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M27 - Dumbell Nebula

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Posts Made By: Alan French

September 28, 2009 08:47 PM Forum: Solar System Observing

Europa Annularly Transits Ganymede - OCT 04/05

Posted By Alan French
Curt,

Thank you very much! Now I'll go order clear skies for Oct 5 and hope the weather gods are agreeable.

Clear skies, Alan

October 3, 2009 02:19 PM Forum: Refractors

Dedicated Jupiter Refractor?

Posted By Alan French
While the views of Jupiter are nice with a quality 4" apochromat, and I've often been surprised at how much detail is visible, I find the aperture quite limiting for planetary observing. My long used 8" f/8 Newtonian was a far more capable planetary instrument and I would certainly aim for a quality 6" or larger instrument for serious Jupiter observing.

Clear skies, Alan

October 7, 2009 01:16 PM Forum: Refractors

Pebbles of Sap inside TOA objective?

Posted By Alan French
walter sikora said:

Pebbles of Sap inside TOA objective. What is it? How do I get it out?

Good Seeing, Walt

Walt,

You definitely need to provide a better description, or photos, of what you are seeing.

Clear skies, Alan

October 9, 2009 12:52 PM Forum: LUNATICS

LCROSS PR SNAFU!

Posted By Alan French
Would you rather have looked and not seen anything than have not been alerted and missed a good show? We didn't know if we'd see anything when the fragments of Comet SL slammed into Jupiter, but we watched. In that case we were rewarded. In this case some people thought we might have a chance to see the plume resulting from the impact. They happened to be wrong - so what? We didn't have much of a knowledge base to draw on.

It got people interested in the search for water and probably got quite a few folks out doing a little lunar observing.

Clear skies, Alan

October 10, 2009 01:05 AM Forum: LUNATICS

The Retribution Begins!

Posted By Alan French
"Man says NASA should be more careful before asking people to wake at 4:30 a.m."

ROFLAO. Was this really CNN, or The Onion?

Thanks for a good laugh!

Clear skies, Alan

October 18, 2009 03:15 AM Forum: Astro-Physics

GT carryon case

Posted By Alan French
Robert,

We took Sue's AP 130 GT to WSP last year in the ScopeGuard case. I commented it was a telescope each time it went through security and was put on the belt to the x-ray, and no one ever asked us to open the case. We had larger planes on both legs of our trip, so there was never any problem getting it into an overhead.

Sometimes we've had smaller planes where some carry-ons near maximum size had to be gate checked. Although I was fairly sure this wouldn't happen, I had a stuff sack that would take the lens end of the GT in my carry-on.

Clear skies, Alan

October 24, 2009 06:30 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Handheld Binos: 8x or 10x, 42mm or 50mm

Posted By Alan French
Tom Lacovik said:

For general pan and scan, moon, and occassional non astro (travel) use.
opinions:
8x or 10x?
42mm or 50mm?

thanks.

I picked 7x42s for my general purpose binocular. It provides an 8 degree field, and the 7x is agreeable in my hands. The 8x42s are also nice. For me, 10x is simply wasted because they can not be held steadily enough in my hands.

Clear skies, Alan

October 30, 2009 02:17 PM Forum: Astro-Physics

special deals

Posted By Alan French
Yes, I did, and was glad to see the foam had finally gotten some company. wink

Clear skies, Alan

December 5, 2009 06:11 PM Forum: Birding Optics and Photos

Amici 45* diagonal opinions

Posted By Alan French
Jay,

Our of curiosity, why do you feel you need one? A standard star diagonal gives an erect but reversed image. I've never found that a problem viewing birds or wildlife. I'm used to astronomical telescopes and find I often move my correct image birding scope the wrong way.

Clear skies, Alan

December 13, 2009 01:12 AM Forum: Global Warming - REAL or NOT

AP Review: Science Not Faked

Posted By Alan French
Scott Satko said:

Rod Kaufman said:

A thorough review by AP reveals the science, despite the emails in question, has not been compromised:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091212/ap_on_sc/climate_e_mails

In a follow-up, all the scientists involved in the Climate-gate scandal have been fired, and replaced by these highly-educated journalists who are so well-versed on the subject! :S

So we should be listening to Sarah Palin? 8O

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