SEEING STARS
THE ability to concentrate on detail is a valuable skill, but sometimes it’s a good idea to focus on the big picture first.
That’s one reason why I ordered a new finder scope to replace the broken one on the telescope I keep at my home in Francistown.
The finder is the mini-scope you can see mounted on top of the telescope pictured above. Telescopes are great for studying things that are a long way off, but the more they magnify their subjects, the smaller their fields of vision become, so they are not very good for locating things.
That’s where finders come in. They don’t magnify much, but their wide-angle field of vision allows users to locate the moon, planets and stars at night, and distant objects on the land during the day. Then, if they are mounted and aligned correctly,whatever is centred in the finder’s view will be visible through the main scope.
The other reason I ordered the finder over the internet last week is that I am bringing my English partner out to Botswana this month. It will be her first visit and I am looking forward to her experiencing the local culture, meeting the friendly people and viewing the abundant wildlife. But since we will be landing in Gaborone in the evening, the first African wonder on display will be the magnificent night sky.
In England, there are lots of clouds so the stars are often obscured, and even when the sky is perfectly clear, it is difficult to get far enough away from the artificial light of cities and towns to see more than the brightest stars. As a matter of fact, during the ten years I have been living and camping in the UK, I can only remember seeing the Milky Way once.
Anyway, I intend to stop in a dark area on the first night so we can have a good look at the big picture overhead. Then on the second night, after we have driven to Francistown, I hope to set up my telescope and attach the new finder scope so we can get magnified views of the crescent shape of Venus to the west in the evening and Jupiter with its moons to the east later on.
Well, that’s the plan anyway… but the Francistown part might not work out that way. You see, when I ordered the finder scope on the internet, I went for a no frills model that didn’t require batteries and came with free shipping… but I didn’t check when the item would be delivered.
Unfortunately, I have just been notified it has been posted from Taiwan and might not arrive at my English home before we set off for Africa. Whoops. That’s the kind of thing that happens when we focus on little things like cost and forget to consider the bigger picture. Oh well, maybe I’ll luck out and find a planet with just the telescope… or maybe we won’t use the scope at all.
Either way, the big picture of the night sky and the other wonders of Botswana are going to be more than enough.