Clearline Technology uses modern materials, components, and processes to create replacement parts for the venerable Meade Instruments LX-200 telescope such as its new Meade LX200 Hand Controller. Among its current lineup are the Motor Encoder Board – LX200 Classic/LXD650/LXD750; Calibration Tool for LX200 Motor Encoder Board; and a Boot-Up Emulator […]
In mid-July, Montana’s awe-inspiring night sky will be center stage at the Montana Learning Center’s inaugural Big Sky Star Festival. The two-night and three-day event, this coming July 17, 18 and 19, will be held at the Montana Learning Center’s campus at Canyon Ferry Lake, near Helena, Montana. Astronomy experts […]
![Celestron Telescope Founder Tom Johnson (left), is pictured with Johnson’s fork mounted 18.75 Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain telescope in 1962. As for the fork mount that defined Celestron’s early Schmidt-Cassegrains, Johnson describes it as based upon that of this telescope that was the subject of the cover story for the March 1963 issue of Sky & Telescope. “My idea of a fork mount was to make it portable like the 18-inch in the article in Sky & Tel. It had to have a folded optical path. That unit [the Cassegrain featured in Sky & Telescope] was a Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain.”](https://astronomytechnologytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/image005-322x212.gif)
Back in 2010 Gary Leonard Cameron published his PhD dissertation titled “Public Skies: Telescopes and the Popularization of Astronomy in the Twentieth Century” at Iowa State University. While typically most PhD Dissertations wouldn’t be the subject of an astronomy products news website, when we came across the document we were […]
In 1984 Ken Fulton published the “The Light-Hearted Astronomer”, a humorous and down-to-earth tome offering common sense on practicing amateur astronomy. He has updated his original work in his publication of “The Light-Hearted Astronomer Observes Again” which he crafted to appeal to beginners and experienced practitioners of the hobby. As […]
Rigel System’s is now offering nSTEP and STEPPER Motor Kits for camera lenses and telescope focus rings. The new kits offer the ability to motorize your camera or telescope focus ring with Rigel System’s powerful stepper motor for the ultimate in accurate auto-focusing. The stepper motor has a 0.1-degree step […]
Today’s Messier Marathon has its roots in the latter 1700’s as Charles Messier, a French astronomer, compiled a list of approximately 100 visible night sky objects that were difficult to distinguish from comets through the available telescopes of those times. Comet hunting was a way to make a name for […]
SkyTools 4 is now two products, SkyTools Imaging, which comes in a single edition, and the newly introduced SkyTools Visual, which is a comprehensive software platform dedicated to every aspect of visual observing including planning, finder charts, controlling a telescope and logging observations. SkyTools Visual comes in three editions: Standard, […]
The Rockland Astronomy Club (RAC) has announced they are rescheduling the NEAF event and the NEAIC imaging conference date to September 14-15, 2020. Instead they will be hosting “NEAF: The Virtual Experience” on April 4. Here is the NEAF organizational team’s announcement: Due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Rockland Community […]
Xerxes Scientific launched last year with the purpose of creating semi-custom telescope mounts and control systems for astronomical imaging. Their initial product designs were the D11 and D21 direct drive modules which are part of their modular telescope mount system, which can either be incorporated into custom telescope mounts or […]
Telescopi Italiani has announced the availability of its TI35 f/3.5 Astrograph Telescope in a f/3.5 figuration. The TI 35 (350 mm of clear aperture) is based on the same Modified Harmer Wynne optical configuration as Telescopi Italiani’s TI35 f/5 system. The TI 35 offers a very compact, light-weight, high-end performance […]
Lunático Astronomía has released the Seletek Limpet, a new streamlined focuser controller that will drive most motors in the market and attach to most focusers. With a small 12V battery and a WiFi interface there are no cables coming out of the telescope. Offering the same functionality of other Lunático […]
Lunático Astronomia’s new Lunático Last Line of Defense Observatory (LLLOD) software is designed to be there, hidden, in your observatory computer, waiting to take action if anything goes wrong. In a nutshell, it will monitor certain elements, periodically, and take control of and close the observatory if the circumstances become […]