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Popup at an Optics Conference
My good friend and mentor, Julius Muschaweck, invited me to see his talk at SPIE Optical Systems Design in Strasbourg. He’s an expert in illumination optics, and he worked at OSRAM when they brought the LED to market. We met when I took his course, after I realized just how hard it is to design…
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A dobson-style refractor mount
For most people, the telescope mount ruins astronomy forever.That little piece between the tripod and the tube that allows you to steer.Ruined forever. I’ll explain what happens to most people who buy their first telescope. They spend a few hundred, and maybe they get something like a Celestron Astromaster. They can’t see anything. But why?…
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How a Neutral Density filter fights light pollution
“Here. Wear these like sunglasses and look around.” I handed him a neutral density filter. We use them in the telescopes on nights when the moon is too bright. Too much light through the eyepiece is blinding, so we use these gray pieces of glass to reduce the light and create a more pleasant viewing…
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Becoming a Street Astronomer
People have always called me an alien. They’ll joke and say I only had three weeks to read up on Earth before they dropped me off. And for whatever reason, even from cloudy NorthEast Rochester or bright and crowded Philadelphia, I’ve always been tempted to look at the sky with my binoculars. Stare at the…
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Let’s show some people the moon!
Hey! If you’re interested in street astronomy, science outreach, or light pollution, then follow our adventures on this blog!I want to convince you that there’s nothing more fun than performing astronomy in public. 99% of people have never seen the moon’s craters before. We have the technology to launch telescopes into space that can see…
