On Telescopes and the Night Sky

Last June 17, the JPPS organized a clean-up of the astrodeck in line with its opening as a fundraising event for the upcoming Founder's day. The usual telescopes were set-up along side two of the old and unused telescopes of the department. After participating in the national astronomy olympiad, I came to learn how to use and maximize all of the department's telescopes.

The first, and the crowd favorite, is the Celestron 8 or what we call the "Big Bertha". It is an 8-inch reflector, the biggest aperture in the department.
Second, is the Celestron Firstscope 114 C with an equatorial mount. In terms of magnification, this has the highest magnifying power. Also a reflector.
Third, is the Celestron Nexstar 130 GT. This computerized reflector telescope is good for showing off to students although hard to maneuver.

Fourth, is the department's old refractor telescope. A long telescope by Edscorp. We still have a few problems with its equatorial mount, however it is still functional.

Fifth, is another reflector by Anchor. There are few problems with its optics although they are very manageable. It's equatorial mount's performance when it comes to tracking has proven to be good also.

With all scopes manageable we are expecting to delight more students as it has delighted the JPPS with the view of the Moon's craters and Saturn's rings. We also enjoyed the meteors and lightning storms of last Thursday's testing session - enjoyed too much that I forgot about my meeting from 5-8pm (I arrived 8pm ^_^).

I also began to orient the volunteers last Saturday (19) on assembly and use of the telescopes.



Our first scheduled viewing was last Monday, a cloudy evening. It just goes to prove that the weather can be really uncooperative despite the weather forecasts. We will be having another session tomorrow (June 24) and on June 26 for the Partial Lunar Eclipse. Hoping for clear skies!

-Astronorm09