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63. October
2005. An occasional visitor during the fall months, this beautiful
specimen of a Tarantula slowly crosses Star Hill access road and disappears
into the brush. Don't worry, Tarantulas may look scary but they are
harmless. Just don't bother them and let them go about their mate
hunting business. It is great seeing Mother Nature in action.
Please never hurt any wildlife on Star Hill. But, you are permitted to
scare off any skunks that might show up. :-) |
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62. October
2005. Kent Wallace removing the transport wheels from his telescope's
rocker box. |
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61. October
2005. Kent Wallace unloads his 20" StarSplitter Dobsonian. |
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60. October
2005. Pete Roebber getting ready for a great night of
stargazing using his 18" Obsession Dobsonian telescope. |
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59. October
2005. Robin White sets up for his CCD imaging work. |
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58. February
2005. Jim Carlisle displays for the first time his recently
completed 17 inch binocular telescope. |
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57. September
11, 2004. What was a quiet, wind-swept, dusty hilltop starts to come
alive with telescopes. Astronomers have awakened from their daytime
sleep pattern to be ready for duty all night long. Well, at
least many of them think they will be up all night long, until they start
yawning at 11 PM and are on the road home by midnight. Everyone
wimps out by 1 or 2 AM, unless something unusual is happening in the
heavens. |
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56. September
11, 2004. Astronomer extraordinaire Kent Wallace prepares for
his nighttime hunt for illusive deepsky objects. He is busy
memorizing his entire star atlas to be on his toes at the scope. He
is far more efficient than those fancy go-to scopes having databases of
hundreds of thousands of images. While go-to astronomers are
entering coordinates in their computer keypads, Kent has already viewed a
hundred objects. :-) |
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55. September
11, 2004. Cal Poly student Ryan Koch sets up his popular
new Coronado PST Hydrogen Alpha solar telescope. This $500 scope
(YES, $500) is now the hottest thing for astronomers all over the world
who now have cheap access to HA viewing of the Sun's solar prominences and
sunspots. His 16" home-built truss-tube Dobsonian is in the
background. It is a pleasure having Ryan join in our public star
parties. |
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54. September
11, 2004. Long time CCAS member and Cal Poly Organic Chemistry
Professor Tom Frey and his granddaughter Keli go through
methodical steps in assembling Tom's beautiful 18" Obsession
truss-tube Dobsonian telescope. |
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53. September
11, 2004. Nothing like encouraging the younger generation to be
interested in stargazing. The challenge is, this scope does not come
equipped with a video screen, CD/DVD player, sound system and a cell
phone. Now THAT would bring the younger generation to the hilltop!
Sad. |
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52. September
11, 2004. Hummm ... which end do we look through? |
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51. September
11, 2004. Just can't keep Tom away from mirrors. |
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50. September
11, 2004. Glenn Elliott and his 10" Meade LX200 go-to
scope. |
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49. September
11, 2004. Al and Aurora Lipper setting up their scope.
What a happy looking team! |
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48.
August 14, 2004. Ryan Koch amazes the local long-time astronomers
with his new
Coronado PST solar telescope. Most everyone on the hilltop
immediately congregated around Ryan to have a peek at the Sun. |
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47.
August 14, 2004. The
Coronado PST displays the Sun in bright red, showing sunspots and solar
prominences blasting hundreds of thousands of miles from the Sun's
surface. An absolutely fantastic telescope ... currently on the
market for $500. Yes! $500. You provide a storage
case and a standard camera tripod. |
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46.
August 14, 2004. Mike
Spingler (right) brings his new 22" truss-tube Dobsonian for the
first time to a CCAS star party. We were extremely pleased he did,
as it is a beautifully machined all-aluminum telescope having fine optics
using his Negler eyepieces. |
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45.
August 14, 2004.
Assembling such a telescope does take a little time and
agility. |
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44.
August 14, 2004. This
is the control-room of Mike's scope, all battery-driven. It is not a
go-to telescope, but uses electronic positioning which displays the scopes
position and changes as you move the scope to the desired coordinates of
the object you desire. |
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43.
August 14, 2004.
Newcomer Larry Cossette brings his brand new Celestron C-14 go-to
Schmidt-Cassegrain. What a beauty. |
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42.
March 20, 2004.
A young astronomer checks out the view through Kent Wallace's
20" StarSplitter to see if Kent has the correct object in the
eyepiece. Such young space fans can be very demanding of the
old-time astronomers. |
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41.
June 28, 2003.
Paul Collins and his 6" Star Fire refractor on an Astro-Physics
mount. Definitely a fine piece of astronomical equipment. |
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40.
June 28, 2003.
Robin White continues to attract a group of spectators who are
interested in seeing CCD photography in action using his new 10" Meade LX200
GPS scope. |
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39.
June 28, 2003.
Astronomer extraordinaire Kent Wallace explains astronomical
operations to Morgan Kilimnik, Wendy Reil and Robin Reil. |
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38.
June 28, 2003.
Robin White provides detailed CCD imaging information to newcomer
Dr.
Ray Weymann, a professional astronomer who recently moved to Atascadero.
Ray was Director of the Steward
Observatory (Multiple Mirror Telescope) in Arizona and
head of University of Arizona's Department of Astronomy. |
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37.
June 28, 2003.
CCAS member Dennis Pack and his new 11" Celestron GPS telescope.
This was the scope's first star party. |
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36.
June 28, 2003.
CCAS member's Ron Alers and his father George preparing for
the night's stargazing. |
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35.
June 28, 2003.
Art Wells and his wife setting up for the evening's starfest. |
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34.
May 31, 2003. Glenn
Elliott, on the left, explains the operation of his 10" Meade LX200 GPS
go-to scope. |
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33.
May 31, 2003. Tom Frey
sets up his new 18" Obsession. |
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32.
May 31, 2003. Tom Frey
expertly utilizes his finder scope to locate his desired celestial object
and positions his scope for viewing. Jupiter appears to be his
targeted object.
photo by Aurora Lipper |
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31.
May 31, 2003. Greg
studies his star charts to figure out if there is anything to see tonight.
:-) |
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30.
May 31, 2003. A newcomer
carefully adjusts his Newtonian scope for the night's viewing session.
photo by Aurora Lipper |
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29.
May 31, 2003. Aurora
Lipper is glued to Kent Wallace's 20" StarSplitter Dobsonian
.... Wow is that object CLOSE! |
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28.
May 31, 2003. Newcomer
father and son work diligently on getting their SCT operational. |
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27.
May 31, 2003. Robin White,
our resident "expert" CCD astrophotographer, with his complicated 10" Meade
LX200 GPS go-to scope, laptop computer and CCD imaging equipment. |
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26.
May 31, 2003. Robin White explains his
operation to a newcomer father and son team from SLO. photo by Aurora Lipper |
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25.
May 31, 2003. Max Corneau,
Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Space Command on temporary assignment at
Vandenberg AFB, has found a home-away-from-home at CCAS star parties.
Talk about being away from home .... his wife and three children live in
Dallas, Texas. His military home base is in Colorado but was
reassigned to Vandenberg. The CCAS is very pleased to have Max join us
in our exploration of the Cosmos. His monster go-to scope is a 5"
Maksutov-Cassegrain. |
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24.
January 25, 2003. Proud
owner for a 2nd time, Kent Wallace performs the first set-up of his
new duplicate "breakdown" 20" StarSplitter scope he will be taking to
Australia. This scope was custom-built for him by StarSplitter.
The entire scope, except for the primary mirror (seen here) will remain in
Australia for future trips. The 20" primary mirror (which is also used
in his other StarSplitter scope that stays in Atascadero), rests in its
custom-built transport case. If you need a super heavy-duty transport
case, contact Kent for the company name. The cases are not cheap, but
very high quality. |
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23.
January 25, 2003. Kent
sets up the rocker-box which houses the primary mirror. |
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22.
January 25, 2003. (the
larger image is provided to show detail of this fine scope) Kent
connects the secondary mirror unit to the top of the scope. |
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21.
January 25, 2003. Revealed here for the
first time on the Internet is
the "secret" of Kent's unique breakdown design. Each truss tube
is cut in half and clamped together end-to-end using two pieces of aluminum
angle and pipe clamps. (following Kent's trip to Australia from
mid-February to mid-April 2003 he reported that this design worked
incredibly well, being extremely strong). |
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20.
January 25, 2003. A
typical photo of Kent, an incredible astronomer whose life IS
astronomy. |
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19.
January 25, 2003. Breakdown
scope fully assembled, ready to be put to the test. |
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18.
January 25, 2003. Pete
Roebber and his devoted apprentice astronomer daughter Elinore
set up their 18" Obsession truss-tube Dobsonian. |
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17
January 25, 2003. Pete's
reflection in his primary mirror. Note that Pete does not have a
bright red mole on his lip ... that is the center-point marker of the
primary mirror. |
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16.
January 25, 2003. Pete
and Elinore take a well deserved break after completing scope
assembly. Gosh, it is still daylight, so they must have completed
their task in under 2 hours! :-) Would you believe more
like 30 minutes. |
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15.
January 25, 2003. Robin White
begins setup of his 10" Meade LX200 SCT. |
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14. January 25, 2003.
Robin
preparing his laptop and CCD imaging equipment. |
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13.
May 11,
2002: Serious astronomer Steve Overholt sets up his monster
30" diameter home-built truss-tube Dobsonian while Kent Wallace
looks on in amazement of Steve's creation. |
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12.
June 3, 2000: Kent
Wallace unloading and
setting up his 20" StarSplitter Dobsonian telescope. His pickup in the
background is stuffed to the roof with telescope, all stowed very carefully.
Setup takes about 30 minutes for assembly and collimation. |
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11.
June 3, 2000: Kent
(right) gets a helping hand from Cliff Buttschardt (left).
Cliff really enjoyed assisting. Now that Cliff is all checked out on
assembly, it is time to buy his own 20" Dobsonian (chuckle, chuckle). |
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10.
June 3, 2000: Kent and
Cliff are having too good of a time! June 3, 2000
|
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09. June 3, 2000: The
StarSplitter's secondary mirror is covered by a plastic bag on the spider
assembly. The eyepiece, not visible, sits 90 degrees to the side of
the secondary mirror, so the eyepiece is actually at the open end of the
telescope. |
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08.
June 3, 2000: Now that is
a BIG (20") mirror for a typical amateur astronomy telescope.
Kent is close to slipping the black cloth cover over the body of
the telescope.
|
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07.
June 3, 2000:
Kent's
a proud owner. He lives for astronomy, which occupies much of his
life in retirement. |
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06.
June 3, 2000: Looking down the barrel of Kent's scope at the
20" mirror at the bottom. That is Kent looking through the open end of
the scope, his head next to the camera. |
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05.
June 3, 2000: All
done! The StarSplitter is ready for action. Cliff must
poke his head inside and see what this scope is all about and study how
Kent collimates the telescope, which aligns all of the optics for perfect
vision. Melody Moore looks on. June 3,
2000 |
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04.
June 3, 2000: Here is one of the CCAS' loaner telescopes, a 6"
Newtonian. Santa Margarita Lake is in the background. This is a
beautiful location for star parties. |
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03. June 3, 2000: CCAS
webmaster Walt Reil and one of CCAS' club scopes, a 6" Newtonian. |
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02. March 17, 2001.
Tom Milligan sets up his Celestron NexStar
8" scope. This scope is fully computerized with thousands of stars in
its database. He uses a Palm Pilot to control it. |
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01.
March 17, 2001. CCAS President,
Walt Reil, finally gets his own
scope ... a Celestron Ultima 11, a manually operated scope with a motor
drive. For more photos of Walt's scope, click HERE. |
