Star Gazing

Hubby is an avid amateur astronomer. He bought his first real telescope with some proceeds from the sale of our first house - a 12.5" Meade dobsonian. Yah, that was pretty much Greek to me, too. Actually, his list of equipment might as well be Betelgeusian now. On a forum he visits, he lists his equipment as:

Meade 12.5" Starfinder w/Telrad, modified w/ hinged dust cover/stop-down mask/white light filter holder/light shield, electric ducted mirror scrubbing cooling system, tube cooling fan, Orion focuser, curved 3-vane spider, flocking paper and baffles, locking wheel dolly. My best all-around telescope from Moon to DSO. 110 Messier objects, Lunar Club | KonusMotor500 modified w/flocking paper and Orion tube rings, refigured OTA end ring, 90mm white light filter holder. Good rich-field views and my best white light solar telescope. Lunar Club | Coronado PST sits on top of Konus or on binocular mount system. Very nice when used with Konus-1000 Oaks system. | Orion 30x80 MegaView Binoculars w/Paragon Plus mount & red-dot sight. Simply outstanding observing equipment from Moon to DSO. Star Watch, 110 Messier objects, Lunar Club | Meade ETX90 EC w/90 & 45 prisms, Autostar controller & Galileo CIR Finder | Starry Night Pro 4.5.2 w/upgrade packs | 1988 Toyota 4x4 Pickup Truck "Meade Mule" w/ODS bumper sticker | Light Wedge | Orion Green Laser Pointer | Meade S. 4000 UWA 2"/1.25" EPs 14mm, 8.8mm. Top grade EPs, outstanding viewing. | Celestron Power Tank 17 | Meade S. 4000 Filters #12, #58, #23A, #80A, Nebular-Broadband | Parks ND 25 Filter | Lumicon OIII Filter | Lumicon Hat to hold my Astronomy League pins | 1000 Oaks 90mm White Light Filter Used on Starfinder & Konus | Lumicon Universal Digi-Cam Adapter

He even includes his hat on there. I suppose he could have worse hobbies. Listening to him talk to his star-gazing buddies, I might as well be at a car show. I expect the latest scope to have dual overhead cams or something.

"Yah, my Orion has a sweet double-headed octogentric pseudofiber spotting scope with dual overhead spelunkdinks and a quooble for extra storfing. Froody."

Anyways, as I was saying before I typically tangented, he bought his first real telescope with some house proceeds, under the excuse that he's buying it for the kids. N was maybe four months old at the time.

Well, he's living up to his excuse. To get an idea how big a 12.5" dobsonian telescope is, take a peek at S, 8 months, hanging out in the base:



Just like kids like the boxes better than the toys, she's really digging the base, forget the "oh my gawd Mars is so big it has to be hurtling towards us" scope that goes on it.

N appreciates a good peek, though. Of course, she can STAND, so that helps. Can't fault S for that, right?



That's her looking through the solar scope. It's like looking at the sun with peril-sensing sunglasses. It doesn't have to be big because, well, who in their right mind wants to magnify the sun?

A appreciates stargazing too, although she appreciates the rocks and lizards more than the celestial objects when we head out, but hey, someone has to watch out for rattlers, right? Alas, I don't have a picture of her with a scope, but I'll close with a classic result after I asked "A, go get a pillow and meet me in bed so I can read you a story" pose: