Posts Made By: Dave Mitsky

This picture shows yours truly at the entrance to the 12 inch Porter Turret Telescope, one of only two such structures in the world. All the optics except the eyepiece are outside the buliding which allows the interior to be heated during cold Vermont winters. Here's what the Stellafane web site has to say about the Porter Turret Telescope, "In a normal Newtonian, light enters the tube, is reflected by the parabolic primary mirror to the flat secondary mirror, which redirects the light to the eyepiece. In the Porter, light hits the secondary flat (which rotates through declination), is redirected 90 degrees to the primary (at the end of the boom) and is focused through a central hole in the secondary mirror to the eyepiece, which is inside the dome.The dome rotates through right ascension on a circumferential gear that is as wide as the dome itself. Since the dome is oriented to the celestial pole, a simple motor drive keeps the view stable."

This telescope provided me excellent, high contrast views of M11 and M13 on Saturday night.

Dave Mitsky

A rear view of the Porter Turret Telescope, as seen from the Pink Clubhouse, can be seen in the following shot.

Dave Mitsky

Astronomy Magazine columnist and author Phil Harrington and yours truly are featured in this photograph. I first met Phil at Stellafane many years ago.

Dave Mitsky

I caught "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" at an advanced premier on Thursday evening. This is one funny and surprisingly sweet, while equally raunchy, movie. The audience loved it.

"The 40 Year-Old Virgin" is without a doubt the best comedy I've seen in quite some time.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/40_year_old_virgin/

Dave Mitsky

The Lego Telescope appears in this image. This functional refractor shows up at Stellafane every so often. In the background is the Porter Turret Telescope. A close-up of the Lego Telescope is posted at http://dvaa.org/php/pic.php?i=/Photos/Stellafane2005/LegoScope_JH.jpg&n=LegoScope_JH&d=Stellafane2005

Dave Mitsky

Here's a picture of a 4.25 inch Schiefspiegler reflector. The Shiefspiegler design was developed by Anton Kutter and uses a tilted secondary mirror.

Dave Mitsky

A powered telescope chair that incorporated a Celestron C5 Schmidt-Cassegrain is featured in this photograph. This entry won an award.

Dave Mitsky

Here I am near the big tent with a dual 40mm Coronado PST and a ServoCat equipped 25" Obsession. Both provided fine views but, as one would expect, at very different times of the day.

Dave Mitsky

An e-mail aurora alert that I recently received from http://spaceweather.com/ states the following:

Big sunspot 798 exploded twice yesterday, August 22nd, and hurled a pair of coronal mass ejections apparently toward Earth. Geomagnetic storms are possible when the clouds arrive. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras during the nights of August 23rd and 24th. High latitudes are favored: e.g., Canada, Alaska and northern-tier US states from Washington to Maine.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Dave Mitsky

An e-mail aurora alert that I recently received from http://spaceweather.com/ states the following:

Big sunspot 798 exploded twice yesterday, August 22nd, and hurled a pair of coronal mass ejections apparently toward Earth. Geomagnetic storms are possible when the clouds arrive. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras during the nights of August 23rd and 24th. High latitudes are favored: e.g., Canada, Alaska and northern-tier US states from Washington to Maine.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Dave Mitsky