Category Archives: Astronomy Guide

Working on some non-fiction writing goals

PolyWogg.ca
March 8 2025

My biggest output to date is my HR guide, in all its forms, going back to 2004 or so. I’m happy people like it, the price doesn’t hurt ($0, downloadable PDF with no friction to access), and there is limited competition in a narrow niche. But I have plans for other guides, and to that end, I’ve been working on some cover pages for the books to serve as inspiration. My list of planned books is growing, though, and I have decided to start working on some of them before I retire instead of waiting.

HR-related books

First and foremost, I’ll update the HR Guide to competitions, aka Be the Duck. It’s relatively given that I’ll update it, and I’ll probably do three more significant updates before I call it quits when I retire.

Secondly, I am doing one called Be the Swan, which is more about managing your career.

Thirdly, I’ll do one called Be the SheepDog about being a manager with some elements about becoming an EX potentially.

And finally, one about “when things go wrong” and you have to deal with conflict, grievances, staffing complaints, etc. I’m not entirely sure what that one will look like. I’ve considered a few formats, but none particularly resonate with me yet.… Read the rest

FFF: A future guide to astronomy

PolyWogg.ca
March 4 2025

An author that I follow online does something called Free Fiction Mondays. I like the premise, but I’m going with FlashForwardFriday (FFF). Each Friday, I’m going to give you a preview of something I’m working on, with all the bells and whistles. For the last few weeks, I’ve been talking about an astronomy guide that I want to write. In short, I don’t like a lot of the guides out there already, not because they’re bad or anything, but because they don’t resonate with the way I approach astronomy. Nuances here and there, gaps over there, a metaphor that doesn’t land. And most of them without a “framework” to guide what they are trying to communicate.

My approach is simple — what would *I* need to know to do stuff? Nothing more, nothing less. An overview of the various topics, with enough information to get my feet wet and to be able to move on to the next piece, along with a framework of how it all fits together. That’s my goal. That’s what I want to share.

Let’s start with the cover

Astro cover

When I first started my HR guide, I framed it as a series, aka A PolyWogg Guide to Government.… Read the rest

Working on images for an astronomy guide

PolyWogg.ca
February 22 2025

I wrote on my ThePolyblog.ca site about “needing” to write an astronomy guide, but not really being that thrilled about it. The issue is that there are a few fora that I participate in for astronomy, and I really don’t like the way people answer certain questions. It almost seems irresponsible to me to answer the questions like they do.

For example, if someone said to you, “I want to buy a vehicle”, would you say, “Oh, you should buy (this specific model)”? Probably not. You’d ask them what they want to use it for, how often they’ll be driving it, how many passengers, etc. The car they use to go shopping around town once a week is probably not the vehicle they need for hauling pigs, if they have pigs to haul. And a whole host of other variables, which is partly why there are so many cars on the market. They serve different market niches. But someone out there could probably just say “Get a Honda Civic”. The basis for their recommendation is relatively linear — a good all-around sedan, and if you don’t have any other details, maybe it’s as good a recommendation as any, probably better.

Yet, for astronomy, people frequently respond with:

  1. Just look up with your eyes — the equivalent of telling someone just to walk instead of buying a car;
  2. Buy binoculars — like saying to get a bus pass;
  3. Buy a Dobsonian — the Honda Civic of cars, a good all-around suggestion;
  4. Buy a large EQ mount with an expensive refractor and some good camera gear — the equivalent of telling someone they need off-roading capabilities so they can get all the way to the top of a nearby mountain because that is the biggest / hardest use to handle; or,
  5. Don’t buy (brand x)—this is the same as those who will tell you never to buy a Ford or Dodge or American or Japanese, whatever, because someone they once knew had a bad experience 40 years ago with a bicycle owned by someone who drove one of those vehicles one-time as a rental.
… Read the rest

Working on images for my astronomy guide

PolyWogg.ca
February 22 2025

I wrote on my ThePolyblog.ca site about “needing” to write an astronomy guide, but not really being that thrilled about it. The issue is that there are a few fora that I participate in for astronomy, and I really don’t like the way people answer certain questions. It almost seems irresponsible to me to answer the questions like they do.

For example, if someone said to you, “I want to buy a vehicle”, would you say, “Oh, you should buy (this specific model)”? Probably not. You’d ask them what they want to use it for, how often they’ll be driving it, how many passengers, etc. The car they use to go shopping around town once a week is probably not the vehicle they need for hauling pigs, if they have pigs to haul. And a whole host of other variables, which is partly why there are so many cars on the market. They serve different market niches. But someone out there could probably just say “Get a Honda Civic”. The basis for their recommendation is relatively linear — a good all-around sedan, and if you don’t have any other details, maybe it’s as good a recommendation as any, probably better.

Yet, for astronomy, people frequently respond with:

  1. Just look up with your eyes — the equivalent of telling someone just to walk instead of buying a car;
  2. Buy binoculars — like saying to get a bus pass;
  3. Buy a Dobsonian — the Honda Civic of cars, a good all-around suggestion;
  4. Buy a large EQ mount with an expensive refractor and some good camera gear — the equivalent of telling someone they need off-roading capabilities so they can get all the way to the top of a nearby mountain because that is the biggest / hardest use to handle; or,
  5. Don’t buy (brand x)—this is the same as those who will tell you never to buy a Ford or Dodge or American or Japanese, whatever, because someone they once knew had a bad experience 40 years ago with a bicycle owned by someone who drove one of those vehicles one-time as a rental.
… Read the rest

My brain won’t let a creative idea go for PolyWogg guides…

PolyWogg.ca
February 19 2025

I think I’ve mentioned more than once (hah!) that I think in frameworks. It’s one of the reasons why I wrote my HR guide. I have a framework that works for me, it makes sense to me. More importantly, it lets me make sense of the HR world AND to be able to communicate that approach to others in a way that often resonates with them and let’s them understand it.

I’m not the smartest guy in the room. I don’t have the deepest insights. I’m not the most experienced with the most profound understanding of a topic. But I often can find a way within a framework approach to figure out how **I** understand it, and then explain that same approach to others in a way that they tell me they find helpful.

It works well for HR, but I am confident enough to admit that I know it is an approach that works in other areas too. I might have trouble EXPLAINING the framework until I’ve actually created it or written it down, but once I have it down in some form of written or graphic form, it’s clear. And then I own it intellectually, spiritually, physically, mentally. It becomes part of me.… Read the rest

Breaking a long astronomy hiatus

PolyWogg.ca
August 22 2024

As much as I still want to call myself an amateur astronomer, it requires you to DO something astronomy-related occasionally. Like looking through my scope, perhaps.

Just as the pandemic started, we were about to host a RASC Ottawa telescope workshop where people could come and see the different scopes, how they were set up, etc. When we cancelled, many people accused us of hysteria and that the virus wasn’t a threat. I wish I had saved those emails. 🙂

Since then? Almost nada. While lots of people around the world turned to sourdough bread, many also turned to astronomy. Purchase orders went out, production waiting lines got longer and longer, and prices went up, but many tried it out. Not me. Oh, I bought two new telescopes at the Black Friday event that year, and they were good deals. I bought a refractor and a reflector, with mostly the intent to try them out, write some “step-by-step” guides on how to use them, and perhaps either donate to the cottage or sell off. I planned some writing, looked at some stuff online.

But since March 2020, the only active thing I have done is to go to one of the first Star Parties in Carp, but even then, only to wander around to talk to people.… Read the rest

Auctioning off an astronomy friendship

PolyWogg.ca
November 26 2021

When businesses close, customers often fall into different camps with their reactions. Those who didn’t like them assume it was because of bad business decisions and enjoy the schadenfreude joy of another’s misfortunes. If they were casual customers, they might think, “what a shame”, and move on. If you were fans of the business, you might often feel a greater sense of discomfort.

But when that business is an astronomy store that claimed the title of the oldest telescope retailer in Canada, dating back to 1975 as the first authorized Meade dealer in Canada, it feels more like losing a friend.

I can’t claim that Focus Scientific was the source of my first scope, as that honour goes to Sears probably, with a small hand-held scope as a kid that didn’t seem to show anything different than I could see with my naked eye. I can’t even complain that it was a typical department store scope problem, not even at that level, because it didn’t even come with a tripod of any sort, it was just handheld.

Instead, I went to Focus Scientific much later in life when I was 45 years old. My mother had passed on leaving a bit of money to the family as an inheritance, and I used some of my share to buy a Celestron NexStar 8SE.… Read the rest

A draft ToC for my astronomy guide

PolyWogg.ca
September 27 2021

I had a small handheld telescope when I was a kid, but I never saw anything worth seeing, not even the moon (I suspect I only ever looked when it was full where I could see just the flat disk). I had no road map to figuring out how to learn about astronomy, didn’t even know there were likely guides at the library. And I didn’t know anyone to ask. Not surprisingly, my interest didn’t proceed very far.

However, in 2014, I bought my first real scope using inheritance money from my mother’s estate. It is a Celestron NexStar 8SE, one of the so-called GoTo Scopes, and I thought the heavens would open and all would be revealed automatically. Instead, I struggled with some setup issues for quite some time, and I read a LOT of other resources on the internet and in paper to figure out what I needed to know. But regularly, I found myself wanting a bit of “this book” and a bit from “that book”. Or that an article over there did a good job of explaining this bit.

From time to time, I would wade into deeper waters to try and answer someone’s question in an online forum based on what I had gleaned from others during my own quest to learn.… Read the rest

Smartphone Astronomy – Reducing white light from the screen

PolyWogg.ca
August 21 2020

There is a lot of info on the web about how to do two big things with electronic devices for astronomy. The first is usually about “electronically assisted astronomy”. Local astronomer Jim Thompson was interviewed for the website AstronomyConnect.com and he defined EAA the following way:

…the application of any sort of technological aid for the enhancement of astronomical viewing falls under the EAA umbrella. Devices such as light intensifiers and video cameras both fit into this category. The purpose of the technological aid is either to increase the observable detail over what’s possible with a conventional eyepiece, or in some cases to make it possible for those with vision problems to see anything at all.

In short, it helps you or your equipment see better. Tightly tied to it is the idea of using the electronic devices to actually capture the images for astrophotography.

Stepping back — Smartphone astronomy

Some people like to use their smartphones with their astronomy setup, but not always in those first two big ways. More often than not, they are using smartphones or tablets as simple electronic star maps or reference libraries rather than carrying paper guidebooks. My interests start off with these much simpler needs and go up to and include simple astrophotography.… Read the rest

Astro Echoes – Sky and Telescope, 1941

PolyWogg.ca
August 20 2020

As part of my education on all things astronomy, I try to read a variety of modern sources of information including discussion forums on Facebook and Cloudy Nights, helpful tips from blogs, the big name astro books like Nightwatch, and the various monthly magazines like Astronomy, Sky News, and Sky and Telescope.

A couple of years ago, one of the members of our astronomy club, Paul, passed away and another member, Attilla, was helping his widow clean out some of the astronomy collection that he had accumulated. He had a collection of Sky and Telescope materials going back to 1966 to get rid of, and while some people might see that as merely an opportunity for hoarding, I saw it as an opportunity for learning. Could I read through some 50 years of astronomy articles aimed at backyard astronomers rather than scientists, and if I did read them, what would I glean? What sort of astronomy echoes would I hear from the old issues?

I took all of the magazines that they had, and I also decided to add to my paper collection and see what was available online for even farther back. The first thing to jump out at me was the starting year of the magazine.… Read the rest

Choosing a pair of astronomy binoculars for beginners

PolyWogg.ca
July 17 2020

I have traditionally NOT been a binoculars guy when it comes to astronomy. If I’m totally honest, I’m even a bit judgey for those who respond to newbies’ questions about what type of telescope to get with “get binos, great way to get started” advice. It’s a common refrain, by experienced amateurs, and I think it can be amongst the worst advice to give anyone given the learning curve, unsteady viewing if going hand-held, and low magnification. But it should probably be part of everyone’s toolkit, so who am I to argue?

So, I was thinking of getting a pair just as SkyNews for July/August 2020 arrived on my doorstep with an article from no less than famed Canadian astronomer Alan Dyer reviewing entry-level / beginner binoculars. Perfect, I could choose one from his list! His cut-off was $300 and generally available in Canada, which is a pretty good starting point.

Dyer covered 13 choices is his list, grouped under 5 headings. I confess I was a bit surprised right off the bat as the only thing I thought I really knew about quality was that Porro prism designs were supposedly the best, and that turns out to no longer be true.… Read the rest

So what exactly did I want in an observatory?

PolyWogg.ca
May 5 2020

A few people have asked, quite surprisingly to me, what kind of observatory I was “letting go” from my long-term goals. Most plebes think an observatory is simply a place to put your scope and observe the sky, and while they are not completely wrong, it is much more complicated than a simple “location-based” definition.

So, let’s start with what I have as a scope:

Celestron NexStar 8SE

That set-up is made up of nine things:

  1. A physical site:
    1. A location to do the viewing, preferably with dark skies (this picture is taken at the inlaws’ cottage in front of a lake and big open skies to the west);
    2. A flat platform for the equipment all to rest upon, along with vibration suppression pads under the tripod legs; and,
    3. Some sort of limited area around the space;
  2. Observing mechanics:
    1. An optical tube — the orange part, which is a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (SCT) design;
    2. A mount — the small black base with a computer in it and an arm that rises up from just below the tube to attach at the far side of the scope; and,
    3. A tripod — the silver part, with the three legs fully extended;
  3. Accessories:
    1. An eyepiece (black with green banding at the top back of the scope);
    2. A power source, which is a portable power tank (this model is very similar to a car battery); and,
    3. A place to hold accessories, which is a flat area just below the black mount, very hard to see in the photo although there is also a table out of range of the camera;

For most observing, the parts are inter-related.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #24 – Star Party at CASM

PolyWogg.ca
October 6 2019

The nights are longer and colder, but yesterday (October 5th) was International Astronomy Day so we set up for a night at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum. It’s not quite as good as Carp as we can’t turn the parking lot lights up, but we set up a little farther away on the grass (I had thought we would set up on the pavement as we did one other time, but we were all on the grass and a clear patch of gravel). I was initially worried about dew but had no issues for the night.

One of the best parts of events at CASM is I don’t have to be the event marshal. 🙂 I just go and observe. I helped out on the social media side for announcements and promotions, but that was all. Chris in our group is the lead for liaison with the Museum and did solar observing during the day. But at noon, he had to make the call for GO/NO GO, and I emailed him with my views for what they were worth, but I was glad it was him making the call and not me. At noon, the forecasts showed clear for early in the night, but I was doubtful after 9:30.… Read the rest

Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 07 – Connecting a PC, Mac, Tablet or Smartphone to Your Tablet

PolyWogg.ca
September 8 2019

For reviewing purposes, I skipped over the short Chapter 6, focused on Sky Portal operations, as I’ll do that chapter after I have a chance to connect to my tablet and test some of the operations. I thought of doing the same for Chapter 07, Connecting a PC, Mac, Tablet or Smartphone to Your Tablet, but it’s a short chapter, and easily dispensed with here.

Some of the highlights:

P.165 – Wired Connections for RS-232 Hand Controls…I knew that most of the wired connections used a USB to Serial adapter, and plugs in to the RJ-22 Jack (I thought it was an RJ-45, but apparently not!). However, one “new” thing in the guide is that there is a way to do a wired connection to a tablet or smartphone using SkyWire + Sky Safari with an iOS device. I had no idea there was an option for a physical wire connection. I might have skipped the dongle wifi if I had known that earlier, as there can be challenges maintaining connections.

P.165 – Wireless connections…As with the wired one, I didn’t know people had attempted doing it with BlueTooth but it sounds way more exciting than the wifi connection.… Read the rest

Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 05 – NexStar and StarSense Hand Control Operations

PolyWogg.ca
September 7 2019

Chapter 5 (of Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II”) is entitled NexStar and StarSense Hand Control Operations and you would be right if you assumed this was going to more like a software manual than a telescope manual. It is a highly specific reference manual for the use of the hand controller and reading it page by page is for the hard-core geek only. But it is full of fantastic info that I didn’t know enough about, even though I’ve worked with the hand controller for years. These are the highlights for me:

Pg. 128 – Adjusting slew rates…I knew how to manually adjust the slew rate (MOTOR SPEED then press 1-9 where 9 was the fastest). I really only use 3, 6, and 9 for rates though. 9 if I’m going a great distance, 6 if I’m adjusting for centreing, and 3 if I need very fine adjustments while doing astrophotography and looking at centreing something on the screen. However, I didn’t know that if you were slewing in one direction (say left) and also held down the opposite button (i.e., right), it would temporarily speed up to rate 9. I have no idea when I would ever use that, but it’s good to have.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #22 – Outing to the AstroPontiac Observatory

PolyWogg.ca
September 6 2019

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that while I’m a member of the board of the AstroPontiac Observatory, last Saturday was my first outing for the year to the site. Observing nights are frequently high-demand days for me, given my role as the local RASC centre’s Star Party Coordinator, and just other commitments. But Jacob wanted to go, and Andrea was willing to go too with a hope for a small picnic and time to hike the opening of the Luskville Falls trail, so we set off.

We stopped at the Subway near us to get some grub for the picnic and by the time we were at Luskville and finished our meal, it was already starting to darken a bit. Andrea and Jacob did a quick walk down the first part of the trail, but it wasn’t inviting at that time, and they came back. 

Our leader, Stephan, showed up a bit later, and we drove out onto the field to get setup. Another volunteer, Michel, was there to operate the big outside scope, Stephan could operate the inside scope, and Jacob and I would set up our two scopes too. There were a few visitors, but mostly we were left to our own devices.… Read the rest

Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 04 – Alignment

PolyWogg.ca
September 3 2019

Chapter 4 of Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” is entitled Alignment and is the chapter that made me want to buy the book and read it cover to cover. Readers of the blog know that I struggled with alignment for my NexStar 8SE (Solving alignment problems with the Celestron NexStar 8SE) and Michael’s online resources were helpful in resolving some of them, or at least narrowing the problem. I even held off buying the book because he said Guide II was coming and I should wait over Guide I. Then I managed to solve most of the alignment issues, and so when his book arrived, I didn’t devour the whole book right away. I just cruised through the Alignment chapter. Then this past summer, I went back and re-read everything in order.

Here are some highlights from Chapter 4:

Backlash compensation (P.87): A great element for those of us with slightly older scopes whose mounts are no longer “factory fresh”. My son’s new 4SE? Dead tight regardless of the direction I’m slewing. My 8SE? There’s a bit of a lag. I tried adjusting this 3 years ago and just got confused. The new guide has it very clearly laid out, and I’ll be attempting a fix later this month.… Read the rest

Starting a new PolyWogg Guide…about astronomy

PolyWogg.ca
August 31 2019

Over the last few years, I have been surfing and reading a LOT on astronomy, making notes here and there, etc. On a not infrequent basis, I find that the info I’m looking for is spread across multiple sites and books.

Take exit pupils for instance. I read the RASC Observer’s Guide section on exit pupils more than once, and didn’t get it. I also read several other websites and books, and didn’t get it. Then I read Michael Swanson’s Celestron NexStar User’s Guide II, and it clicked. All the little pieces suddenly meshed. And I immediately wanted to share that info with others in the way that made sense to me…partly as I found the other descriptions lacking.

Not that the other writers were wrong, or that they didn’t do a good job, it was just that it didn’t resonate with me. Which makes me wonder if others are in the same boat. And based on how many people read my post about good alignment with the Celestron NexStar 8SE, there are others who like my take on how to explain things.

So, just as I have done with my guide to government competitions, I started thinking about another guide in the same vein — A PolyWogg Guide to Astronomy (Completely Unofficial and Totally Unauthorized).… Read the rest

Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 03 – Overview of Celestron’s Alt-Az Computerized Telescopes

PolyWogg.ca
August 30 2019

I like to blog about non-fiction books as I read them, as it helps me both synthesize and retain the info. Chapter 3 is a general overview on all the computerized scopes in Celestron’s arsenal, and I found myself liberally highlighting as I read it. Here are some highlights:

  • P.57 — a great overview of the different processors in the mount, including some of what the processors in the mount do (drive the motors) and the hand control (determining the correct tracking rate)…I was initially confused about something in the manual, as it said the hand controller sends the update to the mount every thirty seconds. I wasn’t sure if this meant it sends a “movement” command every 30s (as that seemed too slow) or a rate adjustment every 30s (adjusting the existing tracking speed), and the author confirmed the latter. Now rereading it, it was already clear, I think I just confused myself;
  • P. 69 — I was surprised to see that there are CPC mounts that are actually quite well-designed for accurate tracking and thus support astrophotography. Maybe something to aspire too, instead of going Equatorial some day;
  • P.78 — Good overview of the various types of hand-controllers, …I think I have the NexStar+ serial (Celestron button + RJ45-like jacks).
… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #21 – Outing to the Fred P. Lossing Observatory

PolyWogg.ca
August 29 2019

On Monday, August 26th, Jacob and I headed out to the Fred P. Lossing Observatory (FLO) in Almonte. The land is owned by the Mill of Kintail Conservation Area, but they let RASC Ottawa put an observatory there in slightly darker skies than we have in Ottawa. There is a gate with a lock, a warming room, and a couple of buildings with larger scopes in them. If you get trained on them and pay a small fee each year, you can use the scopes. Otherwise, as just RASC Ottawa members, you can use the grounds to set up your own scope.

While Jacob and I wanted to do some observing, my main reason for going was another member in the club. He and his son (J1 and J2) had bought a new scope, a Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ, and were struggling to see much through it other than the basics. They had not yet managed a polar alignment, nor figured out star-hopping, and were looking for an intro night from someone in the club. My first option of a would-be mentor didn’t work out for them, so I agreed to do it myself.

My willingness to take on this extra role for someone is driven by two things.… Read the rest