LGDSO

Andy Harrell and I scooped this baby up! Thank you for posting this Johnathan - we will put it to good use

Hi Ray,
 Don’t use that spray air, optical glass will be hazed by the propellant.  There’s a lot of good cleaning info on YouTube, basically blow off the big chunks with a bulb squeeze blower to get the big stuff off, then drag a dry cotton ball with no pressure across the glass to get the medium stuff off, then utilize lint-free cotton wipes lightly dipped in 99% pure alcohol to get the tiniest stuff off, never use the cotton ball for more than one wipe across the glass, go through a lot of cotton balls yes  sometimes I finish with distilled water on cotton ball.  Pita yes, but you cannot unscratch your optics

Hi Joel,
I'm open to assisting...
give me a call
Sean
(941) 373-5611

Yes- That would be awesome

I am hoping to find a new home for this rather large telescope case.  It housed a forked C-11, note the shape of the foam cut-out inside.  The foam can be removed or modified to fit your needs. Perhaps someone will find a use for this well made case.   It has wheels, all the handles and clasps work fine.  There is a dent on the one side which doesn't affect the closing. It's big. 36" x 18" x 24"

Call Sean (941) 373-5611  to make arrangements for you to pick it up.

BTW... the bio-viewer is pretty darn good on Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and the Moon!  Looking at DSO in them is not any better than a single eyepiece, and a bit dimmer.  It's comfortable since you don't have to squint one eye.  The views could be described as "3 dimensional", to some degree. 
 I'm using it on my Dobsonian reflector, so I had to put a barlow on the front of the bino in order to reach in-focus.  Without the barlow lens, I could not run the focuser in far enough to reach focus.  The up-side of that is that the views in the bino, with the 13mm eyepieces in it, and a barlow lens, are comparable to using a 6mm eyepiece!!  Nothing like looking at planets and the moon with some hefty power.

I usually bring them to the sidewalk events, and they get used when all we can see is the moon...

Just a reminder about the Local Group of Deep Sky Observers’ DARK SKY SITE:

We schedule observing at the Crowley Nature Center on two Saturdays each month. (The Saturdays closest to Last Quarter and New Moon).

The night sky from Crowley is DARK, so not only are far more stars (and the Milky Way!) visible to the naked eye, virtually every object seen through our telescopes and binoculars is significantly better and brighter when observed from Crowley rather than the light-polluted skies closer to town. For astrophotographers, the dark skies permit much longer time exposures...and thus much better photos of deep sky objects like star-fields, galaxies, and nebulae.

LGDSO members are welcome to bring guests... even kids! Please though, leave the pets and “adult beverages” for another time and place.

There are a few other guidelines, mostly involving lighting restrictions when attending a dark sky event at Crowley: Use of a ‘regular’ flashlight is off-limits; red lights are the norm. Also, if observers are on the field when coming or going, your car’s headlights should be turned off and parking lights only should be used

The LGDSO Forum (at www.lgdso.com) is the place for members to check to see whether or not an event is a “go”. (Cloudy skies can cancel a Crowley event, but heavy rains leading up to a scheduled event can make the observing field unusable even if the skies are perfect.)

If you would like to participate in our Crowley events, join our club and monitor the Forum! More than likely, your favorite astronomy memories are going to come from a special night at a dark site like this one.  When was the last time you saw the Milky Way from horizon to horizon, and fireflies too?

Here's a shot of the Andromeda Galaxy M31, along with two other galaxies... M110, and M32 taken from our dark site.

With two of the best observable planets in season, I'm curious to see what the views of Jupiter and Saturn through a pair of binoviewers would be like.  The posts on the web are almost all positive, and some folks are ecstatic with the views. 

Does anyone out there have a pair that I could look through?  Or if you've had any expirence with some (preferably with a Newtonian)... what was that like for you?

Just checking,
 Sean