What Kind, Size and .. What Is The Name Of Your Telescope? How did it get it's name? Other fun questions I've asked :
Jul 8, 2009
Sharing Night Sky Stories - The Telescope
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10 COMMENTS:
I call my 4.5" f/9 Dob - "Little Man Tate" because it really is an overacheiver! From my pasture in rural NC I was able to observe all 110 Messiers and worked through a good chunk of the AL Doublestar list. Its amazing what you can see through a 4.5" scope if you take your time and study.
My 10" F/5 Dob is called "Big Red" - its out of the last batch of consumer scopes Hardin sold and they were all out of Blue, so I went with the Red one instead of Black or White. With it I've done all of the Caldwells obseverable from my location, and the SAC and RASC finest/best NGC lists.
My TV Pronto is called Pronto...I guess you "really" can't call it anything else although the inside joke has always labeled it as "Tasco Tonto" just to make fun of it (I observe with strange people!).
The most common question is..."what are you doing?" or "is there anything special happening tonight?" to which I answer, "it's always special!"
Hey Rapid Eye, awesome observing fella. Truly little scopes rule.What a way to train your eye and create a skill set that allows you to enjoy this stuff. Congrats to you! I love those red tube hardin scopes - got to use a 12" a few years back at a outreach and the color captured a bunch of attention! Big red is a good name for a metal tube photon collector.
Hey Marc, I get that question all the time and I use the same basic answer - "there is always something special happening are you curious enough to see it?" Love the tasco tonto, priceless!
Hey NSG is there something wrong with me, none of my scopes has a name..............I draw a blank on this.
4.5 inch
celestron something
i call it "old schwartzie" because i got it from my german grandmother many many years ago, and it is the color black
onestly, I know dozens of folks with scopes who don't name them. I have seen a fair number of people on Internet sites who have nicknames for their setups. But usually, people call them by some form of the brand name or function. I have a friend who has two scopes, both the same size, both of which he made himself. There is no brand. He refers to them by their focal lengths, the f/6 and the f/8. We know then what he means. When I'm going out members of my club want to know what I'm taking so I either say "the Tak" (Takahashi refractor) or "the C14." Some people have more than one Takahashi! So that person might say: "I'm taking the 150" (TOA 150mm, a six inch very expensive refractor") or "the FS102" (four inch, very good quality, light weight refractor).
What gets tricky here is that "your telescope" usually means, at the low end, a complete setup including the optical tube and the mount. Most beginners' setups are like that. Also, Dobson mounted Newtonians always means the mount is incorporated into the design that holds the structure. So if you're taking your Obsession 18 inch people don't ask what kind of mount you're putting it on.
But that's not true of other high-end telescopes. The parts are mix-and-match. So if I say I'm tired and I'm setting up the G11 (which is a mount, made by Losmandy) instead of the AP900 (which is a bigger mount, made by astro-physics) then it means I probably won't set up the C14 with a side-mounted refractor, but will probably use one of my smaller telescopes. So if I want to say something that means anything to people I can't say "I'm taking Star gal" or "Lizzie" etc. If I tell my friends I'm putting the Tak on the G11, then they understand what I mean.
But I do have a nickname for the C14 (Celestron SCT, 14 inches). I call it the old light-bucket o' bolts. It's my favorite scope. The Tak is sweet. Very sweet. I have others. But what I have noticed in my club is that members have a rough idea of what everybody has and we tend to refer by some combination of function (focal length, size, or brand name) rather than nicknames. A huge number of nicknames would get us all too confused.
It's very common as much money to go into a telescope mount as into the telescope optics. Even the mount, by the way, is separate from the tripod or pier that carries the mount which carries the telescope. There are separate market competitors for each spot. Celestron and Meade try to market complete products, but once one gets beyond these manufacturers, mix-and-match your components gets very common as one looks for the elusive "perfect telescope." It's also very typical for entry-level instruments to come with two eyepieces, but again, once you're spending serious cash, you tend to customize the selection.
holy crap gin ! that must've taken you hours to write that out. cool!
my big truss dob is "spider", bcuz the van i carry it around in is "gumdrop" (it looks like a space ship). i have to use a stepladder to reach the eyepiece. it's really cool.
@Sidewalk Universe - Thanks!
Its more about location, location, location =-) I own 10 acres in central NC far enough away from Raleigh, Greensboro, and Fayetteville that I have fairly dark skies. Weather is my biggest problem, not light pollution. Its been a horrid year this year for observing. It was a very hazy/cloudy spring and now the summer muggies are setting in - blech!
Around here, fall is the best time to observe: the bugs are gone and the heat and humidity are gone. I grew up in Colorado so I know what _COLD_ weather is. It never really gets "cold" here in central NC, but the winter observing is never quite as nice as fall.
I've also completed the Binocular Messier list and the AL Deep Sky Binocular list from here. I don't have a name for my 10x50's - maybe I should =-) As much as I like them, I've got my eye on a pair of the Cannon IS Binox. A couple of guys I observe with at star parties have them and HOLY COW they are nice! Optically flawless and the Image Stabilization is a godsend!
I’ve got a little bushnell refractor, 2.5”, Sheila got it for me before we were married. First thing I saw was Saturn & rings. We are in a dark location, need to get out more, right now the bugs are bad. I’d like to have a small observatory but worry about bringing folks out here in the dark. But we’ll see, best wishes, don
http://www.kansasmeteorite.com
I own an Orion SkyQuest XT10 Classic Dobsonian Telescope,and I have to say it really is more bang for your buck. The views of Saturn,Jupiter,Venus are all killer. The kids really enjoy looking at the moon and finding star clusters. My 8yr.old boy just loves looking at the constellation Orion in the fall, so do I really fascinating.The only thing I would recommend is buying a Telrad finder with a riser, really helps the neck. Best scope I could have ever bought, now aperture fever has kicked in and I am thinking of investing in a Meade 16-inch Lightbridge Deluxe Dobsonian Telescope with JMI's T-N-T.( keeping my fingers crossed.)
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