Hi Folks,

The Board of Directors cordially invites all members of the SFAAA to join us for our monthly "Members Only Friday". "Members Only Friday" will be on Friday March 26th, 2010 starting at sunset. This event has been planned from the very start to be exclusively for the members of the SFAAA - it is not meant to be a general public night. It's specifically meant for new and old members to get together to meet each other socially outside of our regular dark site trips, to share imaging and equipment tips, to get general technical help on any astronomy issue you may have, or simply just to hang out and observe the heavens. If you're a member of the club, this night is all about you! We really want this to be a fun and memorable time for all involved, so make plans to join us!

Weather (and member interest) permitting we will be giving at least one Observatory familiarization tour. Any members who are interested in taking the observatory familiarization tour should please "sign up" for the tour by clicking this link to send me an email. In this way we will create a list of folks who are signing up specifically for the tour and so guarantee that the time slot is reseved and that we are prepared to lead one or more tours.

Please note that this means that if we do not hear from you, we will assume that there is no interest (and therefore no need to arrange for) a tour on this particular Friday - so please take the time to sign up!

In addition, please "reserve" the Observatory telescopes for visual use on "Members Only Friday" - at least until after we have concluded the Observatory familiarization tours and it is factually determined that there are no members wishing to continue to utilize the telescopes visually. This will allow members who are trying to learn observatory operations (or simply want to use the telescopes visually) an opportunity to have unfettered access to the equipment on an ongoing basis.

Imagers - in light of this, please remember to bring your own rigs to the party so that you're sure to be able to play! We will open the Observatory to imagers who want a crack at the Observatory telescopes once we've definitely determined that the equipment is available, but this is likely not to actually happen until later in the evening. Depending on the interest level for visual use, the Observatory telescopes may not actually become available at all.

"Members Only Fridays" is also a great time to renew your membership if it is coming due or if it has lapsed for some reason. So far this year the income from our visitor donations are outstripping membership dues. Membership dues are a critical piece in our ability to be able to finance club operations. Without continued support of the membership we won't be able to continue the improvements we've started. Your membership definitely counts - Please come by and sign back up. If you're a reader on the Yahoo! site and have been on the fence about joining up or you've been waiting for the opportunity to officially become a member of the club, there will never be a better chance to join us! Come on by and sign up! We will have enough officers in attendance to make certain that your membership card is fully executed and in your possession before you leave.

So make plans right now to join us on Friday night, Friday March 26th, 2010 for "Members Only Friday"!

Charlie

Yes, if you have one of these things, we all do it - sooner or later, we loosen our polar scope recticle too much and it falls out and rolls around inside the polar scope. This makes polar alignment impossible - but it's very easy to fix! The trick is in understanding how the polar scope is put together... let's take it apart for a look.

The polar scope will easily unscrew from the mount. Once it's out, hold it vertically with the "eyepiece" side facing up and the "objective" side facing down, like so:

The "eyepiece" end of the polar scope unscrews. Remove it, and you will expose the loose recticle. At this point you can just empty it out into your hand if you'd like to have a closer look at it, although it's not necessary to completely remove it in order to fix your trouble unless for some reason the glass recticle lens itself has fallen out of its holder. More on this in a bit.

Here's a picture of the recticle itself:

Note that there's a larger "outside" ring that is the "holder" for the glass recticle, and a smaller ring that screws into the larger ring to secure the glass recticle lens in place. In the very unlikely event that this holder assembly has come apart, just drop the glass lens in place as shown and tighten the smaller ring into the larger ring with a small "jewelers" screwdriver until the recticle lens is snugly held in the metal "framework". Be careful not to over tighten the inside ring as you could shatter the recticle glass!

Just so you have an idea of what it looks like, here's a look at the back side of the recticle:

Now, the whole reason we're taking this thing apart in the first place is probably because we loosened one or more of the adjustment screws too much and the recticle assembly fell out as one piece. Fortunately this is an avoidable problem. The recticle is designed with a flange (or slot, or channel - pick the word you like) that will retain the recticle in place if we don't loosen it too much:

If you look down the disassembled polar scope towards the objective, it might look something like this:

In this case, note that one adjustment screw is way out (unscrewed) and one is not. This one screw was loose enough to allow the recticle to just fall right out. Notice that if it had not been loosened so far, the recticle would have still been held in place by the flange. Keep this in mind when you are adjusting the recticle for accurate centering later on.

However, now that the recticle *is* out, it might be prudent to loosen the other two adjustment screws so that they do not extend into the area that the recticle needs to fall into.

These adjustment screws require a 1.5mm allen key, by the way.

Once you've unscrewed the adjustment screws enough to clear the opening, just drop the recticle into the polar scope with this side facing you. Now that nothing is in the way, it should be pretty easy to get it right:

Now, tighten the adjustment screws up until the recticle is roughly centered in the housing. They should be tight enough to hold the recticle firmly in place, but definitely not "cranked down hard"! You could ruin your recticle if you over tighten it in this "holder"!

Once it's in place, it should look something like this:

Now that the recticle is back in its holder, you can thread the "eyepiece" back in, looking through the "eyepiece" and continuing to screw it in until the recticle is in sharp focus. Then just thread the whole polar scope assembly back into the RA axis of your mount. Problem solved!

Once the recticle is re-installed and we have the polar scope re-installed in the mount, we will definitely need to re-align the recticle to the RA axis of the mount. Accuracy is the name of the game at this stage - the more accurately the recticle is aligned, the better your chances are of getting really good polar alignments using the polar scope.

At this point, I could go through a discussion of the whole procedure for accurately lining up your recticle to the RA axis of your mount, but instead I'll direct you to one of the best explanations on the web for how to do this that I've ever found:

Good Luck and Clear Skies!

Charlie

Hello Folks!

As you've probably noticed, we've run a little short of fresh content for the club website lately. I'm writing today to make an official request for club members and other interested parties to submit articles for posting on the website. We are looking for product reviews, observing reports, how-to articles or any other type of content that can be posted on the site for our readers to enjoy.

In particular, we would really be interested in seeing articles of a recurring nature, such as an recurring article on what is going to be in the sky for a particular month. If you've always wanted to be a columnist this could be your stepping stone!

Seriously, we can really use your help. You don't have to be a great writer - we will function as your "editor" and make certain that your article is spell checked, factual and easy to read. You do not have to be a web guru at all - we can take your information in many forms (such as a Word document or email) and get it online with no trouble at all. While we would like for you to provide any pictures your article would need (and in the case of a "how-to" or product review it's pretty much essential that you provide some images), we can always use stock photos to dress up your article if you don't have any pictures to share.

What we cannot do without is your input. If you would like to help out in this way, please contact us at info@sfaaa.com, and we'll get back to you to work out the details!

thanks,

Charlie

Eva-Dry High Capacity Dehumidifier Systems.
by Steve Cox
 
The Weapon:
Welcome to South Florida, and the wonderful conditions of moisture that go along with it.  The enemy comes to astronomers in the form of dew. Our equipment takes the punishment night after night. Now there is a new weapon to fight back, behold the Eva-Dry High Capacity Dehumidifier Systems. They come in all shapes and sizes and range in price from $14-$80 each. Their one mission is to remove moisture from our astronomy equipment. Inside these units are thousands of tiny crystals that remain active for 10 years and offer a limited 5 year manufacture warranty.