So, how was Stellafane?

There has been a lot of talk about registration fees, but does anyone
want to volunteer a report about this year's activities? Or did I
somehow miss them?

Any really interesting homebuilt scopes? The swap tables? The Perseids
or the weather?

Starry Skies,
Rich

Expensive.

wet muddy
"Richard DeLuca" wrote in message
news
There has been a lot of talk about registration fees, but does anyone
want to volunteer a report about this year's activities? Or did I
somehow miss them?

Any really interesting homebuilt scopes? The swap tables? The Perseids
or the weather?

Starry Skies,
Rich

OK..it looks like nobody else will be serious, so I will.

Stellafane was slightly damp and a little windy Fri during the day. Fri eve
poured at times. Several good fri evening talks...Mario Motta's home
observatory talk was particularly good.

Sat dawned partly cloudy and stayed that way. Some nice solar observing Sat.
TONS of Coronado H-alpha scopes...compare this to 5 years ago when maybe 1
person would have a daystar. They have really revolutionized solar observing
for the masses.

Sat eve saw a few stars poking out...but nothing worth observing. We didn't
win any doorprize AGAIN. Somebody needs to get Levy to stop setting poor
slide shows to music in his Shadowgram talks.

Dobson didn't speak (yay!).

The only really interesting thing at the swap area was a nice, but not
perfect, Fecker Celestar 6" mak...I bought it...came with 4 old Brandons
non-parfocal, flat tops, no filter threads. Anyone know their vintage??? I'd
guess mid-'60s. Previous owners (Westport Astro Soc. of Ct.) took great care
of tis scope and eyepieces...they're to be commended, many clubs wouldn't
have done nearly as well.

Visited the 'Vette "museum"...kids liked it. Well worth the entrance price
of $0.00.

Peter Bealo
Sweet Hill Observatory
Plaistow NH


"Richard DeLuca" wrote in message
news
There has been a lot of talk about registration fees, but does anyone
want to volunteer a report about this year's activities? Or did I
somehow miss them?

Any really interesting homebuilt scopes? The swap tables? The Perseids
or the weather?

Starry Skies,
Rich

In article RKbVc.48491$TI1.10483@attbi_s52,
"Peter Bealo" wrote:


The only really interesting thing at the swap area was a nice, but not
perfect, Fecker Celestar 6" mak...I bought it...


Sure that Fecker isn't a Mresserchmidt?........ ducking


came with 4 old Brandons
non-parfocal, flat tops, no filter threads. Anyone know their vintage??? I'd
guess mid-'60s. Previous owners (Westport Astro Soc. of Ct.) took great care
of tis scope and eyepieces...they're to be commended, many clubs wouldn't
have done nearly as well.


Before Don Yeir bought Brandon, apparently. Nice find, I'd say.

Thanks, Peter. Maybe see you next month.

Rich

In article
,
Richard DeLuca wrote:




Sure that Fecker isn't a Mresserchmidt?........ ducking

Really bad typo. 'Messerschmitt.'

halfro wrote:
wet muddy

Hey we have star parties like that in the UK too. Especially the
November ones.

Steve

Richard DeLuca wrote in message ...
There has been a lot of talk about registration fees, but does anyone
want to volunteer a report about this year's activities? Or did I
somehow miss them?

Any really interesting homebuilt scopes? The swap tables? The Perseids
or the weather?

Starry Skies,
Rich


Howdy Rich,

Here's a report I posted from the Hartness House early Sunday morning
that weekend. BTW, our drive back was not affected by Charley
afterall.

I decided to order a PST from B & H the day after I got back from
Vermont and received it four days later. First light was Monday
afternoon.

Dave Mitsky


Greetings from Stellafane

I'm sending this message from the historic Hartness House in
Springfield, Vermont.

Well, the 2004 Stellafane convention (see http://www.stellafane.com )
is over and although the skies were not particularly kind to us this
year (in fact, Aquafane might be a more apt description) I had a great
time schmoozing with various friends and acquaintances including such
notables as Al Nagler, David Levy, John Bortle, Dennis di Cicco, Sue
and Alan French, and Phil Harrington. We even got a bit of solar
observing in on Saturday once the remnants of Hurricane Bonnie had
passed. John Vogt had a dual H-alpha rig composed of a Coronado 40 and
a Coronado PST f/10 refractors both of which provided great views. The
PST was particularly impressive considering its relatively modest
cost. In addition to sunspots, solar prominences and filaments I saw a
solar flare emanating from AR 10649. Uncle Al's binoviewer equipped
TV-NP101 provided great white light views as did several other larger
Newtonians, an achromatic refractor, and a Gregorian.

There were the usual mirror grinding demonstrations and talks in the
big tent. Careful maneuvering was required to avoid the small lakes
produced by the copious Stellarain that fell on Thursday and Friday.

The Saturday morning swap meet provided its usual assortment of truly
odd items. I bought a book of lunar sketches and a 50mm finder scope.

There were many innovative and beautiful telescopes entered in the ATM
competition. Especially noteworthy were Norman Pullum's two incredibly
ornate Newtonians, a Herschelian Maksutov Dob (how's that for an
exotic design?), and an automated, self-propelled (I kid you not) 16"
classical Cassegrain.

As usual I won nada in the raffle and as usual John Dobson was the
oldest Stellafane attendee.

Charley hasn't reached us yet but its outlying clouds certainly have,
ruining the partly clear skies that graced the beginning of Saturday
night. I did have the opportunity to do a little binocular observing
and to behold NGC 6826, the Blinking Nebula, through a 14.5" ATM Dob.
My significant other and I also saw a fairly impressive meteor and a
few satellites.

This morning I'll have the pleasure of driving back through pouring
rain just as I did on the way here on Thursday but that's a small
price to pay for the magic of Stellafane.

Peter Bealo wrote:

snip

The only really interesting thing at the swap area was a nice, but not
perfect, Fecker Celestar 6" mak...I bought it...came with 4 old Brandons
non-parfocal, flat tops, no filter threads. Anyone know their vintage??? I'd
guess mid-'60s. Previous owners (Westport Astro Soc. of Ct.) took great care
of tis scope and eyepieces...they're to be commended, many clubs wouldn't
have done nearly as well.

snip
Peter Bealo
Sweet Hill Observatory
Plaistow NH

"Richard DeLuca" wrote in message
news
There has been a lot of talk about registration fees, but does anyone
want to volunteer a report about this year's activities? Or did I
somehow miss them?

Any really interesting homebuilt scopes? The swap tables? The Perseids
or the weather?

Starry Skies,
Rich

We had a Fecker Celestar 6" at Longway Planetarium here in Flint, ca.
1964. Are you sure yours is a MAC? IIRC, ours was a sort-of
Schmidt-Newtonian with the tertiary mirror arranged on the declination
axis (less eyepiece movement). The corrector plate was quite thin, and
there was a definite secondary mirror (NOT an aluminized spot on the
back of the corrector). It was an excellent concept, very compact, but
badly flawed in execution. I had to maintain this scope for several
years. Getting all the optics in line was nightmare, and the cells were
poor, with lots of slop and poor adjustments. Even after you got
everything lined up, one decent bump and all was lost again. I managed
to keep it mostly functional, with lots of bad words along the way. When
I left, nobody else could keep it working, and they sold it at a flea
market a few years later.

We also had one of their 4" regular Newtonians. This was a rather nice
little scope without all the complications of it's larger Schmidt
cousin. Both were unusually attractive looking scopes, with interesting
casting shapes, and the white pebble-painted tubes and blue fork mounts.

Dan Mitchell
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