Today, I Am The Luckiest Man In The World

I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. When I got it home, I
aimed it at the first blurry object I saw, and it was the Pleiades.
Orion's Sword looked fuzzy, so I looked at it and found out it was the
Orion Nebula. I'd never seen Venus, and when I looked at that, she was in
a crescent phase.

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.

John Schutkeker wrote:

I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. ...

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.

If your small and cheap scope has a mount that lets you point at
what you want to point at, a finder that lets you find things,
and optics that let you see things, you are indeed lucky.
Keep at it.

A small scope, if it's good enough to work with at all, will
show you many bright targets. There are articles about seeing
all the Messier objects with a 60mm refractor. Your scope is
comparable to the ones early astronomers used to make amazing
discoveries. It's plenty for Moon and (with proper aperture
filter and safety precautions) Sun observing.

Congratulations and have a happy New Year with your new scope.

--
Glenn Holliday

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:09:12 GMT, John Schutkeker wrote:

I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. When I got it home, I
aimed it at the first blurry object I saw, and it was the Pleiades.
Orion's Sword looked fuzzy, so I looked at it and found out it was the
Orion Nebula. I'd never seen Venus, and when I looked at that, she was in
a crescent phase.

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.


Congratulations, John. Your scope is far superior to what Galileo used. I
miss my 2.4 inch refractor which I gave to my son-in-law. I don't think he
knows the beauty of capability of the gift. What a shame.

Under dark enough skies, that scope of yours will reach WAY out there to
net you galaxies and nebula which will astound you. No, you won't see lots
of detail, but if seeing them at all is enough, as I believe it will be for
you, then you are the stuff of which a lifetime amateur astronomer is made.

Welcome to the fold.


--Martin

Hi John...
Wish I could get a few like you in our club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where are you located? Can you email me? lancha AT ix dOT NETCOM dot
Com (to keep the spammers away)
Doink
"John Schutkeker" wrote in message
. 17.102...

I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. When I got it home, I
aimed it at the first blurry object I saw, and it was the Pleiades.
Orion's Sword looked fuzzy, so I looked at it and found out it was the
Orion Nebula. I'd never seen Venus, and when I looked at that, she was in
a crescent phase.

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:09:12 GMT, John Schutkeker wrote:

I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. When I got it home, I
aimed it at the first blurry object I saw, and it was the Pleiades.
Orion's Sword looked fuzzy, so I looked at it and found out it was the
Orion Nebula. I'd never seen Venus, and when I looked at that, she was in
a crescent phase.

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.

That's the spirit, John! Thanks for the great post. The scope you're
using is far better than my grandfather's old binoculars that I first used
to look at the Moon and a few other things. And I was also thrilled!
There really is nothing like the first time viewing these things. It's now
great fun to relive that thrill vicariously through you and others. And
there are many more objects you'll be enjoying with that scope. You are
indeed very lucky to have started your voyage of discovery. Please fill us
in when you make more discoveries!

Mike Simmons

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:09:12 GMT, John Schutkeker
wrote:


I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. When I got it home, I
aimed it at the first blurry object I saw, and it was the Pleiades.
Orion's Sword looked fuzzy, so I looked at it and found out it was the
Orion Nebula. I'd never seen Venus, and when I looked at that, she was in
a crescent phase.

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.


Congratulations. Excellent things to start wih. Now, if you can find
Gemini...and locate Castor and Pollux (the bright "head" stars of
Gemini), find a star that is about a fist and a half down and to the
left of the lower of the two, and point your little scope at that...

Hint - A bit of magnification (about 100x) would make it really nice.

And the Moon will be out in a coupe of days. That should knock your
socks off too.

If you have some binoculars, try locating objects in your binoculars
and then finding them in your scope. Where are you located? How dark
is it there? I may have some other things for you to try.

"Martin R. Howell" wrote in
:

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:09:12 GMT, John Schutkeker wrote:

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks
off, and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't
seem fair that one man should be so lucky.

I miss my 2.4 inch refractor which I gave to my son-in-law. I
don't think he knows the beauty of capability of the gift. What a
shame.

I think you have to lead people by the hand, set up the scope and say
"check this out." People don't know what they're missing until they've
seen it with their own eyes, and since most folks don't *love* science
you and I do, we have to make extra effort to show them how cool it is.

If you do this, let me know if it works, because I've been wanting to
try it on my neighborhood kids.

Under dark enough skies, that scope of yours will reach WAY out there
to net you galaxies and nebula which will astound you.

In suburban Detroit, our skies are not very dark, but it's better than
Buffalo, where I was in the heart of the city. We also had chemical
pollution in addition to the light pollution, and on an average night,
it felt like you could only see about fifteen stars.

I'm going to specialize in "bad sky viewing." As CSNY said, "If you
can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." If I aim it
where I expect objects should be, I expect that the invisible objects
should magically appear. The next task is M51!

"John Schutkeker" wrote in message
. 17.102...

I could only afford a 2.4 inch reflector for $50. When I got it home, I
aimed it at the first blurry object I saw, and it was the Pleiades.
Orion's Sword looked fuzzy, so I looked at it and found out it was the
Orion Nebula. I'd never seen Venus, and when I looked at that, she was in
a crescent phase.

I'd only made three observations, but everyone of them blew my socks off,
and this with the cheapest telescope on the market. It doesn't seem fair
that one man should be so lucky.

Good for you, keep doing it. You might like to find a copy of 'Turn Left at
Orion'.
jc

To John

Venus does not and never had a crescent,diminishing or otherwise.

What you are seeing is the orbital orientation of Venus to the Sun
against the Earth's outer orbital position.

Now,if you want to be a real astronomer and enjoy the entire absense of
light from Venus then look at Venus pass before the Sun seen from
Earth's orbital position -

http://home.cogeco.ca/~astrosarnia/P...Web%20view.jpg

Now do you realise that Venus is roughly the same size as the Earth so
you get the true scale of our parent star and the incredible scale of
heliocentric orbital motion of the Earth.

You have all the conviction of an astrologer which is fine but genuine
people have been put off from enjoying real astronomy by people who
love their constellations,sunrise/sunset,creascents of Venus,variable
axial tilt of the Earth and other astrological kitch.


Want to see a real heliocentric astronomical insight -

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2000_tezel.gif

The Ptolemaic's seen epicycles while the heliocentrists see the annual
orbital motion of the Earth.There are the Newtonian quasi-geocentrists
who see retrogrades but these are the same people who see the sword of
Orion and the crescent of Venus.

"oriel36" wrote in message
oups.com...
To John

Venus does not and never had a crescent,diminishing or otherwise.
What you are seeing is the orbital orientation of Venus to the Sun
against the Earth's outer orbital position.

Now,if you want to be a real astronomer and enjoy the entire absense of
light from Venus then look at Venus pass before the Sun seen from
Earth's orbital position -

http://home.cogeco.ca/~astrosarnia/P...Web%20view.jpg

Now do you realise that Venus is roughly the same size as the Earth so
you get the true scale of our parent star and the incredible scale of
heliocentric orbital motion of the Earth.

You have all the conviction of an astrologer which is fine but genuine
people have been put off from enjoying real astronomy by people who
love their constellations,sunrise/sunset,creascents of Venus,variable
axial tilt of the Earth and other astrological kitch.


Want to see a real heliocentric astronomical insight -

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2000_tezel.gif

The Ptolemaic's seen epicycles while the heliocentrists see the annual
orbital motion of the Earth.There are the Newtonian quasi-geocentrists
who see retrogrades but these are the same people who see the sword of
Orion and the crescent of Venus.



In addition to the "Newtonian quasi-geocentrists who see retrogrades but
these are the same people who see the sword of Orion and the crescent of
Venus," there are also the pompous assholes whose sole mission in life is to
complicate the simple pleasures for no good reason other than to protect
their own empty egos and to make themselves appear smarter than the rest of
us.

When I started doing the important things, I found that I had lots of time.