My many visits to Orion Telescopes in Cupertino.....one of my dreams growing up in Malaysia

I know this sounds dorky but I have always held a fascination for the stars, ever since I received my Celestron Cometron CO40 as a gift, and since I discovered Astronomy Magazine (and later Sky and Telescope). It was through reading these magazines (and I still read them today!), that my fascination for Orion Telescopes and Binoculars began. I would peruse over their then black and white ad's in the magazines, and even wrote to them for some of their information packed catalogs (back then they used to mail internationally...ah the good old days). While I acquired catalogs from Celestron, Edmund Scientific and Orion, the one I always read over and over again was Orion's. In fact it became sort of like a collectors item for me and I would try to acquire "back issues" over the years through Astromart (and I acquired quite a few thanks to a fellow astronomer from Canada!)! As I flipped through its hallowed pages, I would drool over the ad's of Celestron/Vixen's C6 (which I now own...well the OTA anyway), Edmund's Astroscan and some of the smaller scope fare (I recently purchased a used Celestron Cometron CO60...but then sold it off!). Remember that Orion is a importer/exporter. However it would not be till years later that I would acquire my first Orion scope, and a used one too, a Orion 80ST OTA. More on this later.....

In 2007, after completion of my PhD, me and my significant half made plans to visit California to check out the many UC's for postdoctoral opportunities. This meant that I would have an opportunity to finally visit some of the telescope stores in CA. I immediately though of Orion. Now I know they have two stores in NorCal, one in Cupertino, and one in Watsonville. I made it to both stores and have not been disappointed!!!!! It was like a dream come true as I walked through the doors of the Cupertino store. I even got to experience their legendary customer service firsthand when I wanted to purchase a Orion StarBlast 4.5" minidob and was told that it was out of stock. Now I only had 2 weeks in CA so there was no way I could have waited for their stock to arrive. Buying the scope through a dealer back in oz was not an option as their prices were through the roof! Fortunately they had a floor model which was in immaculate condition. After explaining my situation to the store salesperson, he made a call to the manager and they agreed to sell me that model! They even threw in a free eyepiece for a lower price!

Fast forward to 2012. Yet another brilliant example of Orion's legendary after sales service. I now live in SoCal so getting to an Orion is way easier than having to fly thousands of miles and then driving to the Orion store. In fact I visit their store every time I drive up to NorCal to visit close friends. We hope to eventually move up to NorCal for jobs and such so we can be close to our childhood friends. Anyways back to the story. The following are two instances where Orion's staff members went out of their way to make sure things were right! You know the story where the StarBlast was out of stock...well it happened to me again when I decided to get their SkyScanner mini dob. I got the floor model again for a lower price (booyah!) as they were once again out of stock for this model (what is wrong with my timing ;).

The other more recent incident on my last trip up north I purchased a Orion StarShoot Color Solar System Imager, during a web sale. Due to the awful June/July marine layer weather here in SoCal, I only got to try the camera out about a month after receiving it. The cam worked fine for terrestrial objects, but stubbornly refused to come to focus in all my newtonian telescopes. And this was with the bright moon as a test subject! It seems the imaged was formed inside the focuser tube. Therefore there was no easy way to solve this problem, save moving the primary mirror forward (which would necessitate moving the whole mirror cell forward!). I wish the problem was the other way around. That way all I needed to do was to add an extension tube, or a barlow lens (I did try the barlow in the focuser trick but it did not work!). Now Orion now has a superb website and has several options for contacting them. One was the traditional method of calling their hot line. the other was a live chat over the internet (and it is sooo convenient!). I chose the latter. Talking to tech support, we ran through the problem I faced with the cam. Not being able to come up with a simple solution, I decided to return the item for a full refund. I asked if it was possible to return the item seeing how I was a few days off the 30 day return window. The person on the other side said that that was not an issue, and told me to send it in. That's what I call customer satisfaction!

Technology has come a long way and there are now many different avenues for purchasing items from brick and mortar stores, as well as online stores. While in many countries, buying online is still at its infancy, the avenue of shopping is very much alive and heavily utilized in the US. In fact most good deals can be had by purchasing online, more so than buying from a store!!! Seeing how Orion specialized in mail order, their brilliant online store is just another feather in their cap. They pride themselves on educating the masses, and have done so through their print catalog for many years (and they still do!). They now have a different avenue, via their online store. I find their articles, their monthly sky write ups and their educational videos on how to setup and use astronomical equipment very helpful. Making their product instruction manual's available as pdf's for download is definitely a plus plus. Many of the larger companies are now following in Orion's footsteps and adding articles and how to video's for their scopes. Also although they are an importer/exporter, Orion continues to innovate and work closely with their manufacturer's to produce original designs that set them apart from their competition (i.e. everyone loves their mini dobs and they are currently the first company to offer camera holders for smart phones!!!!!!). Also quality control is pretty tight and QC on their scopes seems to be very good. All Orion scopes I have owned have been pretty close to perfect, starting with the Orion 80ST, the Orion StarBlast and now the Orion SkyScanner! Kudos to Orion for servicing the amateur astronomy community for so many years.....happy 37th anniversary!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its summertime...lets all go to Pinos!!!!

What a blast last weekend was. The weather finally cooperated and we could go up to Pinos (first trip of the year!) for a great night of summer stargazing. Nothing gets better than this. While Malibu is nice, observing in Pinos is a whole different animal. Its like observing from Perrin Park, Toowong versus Leyburn back in good old oz. There is just no comparison, no substitute. Not to knock my current fave observing site at Solstice Canyon, Malibu as it is just so convenient, but sometimes you just need to get out under truly dark skies. Only Pinos, with its high elevation can provide this. And what better time to visit than the start of summer! Last year my maiden voyage to SoCal's temple of the stars was in May when it was still cold and snowy. This year it was much warmer and there was no snow. Hurrah. The place was packed when we got there and it really did feel like a star party. Both previous trips up there have been rather quiet.

Anyways I did not have any real plans to hunt new quarry. My objective this time round was to just get out under dark velvety skies and drink in the views of some of my fave DSO's. I also wanted to compare and contrast the views through my DGM NPB and my newly acquired OIII filter, try out my $30 retro 80's "Made in Japan" Meade 60mm 700mm focal length refractor and to give the SkyScanner its first dark sky sprint as this also happened its maiden dark sky trip! So much to see and do!

The night started off rather frustratingly, much like my last trip to Pinos. Me and my lofty ideas of doing afocal photography using my Kodak Z990 and the Orion SteadyPix Camera holder. Its funny how the SteadyPix never wants to cooperate everytime I am at some dark sky site. Its either the SteadyPix eyepiece clamp coming loose or the old EQ3-2 not wanting to cooperate (and there I was thinking that the Vixen Porta would solve this problem...well the Porta did perform rather exceptionally.......it was the fault of the SteadyPix this time). After farting around with the setup and my C6 on Vixen Porta for what seemed like eternity, I threw in the towel and just decided to do what I do best, observe visually. I had my starcharts with me, as well as my iTouch, but decided to rely solely on my memory this time to revisit some of old friends and acquaintances.

I decided right there and then to ease myself into the observing session by looking at some of the brighter solar system fare on offer earlier in the night, namely Mars, Saturn and the moon. Some curious folk came over and asked what everyone was up to. Not wanting to be unfriendly, I decided to show them the rings of Saturn at 250x through the C6. The SkyScanner was aimed at moon so they got some quick peeks at old luna. Terry Nakazono, my Malibu observing buddy who came along with me to hunt down some faint fuzzies also took a quick peek at Saturn. The skies were transparent and steady! Plus the temperatures were pretty mild and there was no wind!!! It was the perfect start to the night!

Continuing with the trend of looking at bright and easy stuff, at least till my eyes dark adapt better, I then moseyed over to Lyra to look at M57, the ring nebula. Spent some time gazing at the ring through all my scopes, comparing the views. I was surprised by the views of the ring in the 60mm Meade. It gave quite a nice view for such a small scope! It goes to show what can be accomplished with minimal aperture if you have good enough skies, although I could not really see the hole in the celestial donut. Its looked pretty much like the bloated out of focus star I spied in my CO40 all those years ago. It was kind of silly of me to forget to pack the 9mm MA eyepiece. Wonder if the hole would have been visible at a higher mag. Bummer.

Seeing how Ursa Major was slowly starting to dip below the tree line, I next turned my scopes towards M81 and M82. All three scopes gave a nice image, with the best of course coming from the C6. Extended "arms" were visible radiating from the intense core of M81. M82 showed nice mottling, indicating its star forming regions. The galaxies were visible, abeilt dimly in the 60mm scope. What I really liked though were the views the SkyScanner threw up. They were not as bright as in the 6 incher, but they were bright enough to show detail. The same went for M101, the large low surface brightness galaxy in the great bear. Again I though the SkyScanner gave a better view of this galaxy. Maybe the light was more concentrated in a smaller space due to its extremely wide FOV (400mm vs 750mm focal length). One other object that appeared very nice in the C6 was M97, the owl nebula. With the OIII in place, me and Terry though we could make out the "eyes" of the owl. This feature was not visible in the SkyScanner. I did not even bother trying for it in the 60mm scope, although I am sure it would have been visible.

Since I was in the "realm of galaxies", I thought I should look at the usual suspects and compare them in my different scopes. Next up M51, the whirlpool galaxy. Again aperture reigned supreme. The C6 won hands down, with the SkyScanner coming in a close second, throwing up a lovely image of a lop sided, pear shaped fuzzy. For some strange reason I could not for the life of me get it in the FOV of the 60mm Meade. The 5x25 stopped down finder was a bear to use!!!!!! I think I might have to replace this with a red dot finder since they are more suited to scopes of this aperture. For the remainder of the galaxies, I stopped using the 60mm altogether and just focused on comparing the images between the C6 and SkyScanner. Galaxies observed included NGC 4565, the edge on galaxy with a nice dark lane running through it, M64, the black eye galaxy (the dark region visible in the C6), M104, the sombrero galaxy (best views again at high mag where the dust lane is clearly visible), M106 (extent of the spiral arms were much wider in the C6), the M94, M63, the sunflower galaxy.

After viewing the galaxy fields, I decided to do some summer stargazing, i.e bright nebulae and globular clusters. With the glorious northern and southern milky way stretching from one horizon to the next, who could resist. Started out at the head of the scorpion. The "star-bar (or cats eye whichever way you want to see this) was clearly resolved in the C6, as it was in the SkyScanner. The 60mm also showed this feature, although it was not as obvious. M80 was nice too. I must have been in some weird compartmentalization mode (carry on from my work with brain clones in the lab probably lol) as I decided to look at all the globulars whose locations I had imprinted at the back of my mind. Hit M53 in Coma, then the big and bright globs, M13 in Hercules (very nice propellor effect easily visible), M22, the crackerjack cluster in Sagittarius (M22 always reminds me of Omega Centauri at high power, appearing more like a open cluster than a concentrated globular!), M10 and M12 in Ophiuchus (both very nicely resolved in the C6 too at high mag). The odd one out in this list was M11, the wild duck cluster in Scutum. The is not a globular but a open cluster, but since it is so packed, it appears like a weird shaped glob in small scopes. Again this cluster appeared its best when viewed at in high mag.

As I was perusing, or rather surfing close to the heart of our home galaxy, the milky way, I decided it was finally time for the glorious nebulae filled part of my night, probably the most exciting segment ;) It was also a good time to compare and contrast the effects of the DGM NPB and OIII filters on these nebulae. I manually slewed my scope over to the puff of smoke at the apex of the teapot sprout. Peering into the eyepiece, lo and behold there was M8, the lagoon nebula, and M20, the trifid nebula, just narrowly squeezing into the FOV in the 24.5mm Meade SWA in the C6. Screwing in the NPB filter first and then swapping it for the OIII filter, I had the impression that there was more extended nebulosity with the NPB. The OIII's views did look more contrasty though, but with less overall nebulosity. I think I liked the look with the NPB a whole lot better. The dark lanes in the lagoon and in the trifid did stand out better with the OIII though. Using M20 as a jumping off point, its easy to starhop over to the small Sagittarius starcloud and then move onto one of my fave objects in the sky, M17, the swan nebula and M16, the eagle (or lil ghost nebula as Stephen O'Meara calls it). Did the same thing as with M8 and M20. This time I preferred the views of both objects with the OIII filter. Both the swan and the eagle just looked better with the OIII, especially the swan...the nebulosity looks distinctly more "feathery". After admiring those southern sky gems, it was time to go over and scrutinize some northern sky nebulae in Cygnus.

The north american nebula was nicely framed by the C6, but a more expansive view was required to fully drink in and appreciate the object in its entirety. For this the SkyScanner came up tops. Again the NPB showed more nebulosity. On this extremely transparent night, the pelican nebula was easily visible too. For the veil nebula, however, the OIII views were markedly better than the NPB. The nebula displayed its intricate beaded look with the OIII in place. This was not so obvious with the NPB.

So yeah a great night overall. We finally packed up and drove down the mountain at about 3.30am. By the time we arrived in LA, the sun had started to rise. Geeze. Must remember to leave slightly earlier the next time...or stay overnight if the weather is not too cold. When we left, most people had packed up and either went home or had gone to bed.

Till the next time we meet again, I will look back with fond memories of my 3rd trip to SoCal's temple of the stars.....