About 30 years ago I fell for one the sales ads that was prevalent in the back of comic books at the time. Those of you old enough to remember when the price of comics increased to 60¢ will know what I’m talking about. No, it wasn’t the Sea Monkeys or the strange gag gifts like X-Ray glasses. It was Olympic’s “Prizes or Cash” ad.
Yeah, that’s the one, or very similar anyway.
I wanted a telescope.
I am guessing I wanted one pretty badly. I am not now, nor was I then a salesmen. Then, as well as now, I did not like people pushing things on me that I didn’t want. Be it food I didn’t like or toys I didn’t want. Selling stuff for the Cub Scouts was severe torture for me. I think it was obvious enough that my parents would take the catalogues to work so that I would at least have something other than family on the sheet. I like to think I’m more tolerant to this now that I’m older, but I’m probably not. Although I don’t go around hitting people for it anymore… In any event I really wanted the telescope. Enough that I was willing to prostitute myself and take advantage of family to get it. If you click the picture it will go to another site explaining a bit more about the scam that was Olympic Prizes or Cash.With the help of a large extended, divorced and remarried into large families, as well as a large Union base employment base to draw on (again, took the catalogues to work) I managed to get the telescope. I had the telescope until very recently.
It was a piece of shit.
It really was more of a magnifying lens on a tube. While at first this seems to describe a telescope, a decent scope is much more than that. What Galileo made were much more than that. A good telescope should be more akin to a pair of binoculars. By this I mean that when you put the binoculars to your eyes, the object you are looking at should appear to be closer and more detailed. For example, If I sit in my office, and look across the street with my naked eye, I can see a truck, but it’s far enough away that I cannot make out it’s plate number. If I use a pair of binoculars and look at the same truck, the truck now appears much closer, and I can make out the arrogant ass hats vanity plate UWANTME. So a decent telescope, like what Galileo made will allow you to look at the moon and see details and shadows of the craters. The telescope I got from my prostitution run was more like holding a magnifying glass at arms length and covering yourself with a heavy blanket. The moon was bigger, appeared closer, but it was still just about as blurry as with the naked eye. The “just about” is a key phrase here.
I would have given up at that point had I not had a friend whose father had a good telescope. It was huge and it was heavy. We were not allowed to touch it. I got to look through it once. It was set at the moon. It let me know that there was something not right with my scope. The not right was a shitty plastic lens and a very unstable tripod. Why did I keep it nearly 30 years? well it sort of worked. and as a reminder I suppose. Really, the only reason we got rid of it was that we knew we would be getting another one (or rather a good pair of binoculars) and we were moving.
After many set backs and issues discussed elsewhere here, we now have a home with an incredible view.
Since we moved in we’ve half heartedly regretted not having the telescope. As crappy as it was, it still would’ve been kind of nice to have around. On a clear day, with your naked eye, you can see three buildings of Seattle’s skyline. Approximately 40 miles away.We are also at the edge of town so there isn’t so much light pollution that it blocks out the stars. In fact, there is significantly less light pollution here than in Anchorage.
The differences between then and now are that I am older and wiser by a smidge. There is a bit more income in my life current situation aside. Most of all there is the internet, and the internet id full of helpful people, helpful geeky people like me. People who put advise up for free. Advice with proofs for backing so that it’s more akin to fact so that I can base an opinion on truth instead of a guy in a blue spandex suit with a fucked up jet pack looking like he’s ready to tough children inappropriately while the operator lady hides it all behind her tiara headset. Seriously, it’s 30 years later and I still don’t get the fucking headset thing she wearing in the ad.
We now have a pair of 15x 70mm binoculars and a tripod mount.
They are heavy.
Your inner front shoulders start burning after about 10 minutes of holding these things up. It’s awesome!
When I got home from work yesterday I took some shots through the lens with my cell phone. Not the most ideal thing, but what else am I going to do.
The Vashon Island/Point Defiance Ferry with enough detail that you can see the cars in the deck.
and the Seattle skyline with part of Vashon Island in the front.
The funny thing is the blurry is a limitation of the cell phone camera and movement of it and the binoculars. The image is clear enough that we’ve been able to figure out which building they are.
This really was just the bonus. This is just one of the reason we got the binoculars now, rather than later. Another reason was the night sky. They did not disappoint.
“Holy Fucking Shit” they did not disappoint.
Nope, not empty quotes. That is what I said last night when I pointed them to a random spot in the sky where there was a single twinkling star a bit above Orion’s belt, which I now believe to be Jupiter going by Google Sky maps. What I saw was a shit ton of stars. Enough that I double triple-double checked that I was indeed looking at the same spot in the sky that was nearly empty with the naked eye. I then exclaimed “Holy Fucking Shit” and called for Melissa to come see. We then attempted for like 20 minutes to get pictures through the lens.
They of course were nearly completely black.
If you click on the image you may be able to see a few stars.
When I tweak them in GiMP, I get this:
Further tweaking make it look more like we were seeing, but it begins to look more like digital artifacts than stars
So is there a Telescope in our future? Most likely. Is there either a telescope or binoculars that can attach a camera that has more than 15x zoom and 70mm lens? Hell yes! I would love to be able to see some exec screwing his secretary on a top floor of the Columbia Center (the building on the far right.) Not really sure that it’s a possibility, but a boy can dream.
Oh, and “My God. It’s full of stars.” if some of you have no clue, or know you know it but can’t recall from where. It’s from the novel for 2001 A Space Odyssey. It’s never actually said in the movie, but it is in the novel. It is in the opening movie dialogue for its sequel 2010 The Year We Make Contact. I may have to reread all of those again.