Snowbird RV Adventure: Night Sky Watch at Lazydays and Ft. Huachuca

My last post included a teaser about getting a telescope to use on our RV travels. Here's the rest of the story.

Tucson has two telescope stores, Starizona and Stellar Vision. Wednesday morning we went to nearby Stellar Vision.

When we drove up to the industrial building with a garage door and metal bars we didn't know what to expect. Inside we found an astronomer's paradise.

There were telescopes of every type and size, so many it was impossible to count.

A few of the telescopes available at Stellar Vision.

At the back of the store we found the owner, Frank Lopez. He was busy refurbishing a smaller telescope. Wayne described what he was looking for, a new 6" Celestron. Wayne knew it would be difficult. Telescopes are in high demand and short supply due to Covid. People are interested in activities they can do at home and there's a shortage in the supply chain.

Wayne reviewing a refurbish 5" Celestron Nexstar.

Frank was working on a used 5" Celestron Nexstar. He explained what he inspected and repaired, if needed, before placing a used telescope on the floor for sale. After Frank's explanation we were comfortable looking at something used.

Wayne setting up his telescope to safely view sunspots with a filter.

There was another 5" Celestron Nexstar on the floor ready for sale. It had computerized celestial tracking, a tripod, spotting scope, star diagonal, low power eyepiece, power supply and padded carry case. You could tell the previous owner took good care of his scope and even kept the manual.

Wayne observing deep sky objects at Ft. Huachuca.

Wayne added a solar filter to look at the sunspots (there are a lot of big ones right now). He also got a high power eyepiece. We tried to do some night sky viewing at Lazydays, but the city lights made it difficult.

At Apache Flats RV Resort in Ft. Huachuca we set up our scope and had better luck. There were more lights than we expected and the moon was getting bright, but for two nights we had fun learning how to use our new scope and seeing favourite night sky objects.

Do you like to watch the night sky? Do you use anything for magnification? Do you like taking night sky pictures? If so, what kind of camera do you use? -- Margy