We are going to a very large star party soon. That means digging out and servicing telescopes that we mothballed since we moved from the US. You would think this is a simple task and it would be.
Except that I have an ungodly number of telescopes.
I've narrowed it down to two that I'm taking: my large Schmidt-Cassegrain and my rather unusual 4" Russian Maksutov-Newtonian. The large SCT is fine - I bought it fairly recently. The Mak-Newt however, gave me quite a bit of trouble since there were many pieces and they weren't all in the same box. Many *many* thanks to my poor long-suffering sis, who was kind enough to help me find the bits needed.
Now, I just need some clear skies so I can get reacquainted with my darlings. I haven't gone out since 2004 - my visual acuity has been deteriorating significantly in the past three years and I am at the point where I can no longer see fine details. This time, I'm resorting to CCD imaging to help me see what's up there. Realistically though, if I continue deteriorating as I am currently, the time will come when I will be blind. I hope that's far far *far* in the future but one can never tell. Meanwhile, I'm going to make and cherish as many happy memories under the night sky as I can. If nothing else, I hope to teach my kids all I know.
We got a Meade DSI CCD camera for me recently (thanks sis!) and it has yet to see first light. I hope to do that within the next two weeks or so. Otherwise, it'll see first light at the star party and that would not be a good thing since I hope to be familiar enough with the CCD to take nice pretty pictures.
Yay! Pretty pictures! :)
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I hope you'll post some of those pretty pretty pictures to share with the rest of us. :) You know, the other night I tried to show off what you'd taught ME about the night sky, and discovered I'd forgotten just about everything. I can find Orion and the Big Dipper still, though. Yay me!
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