Let it rain……
….all day, then be fine all night. Which is diametrically opposed to my previous prayers to the weathermen during my previous existence as a window cleaner. Sorry, Transparent Panel Maintenance Engineer. And before you ask, yes, I DID see some sights. Mainly not pretty ones, which ironically, is also the opposite of what I was hoping to be enchanted by in the night skies with the purchase of a simple telescope.
How wrong can you be? Like an innocent fool I popped into the local star gazers lounge bar. Everyone was there. The landlord, and his staff, they have the job of looking after everything in moderation, so he calls them ‘moderators’. They make sure nobody gets out of hand, whilst serving up refreshing beverages of advice themselves. Then there’s the lifers, the addicts, the aholics. The kind of guys you could splash a bit of tippex on a black card for, and they would go “Nnnn, thats a picture taken at f5.6 with a 2x Barlow (Meade) of the lesser gullible galaxy, on the 16th October 2004 when Mars was in oppostion and Venus was none too happy either.”
On the other side of the lounge are the passers by. They just drop in for a quick one when they feel the need. Mostly friendly, and generally harmless, they come and they go. Strolling past outside, and pretending not to look in the windows are those too superior for the lounge. They only partake at home, and the habit is not a social one. The evidence (albeit based solely on the opinions of somebody who judges every book by its rear cover) is that this type are probably only viewing the night skies to see how their secret moon bunker is developing, whilst counting the seconds until the next big haemorrhoid strike. Sorry, assteroid. But enough of this drivel.
I dont really know which of the above it was that made my mind up for me, but suffice to say my original ideas were blown out of the sky, like sunspot debris destroying a helpless satellite. After watching a mockumentary on the devil’s box some years ago, I had the fixed notion that I could MAKE a decent telescope out of a ruler, some blu-tac, and a couple of old spectacle lenses. After all, if it enabled the incarcerated POWs to savour the delights of downtown Stuttgart from their prison windows, surely it would do the same for me. Only with stars and not fat german women in corsets. But alas, apparently times have moved on.
So my ruler and specs scope will consist, when it arrives, of a mount, made by Skywatcher, whoever who he is. HEQ5 is the code they give it, along with a nifty little number that takes away all the fun of finding the stars yourself. On cloudy nights I’m gonna set it up anyways, and watch it whirr around to constellation X and say to the admiring onlookers, “Yup, right behind that cloud, thats the Uber Galxay. Kinda blows you away, dont it?”. After all, if one can admire the female form whilst wearing clothes, you can only appreciate it all the more when the clouds come off for the night.
Stuck on the top of the HEQ5 will be the Optical Tube Assembly, (OTA) for short. Now apparently, to get the biggest bang for your buck, you need the widest aperture possible. It was different when I was younger. So they twisted my arm until I agreed to get something with a 9.25 inch aperture. You would think that somethign that size would be hard to misplace, but they provide a ‘finderscope’ with it, so i guess they do go missing. Add on some bits and bobs to keep the dew off, and some costly rings to do the job of blu-tac, and there you have it. My hobby for the next year or so.
If it comes. I have it on good authority that the cretin card to pay for all this lovliness will arrive tuesday. the same good authority that told me it was delivered last saturday…….
Its still raining btw…..
