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Post by afriendlychicken on Jun 21, 2013 17:52:49 GMT -5
I'll try to write one sentence blog entries from now on since it may hurt Phantom's brain. And I expect you all too clean up before you leave. Now I'm going to see what Spice wrote about Chaplin, so keep the noise down.
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Post by Phantom Engineer on Jun 21, 2013 19:15:19 GMT -5
I'll try to write one sentence blog entries from now on since it may hurt Phantom's brain. Hurt me chicken, hurt me!
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Post by spackle on Jun 21, 2013 19:19:33 GMT -5
Just don't break any bones.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Jun 21, 2013 19:39:12 GMT -5
I shall obey both your orders. So, I present:
No bones broken, no fish harmed. Well, with the exception of maybe one of the fish, the Germans, the English, the Chinese and most of the Titanic passengers.
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Post by spackle on Jun 21, 2013 21:02:38 GMT -5
And one very wet Michael Palin.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Jun 22, 2013 4:28:15 GMT -5
Yeah, Michael definitely took one for the team there. And now... Late Friday Night Chicken Theater Presents:...okay, so that was a boring 65 seconds. This is pretty much the telescope I own. Mines is the Orion SkyQuest XT6 Intelliscope Dobsonian, which just has a charcoal gray color and a computerized object locator. Great for observing. Bad for astrophotography unless you build a motor-controlled base mount or like star trails.
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Post by Crowfan on Jun 22, 2013 6:08:01 GMT -5
I still have mine, it looks just like the black one on the tripod. When I was a kid, I used to love going out and looking at the stars. My teachers would give me monthly sky charts, and stuff like that. Problem was, I couldn't do the math required to be an astronomer. Oh well, it's fun looking at the cool stars in the sky, anyway.
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Post by Ijon the Asano on Jun 22, 2013 8:13:49 GMT -5
Mine's still out in the garage somewhere. I guess I never really had the patience to hunt down stars or usually even planets but I used to take the 'scope and a 4B pencil and draw the Moon. Actually ran across a few of those drawings awhile back.
We're so lucky to have such a gorgeous big satellite.
Edit: Y'know, I think I actually ended up using a little hunting spotter 'scope for most of that, so as to have a wider field of view.
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Post by Crowfan on Jun 22, 2013 8:30:17 GMT -5
The moon is going to be a "super moon" tonight. It's going to look brighter and bigger than at any other time of the year. Don't know if it will be seen in Chicago area, as clouds and possible thunderstorms are a possibility.
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Post by nondescript spice on Jun 22, 2013 9:11:56 GMT -5
when i was nine or ten, my parents got me a telescope for christmas. a pretty decent one too, as i recall. they got it for me because i was always asking questions about the night skies. i used it maybe once or twice before a guy asked if he could borrow it. he was around 20, the son of my parents' best friends, so we said okay - thinking he would keep it for a week or so. never got it back. my dad was furious with him - he never even replaced it. what a dickweed! i barely got to use it! who does that to a little kid?
the moon looked pretty super last night, already. it was quite large and bright. since the humidity wasn't as bad, i sat outside for a good while. i was going to have some absinthe to celebrate the summer solstice, but i never got around to it.
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Post by Crowfan on Jun 22, 2013 9:31:45 GMT -5
Sorry that dickweed stole your telescope. Only asshats would do that to a kid. I hope your parents beat the crap out of him.
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Post by spackle on Jun 22, 2013 10:24:56 GMT -5
Was he even into stargazing? He probably sold it for beer.
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Post by nondescript spice on Jun 22, 2013 11:09:37 GMT -5
i don't know - that guy was an odd duck. i don't think we ever got an explanation, or even an apology. every time my dad would corner him about it, he'd just smile, shrug kinda girlishly and mumble something about getting it back to us next week. but....next...week...never...CAME!
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Post by Crowfan on Jun 22, 2013 11:19:11 GMT -5
Do you have his name? He's dead, within hours.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Jun 22, 2013 18:13:50 GMT -5
It's official. Crowfan has now contracted a hit in every thread on this board. Oh, look! I brought the nerd out of everyone! Was he even into stargazing? He probably sold it for beer. Unless he was using it for other things. That's why Newtonian Reflectors are the best telescopes to own. It prevents idiots from stealing them because they invert the image, flipping left and right and up and down, so when viewing Earthly objects you get nauseous and a wonderful headache. I have fun trying to re-align my finder scope with the tops of telephone poles because of that. "I need to move it a bit left and up...I mean right and down! No, wait...great, now a bird had to land and defy gravity." That's awful Spice. You may have developed a great love of using the telescope. Thankfully looking upward is all you need to enjoy the night sky. And binoculars. They are the most helpful and handy piece of equipment you can have. They have a wide field of view and bring the immensity of the Milky Way out like nothing else. I tried drawing the moon and sunspots at one time. I just didn't have the patience for it. I'm a mostly look at an object for 5-10 minutes then move on observer.
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