Pluto, space, & beyond.

[Betty]

These are the only small, lightweight portable "fuss free" cheaper telescopes that are worth the bother. Any fair useful telescope isn't cheap. Binocular astronomy is a lot cheaper, being more casual & recreational than scientific. If you're gonna waste your money on a cheap kid's "toy" beginner scope, you might as well just save the money & get some good binoculars. I didn't list any reflector telescopes because most of them are bulkier, require too much maintenance, regular cleaning & other "fuss". If you're already a hard-core pro-astro hobbyist, you won't need this list anyway.

$150 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Celestron-PowerSeeker-80EQ-Telescope-BRAND-NEW/45744826

$190 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-with-Altazimuth-Mounts/Meade-Infinity-80mm-Altazimuth-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/334/p/113688.uts

$220 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-with-Altazimuth-Mounts/Meade-Infinity-90mm-Altazimuth-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/334/p/113689.uts

$250 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-with-Altazimuth-Mounts/Meade-Infinity-102mm-Altazimuth-Refractor-Telescope/pc/1/c/10/sc/334/p/113690.uts

$290 http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes/Refractor-Telescopes-for-Beginners/Orion-StarBlast-90mm-AZ-Telescope-amp-Beginner-Barlow-Kit/pc/1/c/10/sc/331/p/106874.uts

[Angela M...]

I have several pairs of Binoculars and two tripods that I have been using for years to bird watch and look at the stars also. I inherited two very good pairs when my father passed away as the head of the family and the only one who bothered with this kind of thing.
I have been reading lately about how Earth will run out of water and other resources in the future and perhaps other planets and asteroids may hold the key to our survival. What if we found a Planet where everybody only wore dresses. Would it be so exciting to us anymore or would we just love it all the more knowing we could do it all the time?

[Betty]

I think humans would be extinct or would have evolved into something else long before the earth runs out of water. However, if we're not careful, we may run out of clean, safe water. We already have & use technology to make our drinking water safe. Most of our drinking water goes to a processing plant & treated before for we drink it.

But nature, wildlife, & the food chain doesn't have that advantage. So once nature looses clean, safe water, we starve. And plants clean CO2 from the air to make oxygen. If the plants don't have enough clean safe water, we loose our breathable atmosphere too.

[alison]

I found a stereo picture of Pluto this week.  It looks like two images of Pluto, but one is a single frame, whereas the other is a mosaic that is pieced together.  If you merge the two images by crossing your eyes, you will get a stereo 3D image.  I found the 3D image interesting, but I thought it appeared much too oblong, shaped more like a watermelon on edge rather than a sphere.  I suspect this has to do with the different distances the two images were taken.

You can find the images and explanation here:  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150806.html

[Betty]

I can't cross my eyes enough to do it. It hurts my eyes to do it much. I can't do it at all without focusing on a finger close to my nose - which blurs the image. I'm currently using the 32" LCD/LED I rebuilt that I got broken almost for free.

Does it work better on a smaller screen? I have a 26" I got free & fixed, my original 23" monitor I bought before I got laid off, my 15" laptop, & a small used free 1995 ibook that I restored (I got as broken machine for parts, but got it running instead).

It's ironic now that I can't afford to buy them, my monitor size & quality has grown a lot because I get them almost for free broken, & managed to fix them cheap enough (parts cost).

[alison]

Yes, a smaller picture would mean you don't have to work as hard to cross your eyes.  You can go with a smaller monitor, step further away from the monitor so the images appear closer, or scale the picture to a smaller size.  Of course, that would reduce the resolution, so I would only choose it as a last resort.

[Betty]

I tried scaling down & switching to the 26". Still could get it to work. And if I cross my eyes my vision still blurs too much to see any detail.

[Betty]

I enhanced some more new pictures of Ceres, including the "strange" lights. Not so strange anymore in these newest images. The newest images start on second image at page 11 of the thread, & continues on page 12. Enjoy Astro-Fans!

http://unclegadget.com/psk/index.php?topic=37.50

[Angela M...]

Did you watch the Perseid meteor shower on Wednesday night Betty? I was lucky enough to be up north in Owen Sound on Georgian Bay and just after midnight the meteor show was pretty amazing due in fact to there not being many city lights where I was staying. It lasted until about four in the morning and then it started to get light but I was surprised to see many small planes flying around all night perhaps trying to get some amazing photo's. I watched until about 2 AM and then went to bed but got up twice to pee ( old age) and the show was still going on. I have seen a couple of comets and some meteors in my lifetime but this show was the best.

[Betty]

In my area I'm surrounded by tall old trees, & 3 story very tall former mansions, built in the day when every floor had 12-15 foot ceilings - they're as tall as 4-story buildings. So I don't have much open sky space around here. I sat at the side entrance on the steps for a while where I have the most view of the sky for a a while. I saw a few from there in my city location. But I don't breathe good in unfiltered, damp, dirty city air, so had to go inside after a while.

Inside, my windows face the wrong direction, & a lot of the view or the sky is blocked big trees, & buildings. But while I was making coffee last night, I shut off the lights to look out the kitchen window for meteors. Within a minute of shutting off the light I saw a rather bright orange one that lasted a couple seconds. So I sat there at the window in the dark sipping my coffee watching for another, but didn't see any more from there.

I saw a mouse scamper under the dumpster to our building in the back while watching. About 15 minutes later I saw a stray cat wander back there, so I don't think the mouse survived the night.

I'm hearing thunder getting closer, so there won't be any meteor viewing for me tonight.

Strong lightning between me & Lockport, Niagara Falls, or Toronto can knock out my DSL internet connection too. The Verizon DSL main hubs I usually connect to are in one of those towns. So line noise caused by lightning between them shut's it down.

Oddly, because Betty's is on akamai hybrid clouds servers, We see Betty's on an Akamai server right here in Buffalo. What's we're veiwing in this area is a cached version of Betty's updated from the original servers every few seconds on akamai servers right here in my town.

So currently I'm connected to Lockport, who connects to Toronto, just to connect to Akamai only a few miles away to view Betty's. But Betty's is actually originating 3,000 miles away. However, if someone lives closer to Toronto or NYC, they're viewing a cached version of Betty's on an Akamai server in their town. We don't notice it's a cached version because it updates the cache every few seconds, or every time something changes at the site (like when somebody posts).