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Zuhair's Deep Space Page
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by Carol Weston
I look up from Earth and try to see
The planets looking back at me.
I gaze at bright and distant stars
And search for Mercury, Venus, Mars.
I squint at the Milky Way way up high
And look for Jupiter in the sky.
Where are Saturn, Uranus, Neptune?
They're far away, high like the moon.
A telescope would be the best
For spotting Pluto and the rest.
I look for planets in the sky
And the beauty it displays
The peacefulness of a silent night
Will develop into beautiful days."
In the year 2003 I started thinking seriously of exploring Outer Space. I bought the first telescope with wooden tripod mount, from Japan, about 30 years ago. It was a 4" Refractor Telescope. My children and I used to have fun, looking at the planets, stars and most important the moon. It was a great excitement, especially for the children. Later on, about 20 years ago, I bought 10" Dobsonian reflecting telescope. It had a very primitive mount and manually operated. It was difficult to keep tracking the moving moon or planets.
Then, while surfing the internet searching for telescopes, I found Meade's telescopes to be a good choice. So I decided to buy Meade's 12" LX200GPS with UHC Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
I am indebted to my brother Miqdad for his generous gift, as he put the order and paid for the telescope at the US, arranged for shipping, cleared the cargo at the customs authorities in Amman and gave it to me as a present. I appreciate and value his great gift very much.
This telescope is heavy and not suitable to carry around. So, I decided to build an observatory. My choice was a roll off roof observatory, and it was built in a record time by our family owned factory, managed and run by my nephew Eng. Mohammad Annab M.Annab & Company. The roof is motor driven and has a remote control.
At first I thought of replacing the tripod mount with a pier of steel and concrete, to have more space around, but later I settled with the tripod mount, which is very steady.
I needed to have a team work for handling the telescope and the software at the computer. The team members are: our friend Hisham Majali, my son Hassan and myself. Mr. Majali is a telecommunication engineer and is a great help with his long experience.
The telescope is operated by Autostar II keypad. Nearly all functions of the telescope are accomplished with just a few push buttons. Accurate GPS (Global Positioning System) alignment and High-Precision Pointing to within one arc-minute. The GPS receiver attempts to acquire and sync up with signals from GPS satellites. There are 145,000 objects stored in the telescope's computer. The backlit display and sequential menu structure make Autostar II extremely user friendly. It is absolutely state-of-the-art optical, mechanical, and electronic telescope. Later I bought Meade's LPI (Lunar Planetary Imager), Meade's Pictor 216XT CCD Autoguider/Imager and finally ToUcam - Philips PRO II PCVC840KToU.
It takes time and needs lots of patience practicing and taking reasonably good space images.
Armstrong footprint and Click and watch a beautiful slideshow
Thank you for visiting my web site.
the Apollo 11 lunar laser ranging retroreflector array,
studded with 100 mirrors pointing at Earth, on the moon
in the Sea of Tranquility, which is still running today
Please call again soon and don't forget
to sign my guestbook
and visit my guestmap before you leave.
