Originally posted by Ryan S.
an 8" refractor is even better 
Ooh, ooh - and a 30" reflector just about fries your eyeballs !
Seriously ! Way back in 1980 I was doing an astronomy course at the local tech school. The instructor had an ex student who was doing her Masters degree at Mt Stromlo on the 30" scope which was reserved for students.
With a bit of arm twisting he got the class an hour on this 'monster' one night. We had fun even finding eyepieces for it (who actually looks down a scope nowadays ?). We all gasped at Omega Centauri - a globular cluster of stars in the Southern skies which blew me away.
The next thing you know someone asks if we can look at the moon. The Masters student looks at us all a little oddly then says that it will be very difficult !
"How can this be ?" I wondered, after all it is pretty hard NOT to see it in the sky ! Then she explains that it isn't something you can track easily with the big scope...
Not to be deterred someone took the control paddle and the rest of us just eyeballed along the scope's body tube - "Up a bit, left, left a bit more..." You get the picture
The tough part was that the Moon moves so quickly in the sky that we would position the scope on the leading edge and by the time we were ready to change observers we had to completely reposition the beast.
The sad part is that the Canberra bushfires on January 18 last year not only destroyed homes and took some lives, but they completely gutted the Mt Stromlo observatory...
Now they are debating how much of it they will rebuild because the city of Canberra is encroaching too closely with way too much light pollution.
*Sigh*
(Evil) Bob
