John Haynes To be honest, this is one of those cases where I don’t think it’s possible to give a single brand or model the honor of being named “the” best astronomical red flashlight. This is largely going to be a matter of personal preference. But, that said, we can certainly discuss the features to look for … Read more
In 2013, Celestron announced the release of a new mount to replace the venerable CG-5. This mount, the Advanced VX, or AVX, was billed as a full redesign and was meant to address some of the shortcomings of the CG-5. The CG-5 itself has had a fairly long history with Celestron. In the 1990’s, Celestron … Read more
Several years ago, I took over responsibility for managing my club’s Loaner Telescope program. We had a fairly rag-tag fleet of telescopes, everything from an 80mm short-tube refractor to 14.5-inch truss Dobsonian. At the time I took over, we had two NexStar SE scopes, a 5SE and a 6SE. During my tenure, we accepted donations … Read more
In between having to find things manually using techniques like star-hopping and the ability to let a computer do the work and GoTo the object you want to look at is the technology often referred to in the generic sense as “PushTo”. The Orion StarBlast 6i IntelliScope Reflector Telescope is such an instrument. I will … Read more
In 2010, Orion released the first in a line of fast Newtonian telescopes intended for astrophotography, containing 4.5, 6”, 8” and 10” models. The 4.5” has sadly been completely pulled from the market, while the 6” has been repeatedly discontinued and re-released. We will be focusing on the 8” model in this review, but keep … Read more