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My
Amateur Astronomy
Page

For years, now and then at night I would stop and gaze at the stars.  As a Boy Scout, I earned the astronomy merit badge.  When I read in the paper an announcement about a celestial event, I tried to watch it with binoculars.  I could identify Polaris -- the North Star -- the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Cassiopeia, and that's it.   In early 2002 I decided to look into amateur astronomy as a hobby.  Of course, with the hobby of amateur radio, and an old VW Beetle that I fiddle with to keep it running, I really needed another hobby -- but what the heck.

This page and the pages linked to it are my experiences with my new hobby of amateur astronomy.

Table of Contents

This is a list of contents of my amateur astronomy pages.  I hope you find something useful here.

•  Getting Started

• My telescopes

• Adding Azimuth Setting Circles to my Aperture AD-8 Dobsonian

• My eyepieces

• Astrophotography -- taking photographs through the telescope

• Book recommendations

• Tricks I learned while collimating my Dobsonian-mounted reflector (Orion XT-8)

• A few words about binoculars

• How to build an adjustable observing chair (the Denver Chair)

• Photos taken through my telescope using a simple digital camera.

First LPI Image

Here is my first successful image using the Meade LPI.