Astro Nut

The best bit of advice I can give you about purchasing new equipment is to
try before you buy!
My Astro Hut is full of stuff I wish had never bought.
Eyepieces, worthless filters and bits and pieces of hardware.
Most of the equipment in this hobby such a personal choice.
Your choice of equipment all depends on how and what you’re going to do with it.

So before you go and shell out your hard-earned money, visit your local astronomy club.
Go to one of the local star parties.
Or visit one of the plethora of online forums.
GET INFORMED!

Will the Earth fry future moon astronauts? by ZDNet’s Roland Piquepaille — Researchers working for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have discovered that the Earth’s magnetic tail could be harmful to future astronauts. The moon stays inside Earth’s ‘magnetotail’ for six days every month — during full moon. This can have consequences ranging from lunar ‘dust storms’ to strong electrostatic discharges, according to one researcher quoted by NASA in ‘The Moon and the Magnetotail.’ So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon when the magnetotail hits. As added the same scientist, ‘Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.’ But read more…

This is my backyard set up.
I put down 3 little concrete pads for the mount
and I know what branch Polaris hides behind.
So doing an rough Polar alignment is a snap.
I can drag the mount with the scope out of the house
all set up.

Join thousands of other students, families and citizen-scientists hunting for stars during March 8 - 21, 2007. Take part in this international event to observe the nighttime sky and learn more about light pollution around the world.

During the 2006 event over 18,000** people from 96 countries on all continents (except Antarctica) reported more than 4500 nighttime observations. Help us
The Globe At Night

I just got my DeepMap 600 and I am more than impressed with it.
If you are looking to observe more than just the Messier objects or the Herschel 400 then this is the map for you!
DeepMap 600 is more biased towards interesting galaxies and nebulae.
DM600 contains a list of 85 interesting double and multiple stars, and stars that exhibit interesting color..
DM600 contains a list of 22 interesting variable stars.

You can get yours here
DeepMap 600

Here’s a pretty good example of light pollution:
This drawing was done from my moderately light polluted backyard
There are about 5 street lamps around my house
This drawing was done from my dark site 20 miles away

both of these are M22 found in Sagittarius.
as you can see the effects of pretty dramatic.

The town I live in is moderately sized about 35,000 so the light pollution is not horrendous as it is in large cities but it still bad enough to make a huge difference.

This is a the log book format that I am using, you can download it HERE
One of the best things you can do is to LOG EVERYTHING YOU VIEW
I can’t tell yo how many times I have looked at a star chart and say “yes I have seen that” but never logged it.

And it does not count if don’t log it!

I still have some Messier Objects that I need to get before they are gone for this year.
In Sagittarius
M20 M21 M23 M55 M25 M24 M18 M54 M28 M75 M69 M70

In Scorpius
M4 M6 M7 M80

In Ophiuchus
M62 M107 M9 M19 M14 M107 M62 M10 M9 M12

It looks like it might be a good night for going out to my dark site.

I found this sweet eyepiece case down at Lowes.
It was right around $25.00
Check your local Lowes HERE
It can hold all of the EP that I have right now not that I have that many.
It has that “pluck” foam inserts that lets you make your own cut outs.
I just have not figured out the lay out yet, I will have to get it out in the field a couple of times.
The back foam pulls out to allow access to a tool section
So far I have not found a use for it but behind it I can keep my
LOG BOOK.
I think that this is going to work out very good for me!