When thinking about the GSO Eight Cassegrain telescope, its worthwhile to look back to Laurent Cassegrain who was a 17th century French Roman Catholic priest and is given credit for inventing the telescope design that carries his name. Cassegrain telescopes use a parabolic primary mirror with a hyperbolic secondary mirror. […]
Normand Fullum of Canadian based Optiques Fullum traveled to New Jersey to install and deliver an insanely large modified Fullum-Folded Newtonian Telescope with a 50” primary mirror, a focal ratio of 3.5 and a fully motorized guiding system. They video’d the one day instillation. Its truly amazing to watch, check […]
Farpoint Astro has introduced a new 8-inch Imaging Newtonian offered in f/4 and f/6 configurations. The first products will be ready to ship on June 21 and Farpoint is offering the first 10 early adopters a $1,000 discount on the telescope. The new Farpoint Astro telescope offers the following: – […]
Orion Magnetic Dobsonian Counterweight: If you’ve got a Dob, you’ve likely done it – resorted to zip bags of lead fishing sinkers or ankle weights duct-taped to your OTA. Well, you can stop with the ugly tape residue. There’s now a practical, versatile counterweight solution for fine balance of your […]
Catseye Infinity XLKP Autocollimator Collimation Tool: Newtonian astrograph telescope users can now confidently take autocollimator focuser-axis alignment to the next level of precision without the need of a focuser drawtube extension. By design, Newtonian astrographs incorporate a “back-focus” position of the primary mirror’s native focal plane to facilitate image focus […]
It’s hard to deny the impact that John Dobson had on the amateur astronomy hobby. His introduction of the Dobsonian telescope to the world in the late 60’s in combination with his grassroot outreach efforts through the creation of the Sidewalk Astronomers forever changed the landscape of our hobby. Below […]
Astrozap Telescope Dust Covers: Astronomers can get pretty finicky about cleanliness, especially when it comes to their telescope optics. The reality is that dust is everywhere and it is next to impossible to keep it entirely off a telescope’s optics. However, you don’t have to allow dust to settle on […]
Sky-Watcher Starlux 190MN Review: I have a 6-inch f/6 Newtonian and a 6-inch f/6.5 achromat refractor that I use entirely for visual use. I invested around $300 in the Newtonian and $700 in the refractor. Both are great instruments for their price. However, the Newtonian’s mirror does not have the […]
Vintage SBIG ST Astronomy Camera Review: Over the years, I have been amazed when reading magazine advertisements for astronomical cameras. The year-to-year advances in the quantity, quality, sophistication and automation of available options have been astounding. But, so have increases in overall prices. Yes, there are affordable cameras capable […]
By Dr. James R. Dire Dr. James Dire has an M.S. in physics from the University of Central Florida and a M.A. and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University, both in planetary science and is an associate provost at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Spring, N.C., and a professor of physics […]
We saw Meade’s new EclipseView Line of Solar Safe telescopes first this year in January at CES in Las Vegas, then again at NEAF in April, and now they are ready for shipment. What makes them so great? They are dual-purpose instruments, ready for use during the day for solar […]