Thinking of a mount for binoculars

I'm thinking of building a mount for binoculars. Especially if I wind up buying something with more light gathering than the 10x50s that I use now.

I'm looking at a parallelogram mount for a tripod. I first found this one. It has a nice bill of materials and drawing. I checked out most of the stuff at Lowe's, except for the teflon sheeting. But I'm probably going to blend it with ideas from this one from the cloudynights.com forum. I really like the extra degree of freedom to pan left and right.

Tragic life of one of the great astronomy authors

I went to a used book store and picked up the three volume reference work: Burnham's Celestial Handbook.

I was amazed by the easy reading style along with the detail and depth while being a bit quirky (still looks to be copies of typwritten pages). Googling around, I found that the author was a high school grad who discovered a comet and got hired into a position at the Lowell Observatory to do menial observing data. He was a flawed man, however. The story of his life is fascinating, in so many different ways.

RIP, Bob.

Astro Tech eyepiece arrived

My new eyepiece arrived from Astromart. It's an Astro Tech Titan type II ED 35mm wide field.

Can't wait to try it out.

Tennessee Spring Star Party

Went up to the Tennessee Spring Star Party on Saturday night. It was up at a nice dark sky site in the middle of the state, between Nashville and Knoxville - Fall Creek Falls State Park. Thanks to the Cumberland Astronomical Society for hosting.

I noticed that my 15" f/5.5 was one of the slowest of the big dobsonian telescopes out there. I also noted that the Royce mirror was showing some great contrast. And I'm still surprised that people who have goto mounts really depend on them I think excessively.

Gonna do some astronomy 'merit badges'

With joining the Barnard Astronomical Society comes membership in the Astronomical League. One thing they have is a program of 'observing clubs'. Members can complete various observing lists, document them and send the verified records for a pin. Kinda like a astronomy 'merit badge'. These are the ones I'm looking to do in the next year:

• Northern constellations
• Urban observer
• Binocular Messier observer
• Messier observer

Barnard Astronomical Society

Went to the Barnard Astronomical Society meeting last night. Small but nice group of enthusiasts.

ESPN fail

"Navy had won 14 straight games against service academy teams dating back to 2002 before losing to Air Force this season."

Stick to what you know, "reporter"

Or, read the helpful commenters on your blog.

Bettina Chavanne, a blogger at Ares recently posted this piece of idiocy in a post about ship construction in FY10 budget:

Virginia-class: The world's most expensive sub? The Navy is asking for $4.18 billion for its Virginia Class submarine, although in the same breath it promises to get costs down around $2 billion per boat (as measured in FY '05 dollars) by FY '12. Roughead said the subs are coming in "within budget and ahead of schedule." For that kind of money, they should also build themselves.

Now the fact that she doesn't understand enough to know that $4.18B is not for one Virginia, but for a Virginia, plus advance procurement for a congressionally accelerated ship in FY11, plus any other Ship Construction, Navy (SCN) expenses in that particular line item.

No, what I'm really taking her to task for is that she posted essentially the same error (crap reporting) in a previous post and was corrected by a commenter (Solomon).

Heres what she says about herself:

About Me: Bettina Chavanne is the Pentagon reporter for Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

My Company/Organization: Aviation Week & Space Technology

My Job Function: Pentagon reporter

My Areas of Expertise: Rotary-wing programs, USMC ground vehicles, ship building

My Areas of Interest: Helicopters and stuff that goes "boom"

Now that's the way history should be written

Playing a bold game in the enemy's own seas, the USS GUARDFISH (SSN 217) scored heavily in its twelve war patrols.

That's the way the history of that WWII submarine starts. Read more here.

52 Boats Memorial

The San Diego Chapter of SUBVETS is moving forward with a memorial to the 52 subs lost in WWII. This will be at the Brac'd NTC San Diego - now called Liberty Station.

They have a fascinating history of the American Liberty Elm trees being used in the memorial.

Northern lights from the ISS

USS JOHN WARNER

This one was not expected. SSN 785 will be named after the recently retired Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Former Petty Officer 3rd Class and Capt in USMC, he was on the SASC and Sea-Power subcommittee. Loyal part of the submarine friendly VA-CT-RI delegations.

Political correctness

The following is the winning entry in an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term: This year's term was Political Correctness.

The winner wrote:

Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

H/t: gomids.com

Monstrously clever

How to get the junk off of a bank's balance sheet.

Credit Suisse Group AG’s investment bank has found a new way to reduce the risk of losses from about $5 billion of its most illiquid loans and bonds: using them to pay employees’ year-end bonuses.

From Ritholtz.

Try this using game theory

Freakonomics asks us to answer the following standardized test question without knowing what the question is:

Which of the following is the correct answer?
a) 4π sq. inches
b) 8π sq. inches
c) 16 sq. inches
d) 16π sq. inches
e) 32π sq. inches

Did you get it right, too? I still got my game.

Do you know your car's GPM

Very interesting when thinking about becoming more fuel efficient we should be using GPM not MPG. For example over 10,000 miles - a jump from 10 MPG to 11 MPG gives the same savings as going from 33 MPG to 50 MPG. In each case, you'rve reduced your consumption by about 100 gallons.

Check yours here.

Building allies against Sharia in the US

Take the libertarian stance and legalize gay marriage.

Galrahn unmasks

Anonymous blogger drops the shields. Maybe he is looking for a job with DONCIO? Just kidding.

Where was this program when I was in school?

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Roland Fryer

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

I don't remember this episode

More here.