Re: Supermoto Night Ride: Seeing Stars

On Apr 19, 11:06 am, WoodsChick <TamiRow...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
A few weeks ago, we were sitting around a campfire with Baxter and the
Harrell boys looking at the waxing moon through my binoculars. It's
pretty amazing what one can see through a good set of binoculars,

Indeed it is, and the moon was very cooperative that night.

I mentioned how cool it would be to have a telescope that we could
bring with us. I mean, if anyone could use a good telescope it would
be us, right? Since we're always out in the middle of nowhere, far
from city lights and such.

Probably more than most aborginal peoples around the globe...for folks
that are so happily entrenched in city life, you sure get out a lot.
No, I'm not jealous or anything.

Eric started pissing and moaning about how
we don't need one, nowhere to keep it, just one more thing to worry
about, blah blah blah. Pretty much the same thing he's said about all
my major purchases (including the camper van) that he has grown to
love and depend on.

I've always figured this was just a ritual with you guys.
It's fun to watch.

Anyway, we continued to look at the moon and
nothing much was ever said about it again.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I'm lying in bed trying to survive
a monstrous migraine and Eric comes bouncing in saying the FedEx guy
brought me a surprise...a telescope! What? I didn't order a telescope,
did you? Nope...not me. What the hell...?
I open it and just as I'm putting 2 and 2 together, I see Theresa
Harrell's name on the invoice! I should have known <G>

Well, when discussing how to appropriately say "Thank You" to someone
that you can call out of the blue, invite yourself to come to their
house, get picked up at the airport, borrow their motorcycles and
camping gear, get a ride to their riding areas, guided trail tours,
eat their food, and be dropped back off at the airport in plenty of
time for your flight home, we realized that a simple Hallmark card
wasn't going to cut it. Amazingly enough, Scott remembered that
telescope comment and we saw immediately that it was the right answer
to our question.

Anyway, this isn't your average garden-variety telescope, nosiree.
It's a GoScope that comes in its own padded and comparmentalized
backpack! How frikkin' cool is that?? It came with DVDs and stuff, and
access to a website that has star maps on it so I can print out what's
in the sky on any given night so I know what the hell I'm looking at.

Theresa (my wife; I think I'll keep her) took charge in her typical
fashion, investigated the hell out of the telescope market (which is
unbelievably huge, BTW), and zeroed in on packable "travel scopes" for
obvious reasons. This one sounded goood, and had some pretty good
customer reviews on a couple of astronomy forums and message boards,
so we rolled the dice and ordered one up to send to our independent
testing laboratory for advanced quality tests.

My headache went away really quickly and I told Eric I had a plan. As
usual, he sighed heavily, paused a moment and said "I'm sure you
do..."

Another one of those ritual exchanges betwen Tami and Eric...

That plan included Eric putting the street tires back on my Husky
(it's been wearing knobbies since February) and us making a thermos
full of coffee once the sun went down. I set up the telescope on the
dining room table just to be sure all the parts were there, spied on
the old folks home up on the hill a few blocks away (nothing exciting
to report, I'm afraid...) and then put it all back into the backpack,

Hm-m-m. Eric gets to change not one, but two big fat 17" tires, and
you had to set up a portable telescope.
Sounds about right.

being careful to wrap it back up in the supplied bubblewrap
beforehand...after all, this is going on *my* back, and I'm going to
be on a *motorcycle* so I thought it rather prudent.

Indeed. It's hard to think of Tami without thinking of the need for
bubblewrap.

It weighs just
under 6lbs, and the backpack is slim and comfortable and fits the
length of my back perfectly. There was even room for my glasses and
other sundry items.

Ooh, "sundry items". That always sounds so...personal.

We had pizza for dinner at Lanesplitter Cafe,

I wonder what clientel they are angling for.

<snip the ride up and history lesson>

The weather was perfect, almost warm, but there was still a lot of
light pollution. I set the scope up rather easily in the dark, and the
tripod really came in handy. The moon wasn't due up for a few hours
yet, and Venus and Jupiter wouldn't be visible til just before sunrise
so we didn't really get to see a lot of fun stuff. I wanted to bring
the camping gear and camp somewhere up there but Eric didn't want to
deal with it. There is a spotting scope on top with a little red dot
in the middle and it made it super-easy so home in on particular stars
or planes in the sky. There didn't look to be too many stars due to
the light, but once we looked through the scope there were a ton of
`em!

That's intersting. One of the comments we saw several times with
reviews of this 'scope was that it was a good choice for urban
viewing...sounds like that was the case. Sweet.
Were the optics good and clear? That's the main thing, and the biggest
risk in telescopes in the affordable end of the price spectrum (it's
un-freakin'-believable how many telescopes are made and
sold...hundreds of models across a huge price range).

<snip the end of the evening>

This telescope is the coolest thing *ever* and I can't wait to take
this thing out to Nevada in May, and the Lost Coast, and the Sierra
this summer, and Utah, and Idaho, and Oregon, and...and...well,
everywhere! I have a feeling it is going to be semi-permanently packed
in the van <G>

Exactly as we envisioned it.
I expect that telescope will see far more use, in far more remote
locations, than 99.99% of "hobby" telescopes. That's why we were
pretty sure it was the right choice.

A big thank-you to the Harrells for the cool prize, and for knowing me
well enough in the first place to know that it would be the perfect
thing for me!

Thanks again, guys!

You're so very welcome, but we expect you to let Eric use it too.
Once again, we can't thank you guys enough. These rendezvous' are so
much fun, and we absolutely couldn't do it without the support of
great friends like you and Baxter (who didn't express a desire for a
telescope...)
We're all looking forward to stargazing with y'all in some mountains
somewhere, sooner rather that later.
Gaze in good health. We are thrilled that you are enjoying it.

Tim H
.

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