About

Hi, I’m Kevin, and this is my story…

Many years ago, I was the proud child recipient of a wobbly tripod bushnell refractor (“Price Club special”). Growing up in San Diego offered many clear nights – complete with light pollution, so I was able to take this cheapo refractor out. The only guide I had was an old DOS program called ‘SkyGlobe’. (Amazingly, you can still find copies of it floating around). Despite all the wobbles and shoddy 0.965″ eyepieces, I was fortunate enough to come across one of the skies most beautiful treats: Saturn.

It’s hard to explain how exciting that was, since unless you go through the same experience, it probably won’t be. When I show my children Saturn – or any other exciting night sky thing, they are mostly underwhelmed. Spectacular Hubble and satellite images have spoiled people rotten! Ironically the June 2010 Astronomy magazine has a column addressing this: Underwhelm people so when they do see something, they will be excited!

Remembering those those childhood memories lured me back in with a 12 inch Meade LX 200. Massive weight, clunky controls and an incredibly short power cord led to a few nights of untracked gazing. Generally exciting, but nothing too jolly. Mostly this scope just sat around for years. Eventually I gave it away to a co-worker after being harassed by family members about it’s unsightly appearance as a doorstop.

Around 2008 I got the bug again and decided to get a smaller, lighter scope. Enter the CPC 800. This scope was so incredibly easy to use with GPS, GOTO, and great tracking that I was completely amazed all over again! I quickly moved up to the CPC 1100 with aperture fever and then of course into astrophotography (because you can do that during the daytime). I added a NexStar 102 SLT refractor for the kids to play with (they never do), and in April 2010 added a Televue NP101is on a CGEM. More recently, in November 2010, I added an AstroTech AT10RCF and a CGE Pro mount.

While the books and internet have certainly been helpful in education, sometimes just “doing it” is the best educational experience of them all. So this site is dedicated to those trials and tribulations which I have (and will) go through trying to make things “just right”. Hopefully you wil enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy going through it.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: All content and images generated by me on this site are hereby placed in the public domain.  You may use any content I have created on this site free of charge for any purpose.  Use of this site and submission of any work to it also places those into the public domain.  You may not claim any rights to any works submitted.

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  • Ciprian
    #1 written by Ciprian  1 year ago

    Kevin, I really like your blog. There is a lot of useful info here. You astro pictures are really beautiful.
    I live in Kirkland, WA and I’m passionate about astronomy and AP, too. Maybe we’ll get a chance to meet someday. Are you member of any local astronomy club?

  • admin
    #2 written by admin  1 year ago

    Hey, thanks! I’m pretty sure that the whole astrophotography thing is bringing a lot more people into astronomy these days. Wow, have things changed since I was a kid!

    I’m not a member of any astronomy clubs. This weekend is the Table Mountain Star Party — http://www.tmspa.com/ Looks like conditions will be pretty good – so that might be a good venue if you are looking for a big group of smarty-smarts!

  • Rick
    #3 written by Rick  1 year ago

    Kevin,

    I live in Mill Creek, Washington ( only a few miles from you ) and I am considering the purchase of an Astronomy Technologies 12-inch RC OTA which should soon become available for purchase. I see that you have a 10-inch version of the same scope. I am wondering if you have encountered any problems with dewing on the hyperbolic secondard mirror or even the hyperbolic primary mirror. Certainly dewing is less likely on your AT10RC than on your Schmidt-Cassegrain. Are you using dew heaters on the AT10RC or are they just not needed?

    Thank you,

    Rick Dickson

  • admin
    #4 written by admin  1 year ago

    So far I have only been able to use the scope once; clouds and a mount issue. The one night that I did use it I didn’t have nay dew problems. As you could see in the picture I posted, it was well below freezing, so it would have created little frost crystals on the secondary. I would imagine dew will not be much of a problem with the secondary facing “inward”. If it were outward I am sure it’d be an issue. So, for that one night I didn’t use any sort of anti-dew stuff. For the SCT I use an astrozap with heater or just the good ol’ fashion hair dryer. My conclusion from the one day was that for imaging, the AT10RC was simply better on so many different levels than an equivalent SCT. For visual observing I’d probably say the opposite.

    I actually have the AT10RCF – carbon fiber version. While this might not help so much with dew, it does help keep shape with temperature changes, which, along with the quartz mirror and drawtube focuser helps to battle temperature change focus issues. For me, the temp changes typically precede dew attacks, especially in the winter!

    One other thing you might want to consider with the AT12RC (or AT16RC) is that the focal length is bound to change which could create some issues for oversampling. There’s no reducer currently available.

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