Answer: -- Not in your living room. Observing through the window of a house will drastically reduce the performance of your telescope. Go outside. If possible, set your telescope up away from buildings, parking lots, patios or other objects -wooden or cement - that absorb heat by day. These objects radiate heat back into the sky at night and will create air currents that degrade the images in your telescope .

First of all, dress warmly when you go out at night! When the sun goes down, temperatures fall and moisture condenses. You would be surprised how cold you can feel even on a hot, summer night. I have been observing on summer nights in North Carolina and needed a sweater and jacket even when the outside temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If you are not comfortable, then you will not enjoy observing.

For you, it will take at least a half-hour of uninterrupted darkness for the pupils of your eyes to open to their fullest and be at their most sensitive to faint objects in the night sky. Furthermore, sudden exposure to bright light will quickly cause you to loose your dark adaptation. To read a star map or see the controls on your telescope , cover your flashlight lens with several layers of red plastic or paint it with several layers of red nail polish.

Many electronic experimenters have built their own radio telescopes. In fact, the world's second radio telescope was built by an amateur radio operator, Grote Reber, in 1937. Amateurs use a variety of equipment, sometimes modified satellite receivers and dishes, to build their radio telescopes. For more detailed information about amateur radio telescopes, contact the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers.

Answer: -- You will be able to see many of the same things you see in magazines and books, but the images produced in your telescope will smaller and less spectacular. The images in magazines and books are produced by large observatory telescopes that take long exposure photographs with special cameras. It simply isn't realistic to expect a small amateur telescope to produce visual images of the same quality .

Answer: -- ALWAYS start observing with the lowest magnification eyepiece available until you become skilled in the use of your telescope. This will be the eyepiece marked with the BIG number (longer focal length ), not one of the smaller numbers. Again, the number you see on the eyepiece is the focal length, not the magnification.

Answer: -- The best locations for astronomy will be rural areas far from large cities that pollute the night sky with outdoor lighting. This "light pollution" washes out many of the faint objects of interest to an astronomer, as does the light from the moon. A small telescope when used under a dark, moonless sky can match the performance of a larger telescope used under a light polluted sky or a moonlit sky. (Most astronomers do not hold the moon in high regard for this reason.)

Many times we see astro photographs that reveal a variety of deep colors in most deep sky objects, yet when we look at them through a telescope they usually show a faint gray or bluish haze. This has to do with the way our eyes sense light. The retina contains sensors called rods and cones. Rods detect black and white, and are seven times more sensitive than the cones, which detect color.

The telescope's ability to collect light is directly related to the size or diameter (aperture) of the objective lens or primary mirror. Generally, the bigger the lens or mirror, the more light the telescope collects and brings to focus, and the brighter the final image. Aperture is probably the most important consideration when buying a telescope, but it is not the only consideration. You want to buy as much aperture as you can reasonably afford; however, avoid "aperture fever.

This consideration is perhaps the most misleading to novice telescope buyers. Often, manufacturers of "cheap, department store" telescopes will display "200x power or more" on the boxes of their products. The magnification or power has little to do with the optical performance of the telescope, and is not a primary consideration.

A Review Set of home plans will include all four exterior views plus the main and upper (2-stories) home floor plans. They are intended to help decide if the home you have chosen will fit into your budget and to give you a better idea of room size. They do not include the roof plan, the foundation plan, building sections or details. A review set is not a license to build. Not all of our home plan designers and architects offer this option, so check to make sure it is available.

Each set of homeplans that we offer will provide you with the necessary information to build the home. There may be some adjustments necessary to the home plans or garage plans in order to comply with your state or county building codes. The following list shows what is included within each set of home plans that we sell. Depending on the home designer there might be more home building information provided.

Complete set of home plans on an erasable paper called Mylar, sepia, or vellum. This is what you want if you are planning to make minor changes to your home plans. Once you've made your changes, you are able to make all of the copies you need to build from. Not all of our home designers offer this option, so check to make sure it is available. A Reproducible Set includes a copyright release allowing you to legally make copies of this copyrighted home plan.

Yes, by all means, feel free to give us a hand. As long as you're willing to let others look through your telescope and answer the questions they may have about it, you're more than welcome to set up with us. If you'd rather not have people around your expensive telescope, you're welcome to do your observing after the public Star Party. The Observatory is NOT a campground, however, so if you're here, you should be observing.

Observations of the afterglows all across the spectrum tell us many things about gamma ray bursts. First, observations of the first afterglow in 1997 confirmed that gamma ray bursts occur in very distant galaxies (see question 2). Second, from observations of the afterglow we can determine how much energy was released in the gamma ray burst. Third, we can determine how much material was present in the vicinity of the gamma ray burst.

Answer: The astronomical new moon happens when the moon comes between earth and sun, and that new moon cannot be seen by the most sophisticated telescopes. One Saudi Prince went up in a rocket to try to see this new moon from the space in the high skies and came back confirming that it was not visible. That's why it is called invisible moon, becuase its lighted portion is towards the sun and dark portion is towards the earth.

ANSWER: Look at the US Fish and Wildlife Service educational page on Bats. For information on Bat Management around the home see the USGS page on bat management. There are also several bat conservation organizations. If you are still interested in exterminating them, call a professional pest control company. See your local yellow pages, or go to Online Yellow Pages

Ans. It has a great significance. All our efforts are towards quietening the mind. We have already experienced how talkative the mind is. Even though we want the mind to observe the breath, it hardly observes a couple of breaths before it indulges in its old habit of thinking and talking endlessly with itself. We want it to quieten down and become involved in the task of observing the breath, but despite all our efforts, it does not calm down.

Satellite imagery, particularly from polar-orbiting satellites, and especially when skies are clear of clouds, make it possible to spot big icebergs as they form. Cracks in the ice are only clearly visible from the air. Satellites give a point of view available no other way.

A collection of instruments that provide long-term, continuous data, often in real-time or near real-time, for the purposes of:

Answer: The turns may not be initiated until the turn judge raises his flag (for the two 180 degree turns), but may then proceed to be any turn radius and rate the aircraft is capable of. The 360 degree turn can be initiated anytime the aircraft is on the "downwind" leg and also may be any turn radius and rate the aircraft is capable of.

Answer: You will use our menu driven point and click web based control panel. It is Very User Friendly! Powerful enough for the Pro user, and Simple enough for the Beginning User. All of the forms are set up to easily create your outgoing messages and there is a detailed Video Tutorial, which you are free to view Here.

A binocular telescope could be loosely defined as a large-aperture binocular that accepts standard 1.25" or 2.0" telescope eyepieces, must be mounted like a telescope, and can attain similar levels of light-gathering power and magnification as a small telescope. Garrett Optical's Signature GT80-45 and GT100-45 binocular telescopes are two such instruments.