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Welcome again to our monthly newsletter with features on exciting celestial events, product reviews, tips & tricks, and a monthly sky calendar. We hope you enjoy it!

• Stocking Stuffers
  Geoff Gaherty helps you help the people you love. An excellent list of useful, fun accessories to enhance your viewing pleasure.
     
• NEW Products & Special Offers
  News of our new BlueStar Telescope Adapter, and offer of a free EarthBall with the purchase of any Starry Night® Educational DVD.
     
• Constellation in Focus: Cassiopeia
  This month we concentrate on a particularly beautiful and mysterious section of the autumn sky.
     
• Amazing Images Contest: Winner
  Our Summer Under the Stars competition generated some spectacular entries. Congratulations go to...

It’s getting to be the time of the year when gifts are exchanged. Often people are puzzled about what to give the amateur astronomer in the family, so I’d like to help out. This is a compilation of items in the Orion wish book, err…catalog, which I either own myself or wish I did. Some are specialized for certain types of telescopes, but most are useful to all. This is my own personal selection of the most useful and fun accessories to enhance your viewing pleasure.

Now, here’s what you do. Print out this list, and mark on it in bright red marker the items you’d particularly like to receive. Then leave it somewhere casually around the house for others to find. Good luck!

$10 and under

$9.95 #04110 Star Target™ Planisphere
I got one of these with my first telescope nearly 50 years ago, and I’m still using it today. It’s a simple device which lets you dial in the current date and time and shows you what stars are visible in the sky. Sure you have Starry Night® on your computer, but do you really want to take your computer out into the dewy night?

$9.95 #07214 Dovetail Mounting Base
For refractor owners only. A while back somebody got the bright idea of attaching finders to refractors with a dovetail base molded into the telescope’s focuser. Seemed like a bright idea, but it puts the finder in a very awkward position. The finder’s eyepiece is hard to get to because it’s too low, and it often gets in the way of the main telescope’s eyepiece, and vice versa. The solution is to move the finder to a better position, about 6 inches up the tube from the focuser, using this handy little mounting base. Any standard finder should fit, and you’ll find it much easier to use.

$10 to $20

$14.95 #04150 DeepMap™ Folding Star Chart
Everyone needs a star map, and this is an inexpensive and very handy one to have. Stick it in your accessory case, and you’ll never be at a loss for objects to look for and how to find them.

$14.95 and up #17176/#17189/#17177 Starry Night® DVDs
Atlas of the Sky
Eyes on Mars
Wheels on Mars
Starry Night 4 DVD Set
These DVDs contain a wealth of fascinating information for the amateur astronomer.

$16.95 up #04203 FlexiShield™ Dew Cap
For Schmidt-Cassegrain and Maksutov-Cassegrain owners only. That big corrector plate on the front of your scope is a magnet for dew. One of these dew caps will slow down the formation of dew, and yet takes up almost no space.

$17.95 #05755 RedBeam II™ LED Flashlite
Every astronomer needs a red flashlight to protect his night vision, and this is the nicest one I know. Hang it around your neck to light your footsteps in the dark, and you’ll never lose it. The adjustable red LEDs throw a nice gentle glow on your charts, and the battery lasts forever.

$20 to $30

$24.95 and up #05973 Deluxe Aluminum Accessory Cases
Ever get to your observing site and find you’ve forgotten something essential? Never again, if you keep everything in order in a solid accessory case. Get one bigger than you think you’ll ever need: you’ll soon fill it up!

$24.95 #14008 Hybrid .965"/1.25" Star Diagonal
For owners of small refractors with substandard eyepiece holders. Most "department store" refractors come with accessories 0.965" in diameter, rather than the standard 1.25". Replace the star diagonal with one of these, and you’ll be able to use a wide variety of modern eyepieces and other accessories.

$24.95 #51315 Turn Left At Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis
One of my favorite books, which explains how to find over a hundred of the best objects in the sky.

$25.95 #05756 DualBeam™ LED Astro Flashlight
Just like the RedBeam™ flashlight above, but also has a pair of white LEDs for observing the Moon and hunting for lost screws in the grass.

$29.95 #07033 Precision Slow-Motion Adapter
This neat little device makes it much more pleasant to use a small telescope on a photo tripod by giving you slow motion control in both axes. Also useful when mounting a piggyback camera to a telescope.

$29.95 #20034 Beginning Stargazer's Toolkit
Four useful resources in one package: Star Target Planisphere; Discover the Stars observer's guide; Moon map; and RedBeam Mini LED Astro Flashlight.

$30 to $40

$32.95 #15178 Orion® Waist Case™ Accessory Holder
Keep your most used accessories close at hand at all times!

$34.95 #03515 DC Dew Zappers
For Schmidt-Cassegrain and Maksutov-Cassegrain owners only. For those damp nights when a dew shield isn’t enough to keep the dew at bay.

$39.95 and up #05935 Observer's Chair
If you’re sitting down comfortably at the eyepiece of your telescope, you will see more detail in anything you observe.

$39.95 #03640 Collimating Eyepiece
For owners of Newtonian reflectors only. This is the essential tool for aligning your telescope’s optics and getting the best performance out of your telescope.

$40 to $50

$42.95 and up #08732 Sirius™ Plössl Eyepieces
Sirius eyepieces are one of the best bargains out there: excellent quality at a very reasonable price. If your scope came with the usual 25 mm and 10mm eyepieces, I’d recommend adding either a 32 mm for wide field views or a 7.5 mm for higher magnification on the Moon, planets, globular clusters, and planetary nebulae.

$44.95 #59133 Atlas Of The Moon by Antonin Rükl
If you have any interest in our nearest neighbor, the Moon, this is the book to get. When the first edition went out of print, it was selling for as high as $300 on the used market! Detailed maps of the entire surface of the Moon, with all features clearly labeled.

$48.95 #05155 RockStable™ Anti-Vibration Pads
At first I was really dubious, but after trying these, I’m a believer. Put one of these “hockey pucks” under each leg of your telescope’s tripod, and you’ll see an amazing improvement in the steadiness of your views.

$49.95 and up

$49.95 and up #05595 V-Block™ Anti-Fringing Filter
For owners of achromatic refractors only. Even the finest achromatic refractors suffer from some residual chromatic aberration, which shows itself as a purple fringe around bright objects. This filter blocks the purple fringe without affecting other colors strongly, resulting in a cleaner, more contrasty image. Especially useful on the Moon and planets. Best mounted on your telescope’s star diagonal.

$49.95 and up #17209 Starry Night®
Starry Night® Complete Space & Astronomy Pack
Starry Night® Enthusiast, Version 5.0
Starry Night® Pro, Version 5.0
Starry Night® Pro Plus, Version 5.0
This is my favorite planetarium program. It gives very realistic depictions of the sky, allows the printing of detailed charts, and allows fantastic animations. It also comes with many extras on DVD.

$49.96 and up #07826 Motor drive
EQ-1M, EQ-2M and EQ-3M Electronic Drives
TrueTrack™ DC Drive Systems
For owners of telescopes on equatorial mounts. A motor drive for your telescope will enhance your enjoyment by providing automatic tracking of astronomical objects. I prefer these models with pushbutton hand paddles because of the greater control and comfort they offer in operation.

Have a happy holiday!

Geoff Gaherty
Geoff has been a life-long telescope addict, and is active in many areas of visual observation; he is a moderator of the Yahoo "Talking Telescopes" group.

Starry Night® BlueStar Telescope Adapter

https://store.starrynightstore.com/sn-bwtc-1.html

The first combination Bluetooth® and USB™ connectivity solution for the astronomy enthusiast!

Now, command your computerized telescope from your laptop wirelessly. The integrated Bluetooth® wireless technology gives you enhanced range and freedom of movement in the field. BlueStar works with most major brands of computerized telescopes, allowing complete wireless control while using Starry Night® Pro software or other popular astronomy programs as your graphical interface. For added convenience, the BlueStar Telescope Adapter doubles as a USB adapter in wired configurations, eliminating the need for a USB to serial port adapter.

• Wireless Range: Up to 30 feet (9 meters). Range may vary due to site conditions
• RJ-11 port for telescope connector cable
• USB port for wired configurations and backup power supply
• Easy-to-read LED indicates Bluetooth or USB operation
• Actual Size: 3.72 in. (95 mm) long x 2.49 in. (63 mm) wide x 1.10 in. (28 mm)

Order online at www.StarryNight.com or contact William Dickson by phone at (877) 644-4875 x233, by email at education@starrynight.com, or fax purchase orders to (416) 603-8389. All prices are quoted in USD. Free Earthball with purchase of Starry Night Classroom Edition DVD offer is only valid with new purchases of Starry Night Classroom Edition DVDs for $49.95 each from www.StarryNight.com Offer expires Friday, December 30, 2005 at 11:59PM EST. Not valid on previous purchases. Limit 1 Earthball per 1 purchase of Starry Night Classroom Edition DVD.

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Cassiopeia is one of the easiest constellations to spot during the autumn and winter months; its big "W" shape rotates overhead each night. Apart from being a generally pretty area to scan in binoculars, there are some terrific sights to pick out.

9,000 light years away sits NGC 457, a 6th-mag open cluster known as the Owl Cluster. NGC 559 a 9.5-mag open cluster is about 2.5° from NGC 663 a 7th-mag open cluster seen in binoculars.

Cassiopeia is also the area of sky where Tycho's Supernova of 1572 appeared slightly to the west of Kappa Cassiopeiae, changing the appearance of the sky for six months and cementing Copernicus' 1543 rebuttal of Ptolemaic theory; in that year Copernicus died and his great work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was published, overturning the established doctrine that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Unfortunately, nothing is visible to amateur astronomers but the site is of obvious historic interest.

Sean O'Dwyer, Starry Night® Times Editor

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Summer Under the Stars
Winning Photo by Edward Henry

Taken with: Takahashi Sky 90mm
Mount: LX200
Camera: Canon 10D
Software: CCDSoft, Maxim, Photoshop, Image

PHOTO OF THE MONTH COMPETITION: We would like to invite all Starry Night® users to send their quality astronomy photographs to be considered for use in our monthly newsletter. Featured submissions (best of month) will receive a prize of $25 USD. Please read the following guidelines and see the submission e-mail address below.

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All prices are quoted in USD. Offers not valid on previous purchases.

Early Holiday Discount of 15% off orders of $35 or more is valid starting Monday, November 14 and expires Tuesday, November 29, 2005 11:59 pm EST. In order to receive the discount upon checkout, you must enter coupon code: shop35

Free Standard Delivery offer only applies to US and Canadian addresses. Minimum purchase of $20 is required. The offer is valid starting Monday, November 14, 2005 2 pm EST and expires December 22, 2005 11:59 pm EST. Sorry, this offer does not apply to International orders. Please select Standard Delivery at checkout to receive FREE shipping.
   

   
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