Telescopes

Telescopes

by JonathanNo Comments
The question I'm asked most frequently on cruises is, "What kind of telescope should I buy?" There's no single right answer for that question. It's the Golden Age of Telescope Gadgetry, and there's practically no limit of ways to spend your money in this hobby. The type of telescope to get will depend on many factors: Your budget What you want to see (Moon, planets, deep sky, double stars, etc.) Portability and "footprint" How familiar you are with finding your way around the sky Your expectations That being said, here are some possibilities to consider. Incidentally, I am not compensated by any telescope or gear manufacturers. And I am not necessarily recommending specific brands, although some have some unique features. "Telescope of the Year" designation is from High Point Scientific, Inc. (https://highpointscientific.com), who are a reputable and popular retailer in the US. Too Long; Didn't Read -- a Quick Suggestion If there is an astronomy club in your area, see if they have any scheduled public observing sessions. It's...
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Recollections of Robert Shaw, 1916-1999

Recollections of Robert Shaw, 1916-1999

by JonathanNo Comments
Twenty years ago today, the world mourned the passing of conductor Robert Shaw. Shaw was a towering figure of the American classical music scene beginning in the early 1940s when he prepared choruses for Arturo Toscanini.  I had the great good fortune to sing with Mr. Shaw on two occasions in the 1990s. Those two periods were among the most profound experiences of my musical career and my adult life. Carnegie Hall, January 1995 Despite having only three years of experience as a choral singer, I somehow passed an audition to participate in one of Mr. Shaw’s annual workshops at Manhattan Center Studios, capped with a performance at Carnegie Hall. The program included two short Brahms pieces—Nänieand Gesang der Parzen(Song of the Fates), as well as Paul Hindemith’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. Making the week extra special was that my wife Jane and our good friend Dina Weiss were also at the workshop, as were several of our choral conductor friends from...
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Saying Farewell to Saturn: Part 2—The Final Plunge and a Legendary Party

by JonathanNo Comments
Friday, September 15, 2017 I managed to fall asleep sometime after 9 p.m. Pacific Time Thursday evening. I awoke just before my alarm was set to go off at 2 a.m. Friday. I again felt grateful to the wise people in JPL media relations for making us go home Thursday afternoon so we didn’t have to stay “on Lab” overnight! When we left the hotel at 2:30, my colleague Stephen van Vuuren had already written his social media post to go live at 5 a.m. accompanied by a mosaic of Cassini’s final portrait of Saturn compiled by Jason Major, who has done much of the image processing for In Saturn’s Rings. The drive from our hotel in Arcadia was very smooth until we got near Flintridge. Caltrans had blocked off all three exits from the westbound 110 to the JPL area for road construction! Fortunately, we were able to get off at the next exit and double back. Thank goodness for GPS...
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Saying Farewell to Saturn – Part 1

by JonathanNo Comments
This is the first part of a three-part blog about the end of the Cassini mission to Saturn, and my small part as an observer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during mid-September 2017. Everyone remembers their first glimpse of Saturn through a telescope. It seems unbelievable that you could see a planet with rings—but there it is! I gazed at Saturn a few weeks ago with my new 90mm spotting scope, and I attempted to capture my first image of a planet that evening. I shot several minutes of video through the scope and then used image stacking software to make a composite of the hundred or so best frames of video. To my surprise, the image came out pretty well. The image in the video is much larger than Saturn appeared through the eyepiece. You can just make out some of Saturn’s atmospheric bands and maybe a hint of the Cassini division between the A ring and B ring…or am I...
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Witnessing the Total Solar Eclipse of March 7, 1970

by Jonathan1 Comment
With the levels of hype and anticipation rapidly growing for next month's Eclipse Across America (or whatever people are calling it now), I have been reflecting on when I witnessed a total solar eclipse back in 1970 as a 13-year-old. I was an 8th grade student at Walt Whitman Intermediate School in the Mt. Vernon area south of Alexandria, Virginia. I was deeply interested in all things space and astronomical. I had received a toy-store 3" reflector telescope for my birthday in 1968, and I quickly outgrew its capabilities. My parents gave me a 4-1/2" Tasco reflector telescope for Christmas in 1969. As a subscriber to Sky and Telescope magazine, I knew full well that the path of a total solar eclipse would be skirting the East Coast of the United States on March 7, 1970. Our home was about 200 miles away from the path of totality. We'd see a very nice partial eclipse with only a thin sliver of the sun...
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Remembering My Dad, in His Own Words

by JonathanNo Comments
Father's Day 2017. My father passed away eleven years ago, but it still seems much more recent than that. I was struggling to come up with an appropriate way to summarize my memories of him, which is frustrating because there are so many aspects I'd want to capture. And then I remembered the closing chapter to the autobiography to the memoir he wrote for my siblings and me ("The Little Round Man Who Goes Boom"). I printed out the chapter for everyone who attended his end-of-life celebration in May 2006. I hadn't looked at it since that time. Looking at it now with the benefit of more than a decade to put my thoughts and feelings into perspective, I find it astonishing that a man who sometimes seemed so well-defended and sure of himself was able to see his strengths and weaknesses so clearly, and to laugh at himself and his foibles. [My friends will see a lot of him in me,...
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Welcome to my new site!

by JonathanNo Comments
As I began preparing for three presentations this month, I asked my friend, the very gifted artist Marie van Vuuren, if she'd help me design new business cards. Marie started the process by Googling me and said, "You are all over the place!" It's true. My varied interests have taken me to the four corners of the Earth and out into the Solar System, but I don't have one place on the Web that's my "home." This site is an attempt to rectify that situation. I'll continue to update my posts in many places, but this is now my central spot from which to share my activities, thoughts, and observations. I look forward to your comments and suggestions!...
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