Steve Yates
Fort Worth, Texas
U.S.A.
Welcome to my astronomy page. Here I share some of the experiences I've had with the hobby of amateur astronomy.
I've been into astronomy most of my life. My favorite movie as a 5-year-old child in 1968 was "2001: A Space Odyssey". I also watched every Apollo mission live. I took Astronomy AP classes in school and had a star party at my house during my senior year of high school. Much like in my amateur radio activities, I like to keep things simple. These days I like to enjoy my hobbies in a rather low-tech mode. For most aspects of my life, I tend to be a minimalist and I guess it carries on to amateur astronomy too. I'm a casual amateur astronomer and I do my best to be aware of what’s in the sky. I immensely enjoy my observation sessions.
My wife loves that I'm into astronomy. In the 1983 before we were even married, she bought me the Sears Model No. 4 6333-A Equatorial Telescope. I used it often. It has seen Halley’s Comet and the scars caused by the great comet crash into Jupiter just to name a couple. This telescope was quite popular back in its day. It was a 60 mm X 900 mm, f/15, achromat refractor on a German equatorial mount with a Sears Clock Drive. It allowed me to view the scars on Jupiter when it was it by Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in July 1994.
I spent several decades with just that telescope and binoculars. I wasn’t super active in astronomy but I did keep up with astronomical events. For many years as my sons were growing up, binocular observing was what I probably did most.
In 2020, I decided to treat myself to a really good telescope. I had some telescope budget burning a hole in my pocket. However, everyone else had the same idea and a great many new folk joined the hobby with the free time they had during the COVID lockdowns. At the same time, production and delivery of new telescopes came to a screeching halt. I couldn’t find any telescope to purchase. A friend at work showed me a little telescope package (telescope, tripod, mount, backpack, and binoculars) that showed up on the “Deal of the Day” at Adorama for only $249.95. It was a very fast achromat telescope, a Bresser AR102s Comet Edition, 102 mm X 459 mm, f/4.5. Conventional wisdom says this is a horrible combination due to the possibility of severe chromatic aberration. I figured that is was little more than a toy but bought it anyway just to have something to play with. It was designed to be a wide-field comet hunter. With the included 20 mm wide-field of view eyepiece it was very good at that. Images were bright, sharp, and with a large field of view. However, when pressed into higher powers, the chromatic aberration became noticeable. The CA wasn’t as bad as I expected but still a nuisance on some targets. It took away from the theoretical resolution of an 102 mm aperture. I began experimenting and I found a plastic yogurt lid that fit the dew shield perfectly. I cut a 60 mm hole in the center and painted lid with dark paint. Wow, what a difference! The telescope now had sharper images even at powers up to 184 X, the maximum I could muster. To me, the aperture mask turned this this little telescope into a very inexpensive, 60 mm, apochromat! The scope now serves double duty, with and without the mask. I’ve been able to resolve the Cassini Gap in Saturn’s rings, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, and split countless double stars. However, in the end it is still just a 60 mm aperture for most things, but for many things that is plenty. This has made for a perfect, grab-n-go scope. After work I can bring it out and be looking at stars in 2 minutes. For traveling, it all fits nicely in the included backpack. The whole rig ways only 13.4 lbs!
For Christmas 2020, my wife went all in and bought me a star! Yes, the star Kappa Draconis, latinized from κ Draconis, in the tail of Draco is MY star and don't forget it. :-) It is now called "AA5TB Steve Yates". I have an “official certificate” to prove it! :-) She also bought me a fine Astro-Tech Paradigm ED 5 mm eyepiece so I can see it better. Who could ask for a better wife?
In early 2022, I purchased my Astro-Tech AT102ED which was a significant quality upgrade to my older equipment. I'm quite adept at star hopping to my targets and enjoy doing so. I dabble in very simple astrophotography either just playing around or to record some special astronomical event. I really do enjoy the ease of use of my lightweight telescopes and the more I use them and the more roads trips I take with them, the less interested I am in getting a larger, expensive telescope. Perhaps if I move outside of town someday and have enough room to build a small observatory, I'll get a large telescope that I can just leave setup in place.
In September of 2022, sold my dear old Sears Model No. 4 6333-A refractor to a local club member. I found myself using my other two telescopes exclusively and I really don’t want to collect telescopes (famous last words).
In October of 2022, I purchased another Astro-Tech telescope, this time an AT80ED. I find this one an even better travel scope and it works perfectly on my small Bresser Alt/Az mount. This mount is identical to the Explore Scientific, Explore FirstLight Twilight Nano Mount, only black and gray in color.
As of 2022 I have the following astronomical equipment:
The Astro-Tech AT80ED is my main telescope these days though I do still use my other refractors and binoculars occasionally. I use my Astro-Tech AT102ED is for when I want more aperture. The Bresser is still a fun little telescope.
Though I've been a casual visual observer all of my life, I only started keeping observation logs in 2020. I find keeping a log and writing up my observations helps me learn the sky. The logs are below in PDF if you are interested.
My Astronomy Logs:
I do not consider myself as an astrophotographer but I do occasionally snap some single frame images with my simple equipment, usually my iPhone 14 Pro or my SvBONY Sv305 camera.