Posts Made By: Martin Willes

Steve I've rented a Ditch Witch from the local rental store and cut through 200' of caliche in just an hour or two. The cost for the rental was $75. Digging in this soil by hand is suicide but I'd rather have A/C power in my home observatory than battery power any day. Martin

Chris if you think it's cool imaging a globular in another galaxy, how about seeing it visually? A good source of globulars that are "easily seen" can be found in M31. Arm yourself with a good star atlas and enjoy the hunt. I use "Atlas Of The Andromeda Galaxy" by Paul Hodge. If you can find a copy I recommend buying it. The first time I saw a globular in another galaxy was about 17 years ago and I recall it being one of my proudest moments. I had just rediscovered the hobby and observed M31 on a cold Chicago night with my 10" Coutler Newt. Martin

What's the concern with the border? If it's 65 miles or 650 miles from the border it's still in the United States. That's not the only astronomy based community in that area and I've never heard of any border problems from the other sites. I plan on visiting the community in a few weeks and having a look around. Martin

Outstanding image! Martin

If you have a specific idea what you want to buy then don't you also have an idea what you want to spend for the item? You also may say "tell me what you have and what you want for the guider". I'm sure you have a budget in the back of your head that can be posted as a price. By the way I've had very good success with that little Orion guider. Martin

Looks nice. I can see a hint of the shock waves toward the core. Martin

Doug those are beautiful specimens. Thanks for posting. Martin

No the situation would not have been worse as your article pointed out. The citizen with the concealed weapon didn't see the entire scene unfold. Most CCW schools train the students not to shoot unless there is a immediate danger to their person or family. If there was a CCW person in the crowd I guarantee you the death toll would have been less. I'm surprised there wasn't a CCW in the crown being Arizona's gun carry laws are so liberal. Where I live it's legal to carry a weapon on your hip and I often see a gun at the restaurant or supermarket. Just this week there was a jail break at a town 20 miles east of us and part of my town was on lock down. My wife was at the gym and her girlfriend said "don't worry, I'm packin". She then whipped out her .380 and showed my wife. My wife had her gun with her as wll. Had the Arizona incident happened in New Mexico I think the gunman would have heard a lot of safety locks drop followed by some bangs. This fella in Arizona did the right thing by not raising his weapon. This is just another example of what a good citizen can do when his freedom's aren't stripped away.

Martin

Ben I noticed the same problem, kind of a pain. There's not a problem if you need to go back 90 days but when you do a advance search the message reads "site busy". When you pay a very nominal fee to use Astromart I don't think not being able to do an advanced search is a biggie. You can always search CN.....oh that's right they're out for the count. Hey but you can look at a blank CN page for free :-)

Martin

Jim that really looks nice. I enjoy astrophoto's when they aren't stretched and look natural. This picture is really beautiful. Martin