Zarfnet

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

To make a photocopier, simply photocopy a mirror.

Fact Sphere, Portal 2

Marie Curie invented the theory of radioactivity, the treatment of radioactivity, and dying of radioactivity.

Fact Sphere, Portal 2

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

Miles Kington

Studies Show Most Sims Mispronounce “Zsdersw”

Sim City 3000 News Ticker

Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.

Terry Pratchet

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.

Douglas Adams

Ford… you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.

Arthur Dent, The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy

Sandwiches: They make the best friends.

Reese Roper

If you laid all of the atoms in your body end to end, you’d die.

Ian Melchior

Sims Everywhere Agree: A Sound Financial Future Begins With Inheriting Lots Of Money

SimCity 3000 News Ticker

Information Shown Here Frequently Absurd, Poll Indicates

SimCity 3000 News Ticker

Do you run from your nose?

A poorly translated allergy pamphlet

The plural of Surgeon General is Surgeons General. The past tense of Surgeons General is Surgeonsed General.

Fact Sphere, Portal 2

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility… The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.

Albert Einstien

I’d say hot sauce was growing on me, but someone might take it literally.

ndro Cowei

Under every stone lurks a politician.

Aristophanes

Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig! He looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal.

Sir Anthony Montague Browne

Our Equipment

This is the equipment Kent and I used for the first few years of stargazing. Due to our latitude and the lack of advanced abilities of our mount, we were unable to get many exposures beyond 30 seconds. Here’s what we used:

  • Telescope: Kent’s Celestron Nexstar 8SE (SCT)
  • Mount: The Alt-Azimuth mount that came with Kent’s scope
  • Camera: Either my Sony A7SII or Kent’s Nikon D3300
  • Power: Kent’s Celestron PowerTank
  • Either the 1.25″ Star Diagonal that came with Kent’s scope or my 2″ Diagonal from Celestron

The A7SII is a Full Frame camera, which means that it’s image sensor is larger than 1.25″ across. This makes a nice round shadow at the edges of our images unless I use my 2″ Diagonal. Kent’s D3300 uses an APS-C size sensor, which has no such vignette effect on his Diagonal.

Argo Navis

Amateur Astronomers never stop upgrading their rigs, and Kent and I are no different. We just aren’t made of money like seemingly everyone else in this hobby. In 2019, we began purchasing equipment to upgrade the capabilities of our rig. We decided to name the project Argo Navis, after an old, no longer used constellation that has since been split into 3 other constellations. The first step was to take the telescope that came with Kent’s NexStar 8SE combo and put it on a better mount. We went with the Atlas EQ-G.

  • Telescope: Kent’s Celestron 8″ SCT
  • Mount: Kent’s Orion Atlas EQ-G
  • Camera: Kent’s Nikon D3300 or My Sony A7SII
  • Power: A shop battery of some sort, generally used for starting cars, but with a much higher capacity than the PowerTank and much more rugged
  • Either Kent’s 1.25″ Star Diagonal (when using his camera) or my Celestron 2″ Diagonal (when using mine)

In the future, we are planning on using a dedicated astrophotography CCD, a star tracker, and a laptop.

Check out our progress capturing the entire Messier catalog, or check out the equipment we use to do it.