Post by patrickm on Apr 19, 2011 19:50:54 GMT -6
Some of you know that my Mom was dealing with cancer for the last two years, well the last seven really. Last Monday she finally stopped fighting and reluctantly passed away. This exhausting journey necessitates a vacation for Julia and me to decompress and just spend time together near a large body of salt water, like the Caribbean Sea.
One of our favorite getaway spots is Jake's in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. It is a small fishing and farming community far from the intensity of the touristy parts of Jamaica and the sprawling borderline chaos of Kingston, which definitely does have its charm. Though we've been to Treasure Beach several times and fallen asleep watching shooting stars, we've never had anything but travel binocs.
For our trip, I've purchased a Celestron 70mm Refractor Travel Scope for $62 from Amazon, which was ordered on a Sunday and somehow delivered on a Monday for $3.99 thanks to Prime. It comes with a rotten diagonal and cheapo Barlow, 20mm, and 10mm lenses, and perhaps the world's worst tripod when at all extended, but whaddya want for $60 and about 3.5lbs? On the plus side, it's light, will give 40x mag with a 10mm (my binos are at 15x), takes standard 1.25" eyepieces, and has a dovetail mount that will also screw onto any standard tripod mount.
I plan on taking the whole kit down there, supplemented with my own tripod, eyepieces, and Barlow. My hope is to teach somebody at either Jake's, or more hopefully somebody from BREDS or Sandy Bank Primary School, how to use the thing and just leave it behind along with the factory lenses.
I'm really excited to get a shot at a real dark sky now that I have just a little bit of knowledge to go with my enthusiasm. The Thursday meteor shower should also be spectacular there.
Can't wait.
p
One of our favorite getaway spots is Jake's in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. It is a small fishing and farming community far from the intensity of the touristy parts of Jamaica and the sprawling borderline chaos of Kingston, which definitely does have its charm. Though we've been to Treasure Beach several times and fallen asleep watching shooting stars, we've never had anything but travel binocs.
For our trip, I've purchased a Celestron 70mm Refractor Travel Scope for $62 from Amazon, which was ordered on a Sunday and somehow delivered on a Monday for $3.99 thanks to Prime. It comes with a rotten diagonal and cheapo Barlow, 20mm, and 10mm lenses, and perhaps the world's worst tripod when at all extended, but whaddya want for $60 and about 3.5lbs? On the plus side, it's light, will give 40x mag with a 10mm (my binos are at 15x), takes standard 1.25" eyepieces, and has a dovetail mount that will also screw onto any standard tripod mount.
I plan on taking the whole kit down there, supplemented with my own tripod, eyepieces, and Barlow. My hope is to teach somebody at either Jake's, or more hopefully somebody from BREDS or Sandy Bank Primary School, how to use the thing and just leave it behind along with the factory lenses.
I'm really excited to get a shot at a real dark sky now that I have just a little bit of knowledge to go with my enthusiasm. The Thursday meteor shower should also be spectacular there.
Can't wait.
p
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