Its been a few days since Ive actually just chosen to post on my own thoughts. Since today is a Monday, I figure it is about time. Right now, I am fighting the demon depression. Have been doing a good enough job, except that for the past two days two of my activities that help me to thwart those feelings have themselves been thwarted by uncooperative weather. Two days of missed solar observations, and two days of missed general astronomy. Certainly, there are other things I enjoy doing, but right now the vast majority of my belongings have been scattered, and the ones that are here are essentially packed, aside from the old computers and some of the telescopes. In the event of inclement weather, I could play with the old computers, certainly. But I am a far more creative bird than that. I like to paint, I like to build, neither of which I can do right now. Instead, Ive chosen to rely on the various forms of astronomy I eke out with my humble equipment (currently, my largest telescope is a 115mm Newtonian). Do I regret selling my larger telescopes? Of course, especially my Criterion Dynamax 6, that I put a lot of work into correcting and debugging and turning into a solid little Schmidt-Cassegrain. At least the gentleman who bought it from me was tickled with it, and he paid a good price. The lack of a larger telescope, though, has inherent problems, some of which are only now coming back to haunt me. I like to study deep sky objects that are within our galaxy; clusters, double stars, variable stars, nebulae. My 115mm can grab many of these, but due to its nature as an antique, it is restricted to .965 eyepieces; for the unfamiliar, this is the older, smaller eyepiece standard. The selection of eyepieces in that range is small, and when you do find a good eyepiece in that size, it normally has the names Zeiss, Nikon, or, occasionally, Unitron, and where you find those names, you find collectors prices. All that means my 115mm is restricted to a handful of eyepieces. But I make do. Ive shifted my observations to brighter objects. A larger instrument can wait, and point of fact will have to. There are other, more pressing needs that have to be met. Hopefully, soon, Ill be in a better position, physically, spiritually. For now, I feel as if I am waist deep in tar and trying to move. Its hot, sticky, and barely allows one to move. But Ive got to keep moving.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 15:15:02 +0000
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