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by Diana Symons
I just recently subscribed to the TAC list and returned from a week's vacation to 334 email mail messages, most of which came from TAC. It's been an interesting read and I'm glad to see that there will be no pistols at dawn from the recent flurry of angry messages.
I have a recent public SJAA star party to thank for my new interest in the night sky. It was the first time I ever looked through a telescope and what I saw was Saturn. I think it should be everyone's first view. What could be more dramatic for a novice?
After that, I was determined to have my own telescope to play with. I mentioned this at work and a friend offered to loan me his for a few weeks so I would be sure that the expense would be worth it. (He thought that Saturn was the only thing of interest to look at and I would be bored.) I took his ETX home and after an hour, figured out what to do with it. What a hoot! I never learned the constellations as a kid, so I'm doing that now. Unfortunately, I don't know how to find much of anything. What I can find is Venus, Mars and the moon and I've had a blast just with that.
I went to Redding over the weekend for a wedding and brought the ETX with me hoping for chance to use it. My sister lives out of town some miles, not entirely dark sky, but certainly better than Santa Clara. The weather was terrible, cloudy all day and finally showers. I was so disappointed but continued to send up prayers to clear skies. And behold! The clouds parted and there were stars! The family was intrigued and curious with the telescope and everyone came out to look at Mars and the moon. Venus was still shrouded by low clouds. I wish I could have seen more detail on Mars. It looked like heat waves blurring the view.
Well, now that I've had my fun, I must return the little scope to it's owner. I'm pretty interested in the suggestion of the telescope tune-up party. I would like to see the different telescopes that everyone has so I can decide which would be a good purchase for me. The ETX was nice, but the it came without a tripod and trying to view through it on a tabletop got to be down right difficult at times. Also, I started wondering what a 6", 8" or 12" aperture would do for the view. Then again, the review I read of the new ETX with the programmed star finder looked pretty handy for someone like me who has trouble finding much beyond Orion's belt and the Big Dipper.
I'm looking forward to the day (or night) when I can find Messier objects on my own so I can try to compete with the Monster. It's all new and delightful and I'm having a great time. Hope to meet you all soon.