Wednesday, February 21, 2024

When will we ever sleep?

I love newer technology. Better. Modern. Hopefully cheaper. The wife and I have debated for years on buying a telescope. Then it needs this to look through via a camera to snap pixs. Need a laptop and apps/programs to find stars galaxies and stuff, but now you need a gyro to make it turn.... the list and needed additions go on and on. We've been reading in recent months of the See Star s50. It's a "smart telescope". Sure, I'll bite: does it do tricks and serve tea? Then online, I've been seeing mentions of it with images in recent months and weeks. Nice images but nothing to brag about. Then a few days ago, the wife saw a post by someone online with images that were supposedly created using this SeeStar. These were better, MUCH better than the images I've been seeing. These were like images, really nice images!! We commented on the images and the person who posted explained that yes, it was created using the seeStar and other than using it, it was easy to obtain! A week later, we both now have a SeeStar, plus images!! The first two days of having it, it was cloudy and cold... freezing and windchill below freezing. No problem... we practiced indoors and used it to death so we knew how to do what we needed to do and hopefully have it do and find what we wanted it to seek and display. The next day after shopping, Sheila noticed it was partly cloudy and the moon was visible, though clouds were passing in front. We quickly got out our SeeStars and began setting up. Within minutes, we had our first images of the waxing crescent Moon. Turning around, we noticed the Sun was visible too. Ran inside the house to get the provided sun filter and got it turned around quickly, and started snapping the Sun. It hadn't been a full 24 hours yet since it arrived, and we now had our images of the Moon and the Sun! A few days later we imaged M42, the Orion Nebula. I sent a copy of the Orion Nebula to a friend, and he quickly replied stating he was surprised and shocked to see such great results already but only after a few days of its receipt, and having no real prior experience with telescopes at all, we got such great results! I felt exactly the same way: I was and remain so shocked that with NO prior training in telescopes, and not even reading a manual, I basically got these pixs which were - to us - so fantastic, nobody would believe we got them within days of its receipt! Now as Winter slowly crawls to bed with us, and Spring finally arrives, then summer, my only huge worry and question: when will we ever find time to sleep?

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