Re: Why Questars are so great
- From: Davoud <star@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 00:03:29 -0400
Brian Tung:
Yeeks. It seemed pretty obvious that Davoud meant that the Internet
wasn't available in SE Asia. I didn't think that anyone besides Paul
Schlyter would read it any other way. :)
John Savard:
Looking at the very first post involved, it indeed could be taken either
way. To me, it seemed he was listing two problems; one, he was in an
isolated place, and two, it was before the Internet existed. One reason
I took it that way was because other information resources besides the
Internet exist, and _those_ would have been harder to reach in Southeast
Asia.
After all, claiming that one was not aware of alternatives to the
Questar because one was in Southeast Asia, where the Internet did not
yet reach, implies that the Internet would have been the only way in
existence to find out about the Meade 2045 or the Celestron C5. That
does not make sense; Sky and Telescope magazine existed in 1982. On the
other hand, the World Wide Web indeed did *not* exist in 1982, and thus
not only was the Internet not the only resource for finding out about
telescopes, it wasn't yet even a particularly good one for that purpose.
We don't disagree on anything, but this thread has gotten so long that
early parts are forgotten -- as the whole thing should be. After I
recap, that is. :--)
This all started when I said "In 1982, when I bought my Questar Duplex,
there was no other telescope at any price that could do what the
Questar could do..."
You replied: "In 1982, there were four-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain
telescopes available for sale with equatorial fork mounts, weren't
there?"
I replied: "Don't know. I lived in Southeast Asia, there was no
Internet, and the Questar was what I knew slightly -- having used a 3.5
profesionally (terrestrial)."
And that's where (with benefit of hindsight) I went wrong. I had access
to Sky & Telescope in 1982, and I certainly knew of other 'scopes
besides the Questar. But I had /used/ only a Questar and an 8"
Celestron. I should have replied: "It didn't matter what other small
'scopes were available at the time, because, as I wrote earlier in this
thread, in addition to airline portability, I needed 'a telescope that
had better optics than any other amateur telescope, regardless of
price. I needed a 'scope that could be removed from its equatorial
mount in mere seconds, mounted on a camera tripod, and used for nature
photography. I needed a long-distance microscope. I got all of those
things. I also wanted an instrument that, because of its exquisite
quality of construction, beauty, and usability, would be worth as much
20, 30, 40 years later as it was when it was new.' "
Now that that's been beaten as flat as road pizza...
Let's not get off on a tangent that I'm dissing those other 'scopes.
I'm not, because I've never seen a Meade 2045 or a Celestron C5. But
neither would have met my criteria as restated above.
I was living in Bangkok in 1982. It was far from primitive. But
electronic communication with the western world was quite expensive --
generally to be avoided except in case of emergency. I lived in Bangkok
for nine years; 1970-1975 and 1981-1985 -- and lived to tell about it.
Davoud
--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
.
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