Good articles from Sky & Telescope.

Meant to post this a while back.

A few good articles from S&T on everything from caring for your equipment to getting the best out of it.

www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/diy

Some good stuff in there for beginners and even the more experienced.

Ha ha that binocular mount looks like something the French used to cut off the heads of royals.

Thanks Dave.

A good link.
I'm currently in the middle of making a dew heater for the telrad and will be off to maplin tomorrow to get 7 10ohm 1or2 watt resistors.

A dew heater for the Telrad Dave, sounds interesting. Also sounds like overkill, but I do know where you're heading with it, especially on a manually driven scope.

You might think its too much, but it doesn't last 1 hour before it starts to dew over and from then on I'm constantly drying it, its very exposed up there on the scope.
So I'm pumping 2 watts of heat into it, the amount you'd use for a 6 inch scope, it reckon that'll be enough to keep it.

I'll get 5 ohm resistors if they have them and make it 4 watts.
That'll use 0.25 amps so would over the night (say 8 hours max) if would use 2 amps hours of the battery system, not much really.
Overkill?? definitely!, but who cares so long as it keeps the telrad window clear.