Joe, I just wanted to thank you for another wonderful season of participation in the Orenco Station Sunday Farmers' Market. I think it speaks highly of your talents when you can't even walk across the parking lot when you arrive in the morning, without gathering a gaggle of kids and parents as you walk to your performance area. It's reminiscent of the Pied Piper, especially when you whip out your flute. The vendors at the market love you being there as much as the kids. I hope that you can see your way to coming again next year. Meanwhile, cheers and continued success. - Manager, Orenco Station Sunday Farmers' Market - Bill F.
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Joe's Journal - find out "What's Up" in Mishkin's World!
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Jun 21st, 2009
Year of Astronomy - June Journal
2009 has been dubbed the International Year of Astronomy, so I thought it would be fun to dust-off the ol' telescope and give a peer review. Peer review. Nevermind.
Anyway, I've been a fan of astronomy since I was a kid; one of the first things I did when I moved to Oregon was to procure a telescope, which is pictured below. It is what is known as a dobsonian reflector telescope - a fancy way of saying cardboard tube with a big mirror.
The black box near my left arm is a wide-field view-finder which helps me train the scope on my intended object; the cylindrical dealie sticking out below the view-finder is the eyepiece where I look to see the good stuff; the hammer acts as a counter-weight so the scope won't hit the ground under the weight of the aforementioned gizmos. Inside, below the hammer is the large, light-gathering primary mirror which gathers all the incoming light, and focuses it onto the secondary mirror where I can see everything in the universe via the eyepiece. Also, I think there might be unicorns involved, but I'm not sure about that part.
More astute observers will note that the above telescope is covered, and in fact, pointing away from the sky and they will know it is because it is broad daylight out and you don't want to point this thing anywhere near the sun... unless you need a super-huge laser at your disposal - in which case, you should probably keep away from scientific implements of any kind.
Hard as it is to believe, though, as long as I've been looking up, I had never before tried to photograph anything through the telescope... never before last week that is! So now, I would like to unveil my very first ever astro-photography results:
Okay. So. My very first astrophotography results were a total bust. Hey - don't hate the astro-player - at least I tried!
Not one to give up, I finally got a picture of what I was seeing through the eyepiece - the last-quarter moon, aka a waning crescent moon, not to be confused with a waxing gibbous moon (haha! I just wanted an excuse to say "waxing gibbous moon"). But you'll never guess what happened next...
Yeah - you guessed it - I totally fell asleep once it became dark enough to go stargazing! Hoo boy! To think - I used to be able to stay up so, so late.
Well, that wasn't exactly the stargazing update I was expecting -- but it was a good start!! We'll keep you posted on this and all other mundane goings on... mostly just because we can!
|  | Jun 25th, 2009
More Gardening Fun!
As promised, here are some more gardening pics!
One could ask why, but I choose to ask why not!
Mouse-over pics for more info. Click on pics for bigger version. Enjoy!
Oh, you'd better believe we'll be keeping you updated
on our future gardening exploits! Until then - cheers!
Click here to see the previous garden pics!
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