How Many
Scopes Do You Need ?
My organ teacher is a mine of
amusing anecdotes about the King Of Instruments and
those of you (i.e. most) with no interest in the organ might be surprised at
just how amusing some of them are.
I particularly liked the one where
someone had requested Monty Python’s “Always Look on The Bright Side of Life”
for a church funeral. There came the inevitable moment when the choir master
said “OK boys, now let’s take it from ‘Life’s a piece
of shit...’”
The other one that struck a chord
[sorry], was about a man who collects church organs.
Now this would be ridiculous enough if we were talking about digital organs,
but in fact he collects real pipe organs rescued from defunct churches.
Apparently he has quite a few... all in working order. Now you might assume
that this guy lives in a stately home, but no, in a terrace as it turns out.
You might also assume that he’s as single as Mr Bean, but again no, he is
married with kids. The mind boggles at how this would work. There must be pipes
in some very uncomfortable places...
The thing is,
Scope Views got a bit like that a year or two back: pipes everywhere. Not
diapasons and koppelflutes, but OTAs. I had lost
count of just how many telescopes I owned, but we are talking dozens and they
were, like Well’s Martians, gradually taking over. My wife was losing it;
guests were pitying; even my daughter was heard to
quietly say “But you don’t need
another telescope, Dad.” when another suspiciously long parcel arrived.
In the end I had a purge, but
even today I’d need a moment to count them... Before telling you that I have (I
think) about ten. Now clearly that’s still too many, so how many do I, does anyone, do you, actually need??
Apart from the obvious and
singular wives’ answer, this depends to some extent on circumstance and
interest. If you live on a hilltop somewhere with lots of clear nights and you
have the space for an observatory, then just one really might do.
Unfortunately, I live in a valley
in Cumbria. Surrounding houses and trees mean I can’t see any horizon and the
nature of my observatory means I can’t get at the zenith either. I can never
see Mercury; Venus rarely. The waxing crescent Moon (which I love) is always
behind the trees. I suspect many European astronomers have this kind of
situation.
Then there is the weather. As I
write (in mid November) we’ve had a couple of properly clear nights in the last
month, nights when I could open the dome. The rest of the time, it’s been
peaking between clouds and rain with binos or a grab-n-go.
So here’s a list of “functional
niches” my scope collection needs to fill, given the circumstances:
1) Big, general-purpose observatory
scope for visual and imaging, planets and DSOs.
2) Small, highly portable, quick-cooling
visual scope for quick-looks and occasional travel, or to carry up the local
hill to catch Mercury.
3) Portable scope for my south-facing
balcony, mainly for the planets and Moon when low or in the east, or when I’m
too tired to open the dome.
4) A bigger portable scope I can use
around the garden to make the most of the available sky, or for star parties.
5) Objet d’art classic scope for my
desk.
Try as I might, I struggle to
combine these into less than five actual telescopes. Even so, it still seems
like I need to shed a few!
If you are developing a rapidly
growing collection, maybe a similar analysis would help. Or maybe what we scope
collectors need is some psycho-analysis!
Which brings me to my last thought: why do
we collect things? Underlying the usual excuses, so I am told, is some anthropology
about Man (and it usually is) the hunter-gatherer.
So, collection mania aside, how
many scopes do you need... well in my case it’s really a
minimum of three: big ‘un in the dome; small grab-n-go
and travel scope downstairs; small scope for the balcony. But in reality I
never seem to get to anywhere near that few. Every time I make headway in
cutting the numbers they start breeding again. And let’s not even get started
on the binos!
I suspect most astronomers in
Europe need at least a bigger scope for maximum performance and a small, highly
portable refractor for when they only have a few minutes spare, due to weather
or commitments. As I’ve said elsewhere, owning only a big ‘scope, like an SCT,
larger dob’, or big refractor, is often a quick route out of the hobby because
you just won’t use it as much as you think.
Enough waffling, I’m off for my
regular astro-therapy session to work on my scope
collecting mania (actually I’m going for a beer with my mate Ian, who happens
to be both an astro-collector and a
psychotherapist!).