Monthly Meetings on Zoom
By Donna Pursley
Our ASNH general meetings are still being held via Zoom. The presentations are shared so all can see. There is also a dial-in number for those that are shy or are not using Zoom. This way everyone can join the meetings.
Here are short summaries of the March, April, and May meetings.
March 30 General Meeting
19 members on Zoom
We have 86 members. Three new members: Steven Schoenberger, Samatha Sheppard, Gary Cline.
Leo Taylor did a presentation on eyepieces:
Lower cost eyepieces are best for public events.
Orthoscopic – planetary – very little glass, high power, low cost
Plossl – a little more complicated, wider field, popular
Ultra Wide – 68 degrees and wider, complicated design
Leo’s favorite – 18mm, 125x, 68 degrees
Illuminated Reticle eyepieces – crosshairs, used for tracking, measuring scale
Barrel Sizes – .965”, 1 ¼ in, 2”: the 2” has a wider field of view (FOV)
He went through the magnification and focal length calculations.
Also the Practical magnification, exit pupil vs power and eye relief.
AFOV, True FOV
Parfocal Eyepieces – don’t need to refocus between eyepieces
How many eyepieces do you need? Start with 2. See what works and add what you think you are missing.
FOV for different eyepieces = Plossl-50, panoptics-68, nagler-78, ethos-110
Much of this is on the website under ‘observing’ then ‘education.’
Donna Pursley’s presentation of FOV and filters:
FOV, focal length, magnification, focal ration, exit pupil, eye relief, binoculars
Filters – color, moon, deep sky, light pollution, OIII, UHC.
This will be on the website also.
We had a discussion about how useful binoculars are.
There was a discussion about Stellafane and why everyone should visit at least once.
April 27 General Meeting
84 members, no new members this month
Donna Pursley did a presentation on the Red Dot Finder
Standard, easy to use finder
Al Washburn did a presentation on the Telrad
Circles, has many accessories (hood, dew heater, risers, blinker), 10 oz.
Also Rigel – taller
The group discussed which finders they used and pros and cons of each.
Shop Talk
Jim Mazur is looking at the Caldwell Objects. Showed pictures of a few.
Silver needle galaxy, C71, Tau Canis Major cluster
Astronomy on Tap will be this Thursday – YouTube
We discussed some different apps to control smartphones while taking pictures through the telescope.
Mike Amato viewed 3 groups of sunspots or 1 mega group of spots with his sun spotter solar scope.
Moon maps are nice because they can show you the names and the features to look for on the Moon.
There is a book called Lunar 100 that shows 100 different features to look for on the Moon.
ASNH has a Zoom presentation for the Milford Library on how to use their telescope.