With a binocular, 8x is pretty much 8x from one model to another. Oh sure, the expensive 8x will still be sharper brighter and better, but these days, even an inexpensive 8x will do 90% of the work the high-priced model will do.

Not so with spotting scopes. As magnification goes up, the stakes get much higher. At 20x, most spotting scopes look reasonably good, but when you get past 30x, the pack begins to thin out rapidly.

For applications that entail seeing small detail at great distances, the highest magnification is in order. If you want an image that is as sharp at 60x as it as 20x, get out the checkbook. Your choices are limited and not cheap.

It breaks my heart to have to tell some customers that the $300 spotting scope they want just isn't up to the task of seeing tiny objects at extreme ranges. Heck, $300 buys you a good binocular, so why not a good spotting scope?

Sometimes I give the technical answer, but often were both disappointed when I tell them what they will have to spend to get the performance they expect and want. I often lose a sale and the customer gets depressed. Sometimes I get so upset that I want to lend them my Nikon.

Okay, well almost.

It's always hard to gauge what a customer expects when they buy their first telescope for astronomy. I am well aware that many expect to see Hubble quality images in their new 60mm refractor, but those are the most obvious. What I am talking here is where a beginner expects to go with the hobby after realizing that, no, you can't see the US flag on the moon or planets around other stars. When the GOTO in their new scope shows yet another galaxy as a faint smudge, what then?

I pray that at least a few of these new astronomers stay with it long enough to develop an appreciation for those smudges. That you can see them at all is miraculous; to actually know what they are is astounding; to realize the distance to any of them is mind boggling.

At the risk of sounding like an old timer, I would also hope that a few beginners take a chance at some point and turn off the computer on their new telescope. Navigating on your own with a star map is fun and supremely satisfying when you know the night sky as well as you know your own backyard. It makes looking at the heavens a much more personal thing.

More than once, a friend and I have purposely picked a faint, dim galaxy at the edge of our scope's capability and gone hunting. As often as not, our quest required many hours of searching over several nights, but once we finally glimpsed our "ghost", we were all smiles. In astronomy, as in many pursuits, getting there can be half the fun.

Long live the summer triangle. Long live Deneb, Vega and Altair.

Most people have a pretty good perspective on their local neighborhood and community. When you've lived in a place for awhile, you get a feel for distance to the bank, the grocery store, the local schools and so on. It's a scale your brain handles best.

Some people do pretty well on a sate sized perspective as well. After a few trips, you know what it takes to get from City A to City B. Your brain can make fairly decent images of different regions within a state

A national perspective is a little harder for your brain to sew together into a meaningful whole and even tougher is a global scale. For most people, global is as big a scale as they want to mentally digest. It's a little tougher to get a feel at this level with all our technology - crossing a continent just isn't the same as it used to be, that's for sure.

So that's why I love astronomy. Here's a scale that no mind can wrap itself around. To do astronomy is to do the ultimate brain voyage. "Take a trip and never leave the farm" isn't just a motto for potheads. One night under a dark, clear sky is still the drug of choice for nuts like me. Amen.

Our weather continues hot and sultry here - a little early in the summer for this area from what people tell me. Still, what's a little weather to a bird nut like me?

I was on a break a couple days ago, sitting in front of the office, when I heard a familiar call. It sounded like we were being visited by a flock of Cedar Waxwings. Hearing them this time of year is one thing, but seeing them another. Still, after wandering around the perimeter of the parking lot, looking up in trees, I finally spotted several trying to pick some still green cherries.

As I walked back to our office, I noticed several construction workers looking at me. Guess they were doing some watching of another kind. I'm sure it wasn't my plain face that attracted them as much as it was my strange behavior. Still, I should have approached them and tried to sell them a binocular.

Here's another urban bird story for this week.

I was stuck at a busy intersection on my way home yesterday, trying to cross on my bicycle. If I could summon the courage to make a dash through traffic, I would be home free on the bike trail, so with a foolhardy sprint, I shot out in the traffic, hoping these Chicago drivers would resist adding a bicycle to their scorecard.

It was close - I narrowly escaped becoming a hood ornament on a red SUV. As I pedaled to safety, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then a flash of white to my left caught my eye. I stopped and smiled when I saw what it was. There, not ten yards from the roaring traffic, sat a Great Egret fishing in the shallows of an industrial pond. Now, in my experience, these and other herons are the wariest of birds. But not here. Like fishermen everywhere, this bird was focused entirely on fishing, to the exclusion of all else. As I watched through my Nikon HG monocular, the Egret stabbed at the water and came up with a bluegill in its long beak.

I pedaled away with a smile on my face.

A couple of the guys here at work were on break this afternoon and stopped by my desk to report that a hawk was eating a small bird out in the parking lot. What could I do? I rushed out and there, on the top of a utility pole, was a Red-tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis, calmly making a meal of some unidentified bird.

Can't say I was surprised, as she (of course it's a she) is a regular resident of the airport across the street, but it is still such a treat to see something so wild against the backdrop of a noisy, polluted, high traffic urban environment. Just seeing one of these raptors makes my heart sing. It's not just that these birds are so wild, it's also that they have always been a talisman for me - something truly special to me - perhaps I was a hawk in a previous life.

Hey, what do you expect from a middle-aged (okay, middle-aged plus) New-Age liberated woman?

For me, there is only one thing better than astronomy or birding and that is the opportunity to share it with someone. When I begin to feel that too much of what I do is helping people spend money, I remind myself that that perhaps I made a difference in someone's life if, after talking to me, they were encouraged give birding or astronomy a try. Since I rarely hear from these people again, all I have is my faith that it happens now and then. I pray to the Godess that this is so.

Love
Jne

Yes, summer is here in Chicago at last. I honestly can't say I mind the heat, especially after a long Chicago winter and a spring that barely was. The next clear night, I will make some iced tea and set up my telescope and stay up late; and with daylight savings time, that is an automatic. Whoever invented daylight savings time was not an astronomer, I assure you. I've never understood how you save daylight, anway. Ha!

I attended a gorgeous wedding this weekend at the Arboretum here in Chicago. My niece married a wonderful guy, so I couldn't be happier for them. Wow! To be young and in love again. I cried, of course.

Between the tears, though, I spotted lots of birds flitting around in the trees, so during a break in the festivities, I wandered through the gardens to enjoy the birdlife. A binocular would have been too conspicuous, of course, and in bad taste, but fortunately I had my Nikon monocular in my purse, so all was not lost.

Bride, bridegroom, birds - what a wonderful way to spend a Saturday evening. Life is good.

Love
Jne

I envy Charles Messier, the comet hunter who, after all these years, is remembered for his list of things he didn't want to see. Talk about irony! He writes down things that might be confused for a comet - things that got in his way - and what do people remember him for? That's right, things he didn't want to see.

So if it works for him, why not Joanie? As an optics specialist, here is my list of things I don't want to see.

1. More binoculars made in China. Hey, how many more binoculars that all look alike, perform alike, are packaged alike, have the same instruction manual in the same twenty languages does the world need? I say give someone else a chance. What about Lower Slobovia or Garfooeyistan? At least change the box color.

2. More telescopes smaller than 114mm that advertise over 500x. Would it kill some of these people to be a little more honest? Or maybe they should have someone who has actually looked through a telescope write the ad copy.

3. Customers who ask, "How far can I see with this?" I don't really know how far anyone can see. At my age, I can barely see myself. All I can say is a 10x bino will allow you to see 10x farther.

4. More zoom binoculars. That just makes more work for us when people have to return them.

5. Words that almost mean "waterproof". A binocular is waterproof or it is not. Throw out water-resistant, climate proof, rain proof, spray-resistant, sprinkle-proof and all the other wannabe words.

6. Riflescopes with a BDC for shooting at 500 or even 1000 yards when only a handful of people can hit a barn at a fraction of that distance, even from a rest. Give me a break.

7. More software programs that allow you to control your telescope from a PC. Somehow popping a bowl of popcorn, sitting on a couch and seeing planets on a screen is not the same as the astronomy I have always known. In the old days, we called such activity "watching TV".

8. Spotting scopes and riflescopes with huge objective lenses that perform as poorly as small objective lenses. Defintely the "empty calories" approach to optics. Dr. Joanie says, "Not good for your health!"

9. Noisy GOTO telescopes. I think mufflers should be required for all GOTO telescopes. Ever stand between two big GOTO telescopes at an astronomy club outing? How would they like it if I made "whirring" sound effects every time I moved ny Dob?

10. The last thing I want to see is a huge telescope collecting dust in a garage or closet because it is too much of a hassle to set up and use. This is telescope cruelty, pure and simple. People who can't care for a large telescope should give them away to people who will give them more loving attention. Me, for instance!

Love
Joanie

Having lived much of my life in Nebraska (yes, a liberal living among the conservative corn-heads) I have to say that I do miss some of its natural wonders -dark skies at night, for one.

When I first moved to Chicago last fall, I decided to step outside to say hello to all my old friends, many of them 4th, 5th and even 6th magnitude stars and then use them to navigate to my favorite binocular Messier objects.

One look at the light-polluted sky above and I cried (really). Many of my favorite star friends were gone and without them, star hopping to many objects was out of the question. I felt robbed and cheated. I knew it would be bad, but not that bad.

For the first time in my life, I could actually see why a computerized scope could be an asset. No, don't get name wrong, I will never give in to computerization, but now I had to admit that computerization had its place.

Even an old dog like me could learn something, now and then.

If anyone sees my star friends, tell them Joanie misses them.