Society for Popular Astronomy

Hi Ash and welcome. On YouTube I looked up aurora cameras and there are many live view. There have been several bright displays the last few evenings from Utsjoki, Nuorgam and Rovaniemi. They show stars as faint as a dark sky view. There are videos of planets etc. also. Some are very good. I haven't...

There was a very bright display from the Utsjoki camera this evening, I think in live view and real time. Latitude 70 north. I went there once for a coffee on a 15 day $90 Finnnair unlimited flights special deal. If one looks up aurora cameras on Youtube there are many and some have clear skies. The...

There was an extensive fairly quiet mainly green aurora in Live view from Sodankyla last night 2021 March 3/4. On YouTube. I visited Sodankyla observatory in the 1960s and talked with the director who spoke archaic English that he learned from old scientific books. There was no visual telescope but ...

Trying to find details from a New York dealer, they say that I am not a human.

They may well be right.

I didn't try to prove that I am a human.

Perhaps a philosophical question.

Regards,
David

Ariel gives the UFOs beautifully laundered freshness and fine smelling aliens.

Regards,
David

Their eyes. The normal young Aboriginal Australian acuity range is 6/3 to 6/2 with a best of 6/1.4 using both eyes as measured by an Australian professor. However, nowadays when older they have many eye problems caused by poor conditions, poor health, poor health facilities, lifestyle etc. It was on...

My pupils still reach over 5.5mm and I got my very old person Covid jab a few days ago. So one should measure ones pupils. One can try different binoculars depending on local light pollution etc. Exit pupil is only part of the story. I use 12x56, 12x50, 12x45, 10x50, 8.5x44 (I get full use of the 5....

I have two German army monoculars that came from a damaged binocular. Hensoldt Wetzlar 8x30s. I prefer the right sided one, but it has the reticule, which is a nuisance at night as the lines can obscure stars etc. IF binoculars have dioptres on both sides. The Soviet 8x30 binoculars have eyepieces t...

I have seen Uranus numerous times with unaided eyes. It was rather easy. I have asked for reports of an unaided eyes sighting of Neptune, but no success yet. I think at the best high elevation sites it could be seen at magnitude 7.8 by someone with exceptional sight. But it has an unusual spectrum. ...

I saw an all sky halo display in Finland about 1980. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen observing the sky. There were numerous and some very rare forms. Complete horizontal arc. Forms opposite the Sun. There were two suns, one false. There was probably a third hidden behind a building ...

My old 123mm f/5 refractor goes from 16x with an old Kodak 38mm Eyepiece. 4.7 degree field. The drawtube is 3 inches diameter. The telescope has no finder as it doesn't need one. There are modern 3 inch eyepieces, maybe also bigger. The Yerkes refractor drawtube may be 5 inch diameter. The 123mm ref...

Although Plossls are now plentiful and have been used in military optics regularly, they were not so common in the 1950s and 1960s as astro eyepieces. Orthoscopics and Kelners were the normal better eyepieces available. I still use the orthos and Kelners more than Plossls. As well as Erfles, which w...

Wow.

Regards,
David

George Alcock's large binocular was a Schneider 25x105 with 45 degree inclined eyepieces. These had triplet, probably uncoated, objectives. Unfortunately when these objectives were distributed to the U.K. the components got separated. They were bought by different dealers. Some bright spark commerci...

The view of Mars through Horace Dall's closed attic window using his world class 8 inch Maksutov at 400x was unbelievable. It was the equal of my 12.5inch Dall Kirkham in my garden. His camera obscura from indoors provided daytime views that were just spectacular. His photos of a church gutter at 17...