2020/9/29 PM: A peek at the Moon & Mars.

I really like the Galileoscope. It's the only scope I have which can be used with no table, chair, or any surface other than the ground. It has two accessories which are sturdy enough I feel comfortable putting them in my pocket. And it's surprisingly capable for planets.

It requires a photo tripod to use. I found one lying around in storage which I use. It's plenty beefy, maybe a little more than what most Galileoscope users will be using for a photo tripod. The lack of a star diagonal is annoying, but unless you're pointing VERY high, simply extending the tripod vertically as much as possible gets a comfortable enough view. The focuser isn't easy to deal with but you can get focused eventually.

A few nights ago I used it to watch a star occultation. I brought it from where I'd set up a few dozen meters to where the treeline was low enough to see the setting Moon & double star.

Last night (Sept 29, at around 11:30 PM) while out very late getting snacks from Sheetz I set up the Galileoscope to take a peek at the Moon & Mars. I like to observe the bright planets & Moon in well lit spaces anyway if that's all I'm looking at. The Galileoscope is specifically designed to be good enough to use without too much internal reflections and glare when bright lights are around, and it does it enough that, though you might want to cup your eye around the eyepiece, it does a fine job. Jupiter & Saturn had either already set or were hiding behind the roof over the gasoline pumps. There was only the Moon & Mars.

Sinus Iridium was very pleasantly lit at this phase. In the southern terminator there was a mid-sized bull's eye crater. Looking it up now I see that it is called Gassendi. The view was very nice at 25x, and remained crisp and sharp at 50x, which just barely fits the whole Moon in the field of view. I am often impressed by the Galileoscope's plastic Plossl. I'll take it over a glass Huygens or Ramden any day. It uses two doublets made of different types of plastic which act as a symmetrical achromat. Its eye lens is much smaller than that of a glass Plossl of 20mm focal length or even a Kellner, but its field of view is better than the FirstScope's Huygens. A while ago I tried it and its Barlow in my 6" Dob and aside from a bit of contrast-robbing glare it performed as well as my 10mm Kellner.

I then turned my attention to Mars--a bright orange dot in the sky. At 25x it was nothing special, but at 50x I could actually see hints of structure. I decided to break the purity of the Galileoscope by taking out my eyepiece kit and sliding in a 6mm Kellner. The view was better but parts of the lens seemed to have some sort of eyeball goo on it. I need to take it inside and clean it. (15mm Goldline too while I'm at it, which has dust specks which become very noticeable when Barlowed) At 83x with the 6mm Goldline, I could make out the polar cap as a bright speck, and I could see formless brown murkiness in the orange disk.

I went inside, got my snacks and groceries, and then realized I had not brought a way to pay.

I like driving out very late at night in well lit, familiar areas. It's one of the few times I enjoy driving. I was going to go to a different grocery store. I tried two then realized at 1:00 or so everywhere but the convenience store would be closed. The shining of blinking red lights on the railroad crossing gates as they rose up reminded me of the same Christmas tree beauty I'd seen in the Pleiades a few nights before.

I drove back out about an hour later. I took a brief peek at the Moon through the FirstScope. The Huygens 20mm eyepiece never ceases to disgust me, but when I went back for my aperture mask, it showed me pleasant enough views, though 15x just isn't enough to really enjoy the Moon, so I got the SR4 Ramsden, which performed nicely with the aperture mask fitted. Dimmer and not quite as sharp as the Galileoscope, but very acceptable. I took the aperture mask off and back on, and it really does make a stunning difference in sharpness. By the time I decided to try Mars, clouds go to it, and I put up the FirstScope and got my snacks and groceries, and actually paid for them this time.

 P.S.: speaking of beauty while driving. I was getting fast food tonight. A car with yellow headlights pulled up behind me. The rain droplets on my side mirror gave the distinct impression of being within a Globular Cluster, as if I were transported to within the outskirts of one. It was like a hubble photo. It was of course not real, but it was very pretty. So much I had to stop ordering food, and just tell the person how beautiful it was. Silly, I know. But I had to say it out loud so I'd remember it well.

There's this movie called Thomas & The Magic Railroad. In it there is a line of narration about the main human protagonist, a child named Lily, about how she notices the everyday magic in the world, like headlights reflecting off puddles in the road. Because the only reason anyone remembers that movie is if they are autistic and Thomas the Tank Engine is their special interest, I've often heard ridicule of that line. "it's not magic," they'll say, "it's just lights." But I felt like that character, in that moment, watching a globular cluster through my side mirror.