Spectrum Scientifics has now added the Knight Double-Sided Planisphere to its astronomy line-up!
The Knight planisphere is a vast improvement over previous planispheres that were either made of laminated cardboard, or were too large, or too small to be of use. The Knight planisphere is made of plastic, and has is double sided: one side for […]
Specturm Scientifics now carries the Orion StarBlast 6i Intelliscope!
We’ve already discussed our addition of the regular StarBlast 6 which actually caught us a bit off guard with its sales. And now Orion has developed a computer guided version using its popular Intelliscope system!
The difference is that you get the Intelliscope computer guidance system, with a […]
A telescope’s eyepieces are often one of the most underrated parts of the optical system. Many folks get caught up with aperture fever or drool over high-end apochromatic refractors while neglecting the fact that the eyepiece is almost 1/2 the optical system!
Most telescopes include 1 or 2 eyepieces. Depending on the model and the manufacturer […]
This is one of those examples of what an amateur can do. These are some of the most impressive shots of Mars we have seen from a terrestrial telescope and the animation is really cool.
You might want to check out the other pictures as well, the animated shots of the ISS are particularly impressive.
If […]
If all goes well this Friday NASA will be launching its WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) satellite. This will scan the skies in the infrared with much greater sensitivity than ever before. NASA expects that WISE will uncover comets, cooler stars and other celestial objects that cannot be seen in the visible spectrum.
The heart […]
It is a new awesome astronomy picture every day! The best of the year 2009. It is the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2009. Every day from Dec 1st to the 25th a new astronomy photo will be revealed! Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
It’s a busy day and getting near the holidays, so we figured it would serve all well to reprint our Telescope Buyer’s Guide:
There are several telescope buyers guides available on the Internet, some good, some not so good. At Spectrum we are writing from our experience with customers and hope to make this simple and […]
As you may have heard, NASA’s Lunar Impactor will hit the Moon at 7:31AM, EST, or 4:31am PST. This impact will raise up a large cloud of dust that may be visible for about 100 seconds after impact. A large telescope (10-12″ aperture) will be needed, but easily in the realm of amateur telescopes.
Sadly […]
Spectrum has now added the StarBlast 6 to its exciting lineup of telescopes!
The Starblast 6 is the ‘big brother’ to the original Starblast. Like it’s little brother, it uses the same innovative ‘Dob & Arm’ setup that is easy to move, lightweight, and requires minimal assembly. But unlike the original StarBlast, the StarBlast 6 has […]
