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Re: (SNES) Catching Up
Hi David,
Thanks for the message! I thought i'd send a response out before I left the
office for the evening. I have definitely been eyeing the ATM's. I work in
Westford now, so its a short hop away from the site. I keep tabs with the
ATMOB site periodically, so I have directions and access to the newsletter.
Hopefully I can get up there in the near future and get to meet the
members.
My scope hasn't had much exercise in quite a while.. i'm sure it needs some
fresh air.
I've been a member of the NSAAC (North Shore club) for a little while, but
I haven't been that involved. Mainly due to the distance they were from
Norwood. I drove down to FDO more than I went up there (yes, its a longer
drive). I guess I got spoiled by the dark skies.. I figured that i'd join
the ATM's once I got up to Gardner, not only because of their proximity,
but my interest in possibly building a dob one of these days. Truthfully,
i'm in a tug-of-war in a sense with myself. I'm deciding whether I should
try to build a dob (8"/10" portable truss type, larger?), make myself a
genesis 16 CCD camera (recently finished making a modified peltier cooled
quickcam), or simply buying a Stellarvue AT1010 with a portable tripod.
Its a tough call. I'd like all of them, but the budget doesn't allow such
a thing to happen all at once :) So my real bind here is whether to
buy/make a portable alternate to sit next to my 10" LX200, or to poke
around with CCD's. Tough call... I have some time to decide yet.
I'm still working out things with the move to Gardner.. all of our
appliances still aren't working (gas company didn't bother to show up), and
sorting the house out still. But once things fall into place i'll be out
under the stars again.
Hope to run into you at the ATM club house.
Regards,
Gary W.
"David Aucoin"
<graywwoolf@msn.c To: "SNEgazers" <snegazers@brainiac.com>
om> cc: (bcc: Gary A Weston/Westford/IBM)
Sent by: Subject: Re: (SNES) Catching Up
snegazers-owner@b
rainiac.com
04/05/2002 04:04
PM
Please respond to
snegazers
Gary,
I didn't know you live in Norwood. I live in Norwood now, I grew up and
lived
in Waltham, prior to moving here with my wife. Had I known you lived here,
I
would have hooked up with you. I have 4 lights to contend here on my street
and they are the nearly straight up in the air, blaring lights that I
cannot
do anything about other than shooting out with a BB gun. Since you moved to
Gardner, you might want to try to ATM's of Boston clubhouse/observatory in
Westford if you are interested. We should have the 20" reflector up and
running this spring, as well as the 17" Dob and a 6" Schuppmann and 6" Mak.
Give a holler if you are interested and I will send you a copy of this
months
newsletter with directions, if you are not already a member of our club
already.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: gary_a_weston@us.ibm.com
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 9:49 AM
To: snegazers@brainiac.com
Subject: (SNES) Catching Up
Hi everyone,
Well, I've finally moved way the heck up to Gardner, MA. I'm still busy as
heck getting settled, but I am quite happy with the skies! On Tuesday
night I went outside. It was DARK and QUIET outside. I got so acclimated
to the light polluted skies of Norwood (not far from the Automile on RT 1
with massive lights blasting the stars to smithereens), that the darkness
was something quite alien to me. I still haven't had a chance to set the
scope up or do any observing just yet, but I intend to as soon as possible.
There are very few street lights near my house thankfully. I can only
really see two, and they are CUT OFFS! I was quite impressed. The glow
from the lights are VERY minimal and won't disturb me at all. Once the
trees fill out, I won't be able to see them. There are only two drawbacks
that I have found so far. There are a good number of trees around the
property, so my view along the horizon is blocked all around to varying
degrees. Still, that doesn't bother me much. I guesstimate that I can see
everything from roughly 20 degrees up. There are also a few lakes nearby,
so moisture/dewing might haunt me once in a while.. thanks to the Kendrick
that should be minimized. From puttering around Gardner, it appears as if
many street lights are modern cutoffs. There are some older 'bad' lights
strewn about, but it appears they are replacing them as they fail. The
Stop and Shop a few miles away also did a pretty good job with their
parking lot lights. They are noticably dimmer and effectively baffled to
prevent sky-glow. I'm not sure if the town has an ordinance, but I was
quite happy to see this. Still.. I may not have seen the worst of it in
town. One small car dealership did a pretty good job of keeping the lights
dim.. but I noticed this once Chinese Restaurant with some 4-5 blaring
flood lights on its parking lot. Massive light trespass and skyglow there.
I asked myself "WHY?" Is someone going to steal general gau's chicken at
3am or something? Come on! Its not a darn bank! Next.. I have to fix my
house's lights. The front porch light has a motion sensor.. which is fine.
But it has a NASTY light fixture. When that sucker comes on I light up the
two houses up the street. I swear, everytime that thing comes on, I cringe
and get upset. OK, maybe this is becoming a peeve of mine.. maybe its a
good peeve? I haven't even met my neighbors yet, but i LOVE them. Their
properties are PITCH BLACK. No lights, nothing. The only light I see is
maybe glow from a TV through a window or whatever. I'd better stop here
before I bore you with complaints! :)
Warmer weather is soon to be here! I hope to be able to get back down to
FDO sometime soon. Its a much longer drive for me now though :(
Regards,
Gary Weston.
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