Well, my brother and I have been researching today. You see, we're tired of wrestling his dobsonian around and trying to track things with it's friction-regulated mountings. We decided to go look for an astronomy store here in the 7th largest city in the US. What we found was disheartening: 2 stores that are listed in the phonebook are now gone; one store exists still. You would think that a city with 1.2+million people would have a few more astronomy stores, but I guess not. Tucson with only 405,000 has 4 times more than here in Phoenix.

So, inside this astronomy store (called Mr. Telescope, for the curious) is an impressive 12.5 inch reflector named George, in an EQ mount, which is not for sale and a small assortment of other scopes. Lots of filters, books, a few boxes of film, and 2 gentlemen who cant really be called salesmen since they didnt try to sell us anything.

As we were leaving, they handed us a little sheet of astronomy clubs in the area, and it totalled 5, I think. So sad. Something that fills our heavens every night of our lives, and is visible a great number of nights here in the land of perfect weather, is of so little interest to the general populace.

One good thing...a little research on clubs dredged up this binocular telescope design one of the local club members uses. I think it is possibly the ultimate binocular design. See it here: http://www.saguaroastro.org/images/Binochr.gif

Anyways...this post was has basically 2 purposes: To lament the lack of enthusiasts in this huge city; To show the Ultimate Binocular Telescope design.

BTW: if any of you have information regarding schmidt-cassegrain scopes and go-to systems integrated with tripod mounts for reasonable-to-cheap prices, it would be muchly appreciated.

p.s.=what's the bbcode to make a clickable hyperlink like the href in html?? why is html disabled?
edit: thanks for the info kilopi, hadnt noticed the bbcode info link

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~Brad - Astropaparazzo
http://signaturedigitalimages.com

I wish my binoculars had a seat cushion.

When you make a post, under Options to the lower left is a clickable link to info about what is possible under BBCode. html can really m*ck things up, in the right hands.

Sounds like a road trip to me!

Ah ah ahhh...no hasty generalizations...how many people in those clubs?

Well, that's open to debate. You'll have to check out Philip Harrington's Touring The Universe Through Binoculars, but there's a stand-up-to-use set of binocs made out of a matched pair of 17" aperture Dobs...

For SC's check out Orion at www.telescope.com
For goto mounts check Meade at www.meade.com
Not sure who else makes goto mounts.

Watch closely...you need the square brackets like this [ ]
After that, to enable a clickable link put url into the brackets ahead of your link, and /url into the brackets after your link.
Try the buttons in the 'post a reply' window -- you might have to do some cut&paste to get things where you want them, but they'll show what the codes are...and eventually you'll be just typing them in...[/url]

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Astronomy magazine did a review on teh Mead go to LDX S-C two months ago. It got a great review. Celestron also makes goto mounts. I am looking to get a new one and have yet decided on the mead or Celestron. Here in NJ I can only find 3 Astro clubs but at least two of them, North and South NJ have access to professional scopes at government owned observatories.

The problem in my neck of the woods is just that it's woods. SO I have to trek to a local municipal field. One night at about 2 am teh cops pulled up and was wondering what I was doing with a telescope out there. I think they thought I was a peeping tom. Anyway after a short explanation and the two of them looking through the eyepeice they were on their way. One even commented on how Saturn looked liek a model. :P

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"The big yellow one's the Sun!!!!"