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I love astronomy. I remember the first time I
looked though my telescope and saw the rings of Saturn and the orange bands on
Jupiter. I had wanted a telescope for the longest time and
especially after taking two Astronomy courses at FIU,
so I finally broke down and bought a Meade
ETX. (For the best web site on the ETX, check out Weasner's
Mighty ETX site.) Recently, I sold the scope to Mike
Wolf and I hope to buy a TeleVue
TV85. I don't think Mike has used the scope since I sold it
to him so I'm sure if you offered him something, he'd probably
sell it. I sold it because I was not impressed with the
plastic mount or plastic drive gears. It kinda wobbled even
when mounted on a good tripod. Once I get the TeleVue
I hope to mount it to a Losmandy
GM-8 tripod or possibly the Great Polaris Deluxe as seen in the Orion
catalog. If you have any experience with either of these
mounts or the TeleVue,
please email me. The
two magazines I read most often about astronomy are Astronomy
and Sky and
Telescope. As a kid I remember watching Cosmos by
the late Dr. Carl Sagan. I wish they would still air that
show, although I have heard rumors you could buy the entire series
on DVD. A project I would like to attempt would be to
machine my own mount using my lathe and milling machine.
Maybe add some stepper motors for motion control using CNC
software? Then maybe later I can make my own tripod legs
that would look similar to the trellis-frame on a Ducati
Monster. Of course you can't have an astronomy page
without a link to SETI@Home,
please support them. Also, be sure to check out the NASA
link if you have never been there. They have a cool Java
applet called SkyWatch.
"NASA SkyWatch
is a web-based Java application that provides sky watchers
worldwide with a picture of when and where the International Space
Station, the space shuttle and other spacecraft can be seen with
the unaided eye as they pass overhead."
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The Meade ETX
TeleVue TV-85
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