Astronomy

Welcome to Steve Smallcombe’s Astronomy Page where I have links to various tweaks for Newtonian telescopes.  The most popular article on the site is the Rear View Barlowed Laser technique based on the work of Nils Olof Carlin.   

Another collimation technique I have recently learned to appreciate uses the 1mm aperture stop for the Glatter Laser Colimator.   This technique is particularly handy in adjusting the tilt of the secondary mirror of a Newtonian telescope while viewing the results up close.  

The third article in one that describes modifications I made to the electrical system of the Orion XT10i I had a number of year ago.

Here is a post I published earlier on Cloudynights in response to a question about whether to buy an Obsession 15 with an object locator and tracking, or an Obsession 20.   Since I had owned both scopes, with and without tracking I responded with my experiences. 

I am very fortunate that we were able to build our new home in a dark gray area on the artificial night sky brightness map as can be seen here in the overlay for Google earth. But then again, that was one of the criteria that we used when looking for property. The very small white polygon above the label Jerseydale is our property.