IT'S ABOUT TIME I GOT MY HEAD BACK UP INTO THE STARS

THIS MORNING'S BUTTERFLY

I have always had an interest in the night sky & it was nearly 15 years ago when I first subscribed to a Canadian Astronomy magazine by the name of Skynews.
An excellent magazine for both amateur & professional astronomers. I like it's easy to understand monthly centerfold night sky chart. Editor & Astronomer Terence Dickinson had an Astronomy book out at the time called Nightwatch which I bought. Armed with that book & monthly issues of Skynews I set about under the cover of darkness learning the night sky. Fortunately at that time we lived in an old farmhouse way out in the country far from city lights & I was able to sit outside many nights with my eyes & thoughts wandering among the stars. STELLARVUE 80mm AT1010 NIGHTHAWK REFLECTOR TELESCOPE

In the summer of 1999 my Aunt in Sarasota Florida drove up to Canada for summer visit. We had been emailing back & forth for about a year & she knew of my keen interest in Astronomy. I didn't suspect a thing until Aunt Jean drove into our driveway, parked, & opened her trunk. There, all carefully wrapped up in a blanket was a white & very professional large looking Meade 4'5" Reflecting telescope. She had bought it as a gift for me & brought it all the way from Florida. What a great surprise that was & I spent many night's that summer under the stars with that scope. However, the following summer the scope met with a premature demise. I had left it on it's tri-pod & set up on the covered cement porch for the night with a blanket over it. In the morning when I came out, the scope was lying flat on the hard cement & broken. Only thing I can figure that happened is the barn cats while running around in the night must have scrambled up the blanket & pulled the whole telescope over. I never had another telescope after that until the summer of 2005 when I bought a new 8" Celestron Dobsonian reflector. Don't know what I was thinking because this scope was way beyond my learning curve & patience. Plus it was heavy & had to be carried around in two pieces everywhere. It was a year later when we bought our truck & fifth wheel that I realized this scope would not be suitable for traveling anywhere so headed over to London & traded it in on a smaller more portable Stellarvue 80mm Nighthawk Refractor telescope. Didn't have a proper tri-pod for this scope & by the end of the summer I had lost interest in it, put it in it's case & stuffed it under my bed. That was 3 years ago I did that & to-day I hauled out that Nighthawk telescope, dusted if off, & set it up in our driveway this morning. I was actually planning on selling it & had put an ad on the Kijiji site in London last week. Had one reply from a fellow by the name of John & as we emailed back & forth he suggested I should keep the scope because it had good reviews in one of the Astronomy magazines. With a few helpful telescope tips & accessory suggestions from John I began to re-think my selling plans. If I can adapt my Nikon cameras to this scope & get myself another eyepiece plus something called an erecting prism I might just be on my way happily back to the starry night sky & some new photo opportunities. I have been missing my nightly wanderings in the heavens for too long now & it's about time I get myself back up into the awesome reaches of our wondrous Galaxy.............:))

Awwwww yes, I like this thing called................... "excitement!!"

My spellchecker seems to on the fritz to-night so please excuse any mistakes. I must remember to feed it in the morning!!

TO-DAY'S HUMOR: What is the difference between Bird Flu and Swine Flu? For bird flu you need tweetment and for swine flu you need oinkment.

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