Dave Mitsky's Corner

Darth Vader Goes Telescope Shopping

By Dave Mitsky

On Sunday, April 16th, I attended the 9th Annual Northeast Astronomy Forum and Telescope Show in Suffern, New York. Suffern, by the way, is the home of Tele Vue Optics. This year the NEAF was held at the Rockland Community College. The Rockland Astronomy Club hosts the yearly event, which features numerous astronomy vendors, astronomy club exhibits, and lectures.

Since my friend and fellow ASH member Roger Studer and I arrived a bit too late to have any chance at purchasing any Panoptic eyepieces at the Tele Vue "blem" sale I decided to forgo waiting in line. I didn't really need any of the Tele Vue oculars that were still available. They were not quite the bargains that they were last year anyway, some being more expensive by $45. In the meantime Roger set up his wares at a swap table and quickly sold out his supply of Astrolite-LED flashlights.

Since I decided to skip the Tele Vue line I trekked to the lecture hall instead and caught the last half of Matthew Marula's excellent talk entitled "The History of Telescope Design". Mr. Marula was followed by Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium. Dr. Tyson's extremely evocative and witty treatment of the history of the old planetarium and the planning and construction of its replacement was worth the $15 NEAF admission price alone. Next came another top notch presentation by Astronomy's Bob Naeye, who was a member of the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg during the 1980's. Bob, who is now a senior editor, spoke about the Galileo probe and the findings that have changed the way we think about Jupiter and its Galilean satellites.

When Bob was finished speaking Phil Harrington, his friend Paul Bradshaw, Bob and another staff member of Astronomy, Roger, and I enjoyed some good food and conversation at a local restaurant. Unfortunately, in doing so I had to sacrifice hearing Ed Ting's talk entitled "Telescopes 101" (see http://www.scopereviews.com).

For me the highlight of the day came as a complete surprise. As we returned from lunch I met the famous actor James Earl Jones in passing as he was exiting the exhibition hall. Darth Vader goes telescope shopping (or at least the person who supplied the Sith Lord's voice), what a concept!

I spent the next couple of hours visiting the various vendor booths and club exhibits. The crowded conditions of the Holiday Inn exhibition area, home of the NEAF for most of its history, were not to be found at the college. Everywhere one looked there were fine examples of astronomical hardware on display, ranging from very impressive refractors (from Tom Back, D & G Optical, Pentax, Takahashi, and others) to a fiber optic spectrometer. There were plenty of other electronic gadgets for purchase. Also on hand were some unusual telescopes Including a DGM off-axis Newtonian and a Mag 1 Instruments PortaBall. Markus Ludes (http://www.apm-telescopes.com), who put up with some of my very rusty high school German, had exotic eyepieces like the Docter 12.5mm Ultra Wide Field and the Leica 22mm for sale. Some very heavy duty (and expensive) telescope mounts were being offered including sophisticated robotic affairs such as the Software Bisque Paramount GT-1100 and the voice-activated Digital SkyVoice GOTO mount by Astro-Physics. Vendors demonstrated several fine software packages such as SkyTools and Guide. John Yecher, who was helping Barry Greiner at the D & G booth, sold stunning astrophotos that he took at Ayers Rock in Australia. Information on fighting the scourge of light pollution and fliers announcing upcoming regional star parties were commonplace among the club booths.

As the day unfolded I ran into quite a few distant friends and fellow amateur astronomers including Lloyd Adam, Kent Blackwell, Henry Cote, Tom Dietz, and Gary Honis. Seven other ASH members and a number of folks from the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers (among them Al Lamperti, Harry Orlind, and Vince Sheetz) also attended the NEAF. Unfortunately, other than founder Phil Harrington I never ran into any of eGroup's Talking Telescopes crowd in attendance.

My only purchase, other than some raffle tickets, was a Rigel Quickfinder that is destined to spend time on my 80mm f/5 Orion ShortTube refractor and my 12.5" f/4.8 Starsplitter Compact Dob.

The keynote lecture on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence was presented by Dr. Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute. Are there really 10,000 technological civilizations scattered among the myriad stars of the Milky Way? I suppose humanity will have to stay tuned to find out.

This year's NEAF was among the finest of the six that I've attended. The talks that I heard were excellent, there were many interesting new toys to behold, and I only spent $40! (Last year I quickly blew $500 on eyepieces.) My only real regret, other than not picking up a cheap 35mm Panoptic or winning one of the choice raffle prizes (e.g., an entire set of Nagler eyepieces worth $2500 was donated by Al Nagler), was that I missed Ed Ting's talk.