JeffPo's Favorite Astronomy Links
Last update: 07/15/03
Clubs:
http://www.raleighastro.org Raleigh Astronomy Club. Contains information on the Raleigh Astronomy Club, meeting times/places, club events, plus a variety of other topics.
http://rtpnet.org/chaos Chapel Hill Astronomical And Observational Society. This is a local club in the Chapel Hill area. I haven't been to any of their meetings yet, but they seem quite active.
Star Party:
http://www.masp.org Mid-Atlantic Star Party. This is the one star party I trip to go to each year if the skies cooperate. It's near Carthage, NC, which is relatively close to Raleigh, NC. They have great door prizes and decent skies.
Magazines:
http://www.skypub.com Sky & Telescope Magazine. This is a great site with current news and articles. Sky Publishing also has a lot of astro goodies you can order.
http://www.kalmbach.com/astro/astronomy.html Astronomy Magazine. Great articles and reviews.
Equipment:
http://www.camcor.com Camera Corner. This is a telescope/camera shop in Burlington, North Carolina. I have heard nothing but positive things about them and I've purchased eyepieces from them.
http://www.astronomics.com Astronomics. This is another company that gets a lot of praise. I have purchased a few items from them including my Meade LX100 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. They have good service.
http://www.telescope.com Orion Telescope & Binocular Center. Great company that has tons of astronomical items. They have an awesome color catalog, that is also available on-line. The catalog also contains informative advice on how to choose astronomical equipment and also diagrams how they work.
http://www.handsonoptics.com Hands On Optics. Astronomical equipment business run by Gary Hand. I've met him at star parties and while he comes across as a polished salesman, I think he's trustworthy, has good products, and will stand by their quality. He has what appears to be clones of the Orion dobsonian scopes but with better features and a lower price.
http://www.buytelescopes.com Anacortes Telescope & Wild Bird. Although I haven't dealt with this company personally, I see a lot of praise for it.
http://www.meade.com Meade Instruments Corporation. Great information on all the products that Meade sells.
http://www.celestron.com Celestron. Information on the products that Celestron sells.
http://www.discovery-telescopes.com Discovery Telescopes, Inc. I think this company has made telescopes for other retailers in the past. They now sell under their own name brand and have pretty good prices. So far, everyone seems please with the quality and value of the telescopes and I've heard good reviews.
http://www.crazyedoptical.com Crazy Ed Optical. He sells a limited number of astronomical goodies. He sells telescope making items, charts, reflex sites, and a number of other items.
http://www.kendrick-ai.com Kendrick Astro Instruments. He sells a great dew zapping system, plus a variety of other items such as tents and power supplies.
http://www.astronomy-mall.com/telescope-warehouse The Telescope Warehouse Inc. This is the web site of William Vorce. He sells tons of used astronomy equipment and various parts that may be hard to find.
http://www.astrostuff.com Astro Stuff web site. They seem to sell a lot of stuff at good prices. But I haven't purchased from them, nor have I heard anyone comment on their service or quality.
http://www.scopestuff.com Scope Stuff web site. They sell screws and electronic stuff.
Information/Resource:
http://www.seds.org/billa/obs/obslist.html Amateur Astronomical Observatories. This is located on the web site of Bill Arnett and lists quite a few links to amateur observatories. Great resource of information for those planning on building one.
http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html Comet Observation Home Page. This site provides tons of information on current comets in the sky. They give orbital elements, observations reports, plus a variety of other information.
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/cbat.html Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. This is the place to report your comet discovery.
http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html The Nine Planets. This is great web site for information on the planets and their satellites.
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/Messier.html The Messier Catalog. Excellent site on the Messier objects. Packed with pictures, information, and history.
http://www.shallowsky.com/moon The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Moon. This is a pretty good site about the Moon and its features.
http://stdatu.stsci.edu/dss/dss_form.html Space Telescope Science Institute's Digitized Sky Survey. If you want a real picture of a certain part of the sky, this is the place to go. You just enter the coordinates, and how big a window you want around it and you get an image. It at least goes past 15th magnitude. As an example of what you can do, you can create a finder chart to help you locate Pluto in a crowded star field, or help you determine if that fuzzy spot you are seeing is a known galaxy or the next "comet of the century".
http://www2.austin.cc.tx.us/astro-ES/AstroDesigns/MAPUG/ArhvList.htm Meade Advanced Products Users Group archives. Tons of good info on Meade products.
http://www.astronomysite.com/mapug Meade Advanced Products Users Group. This is an alternative site and method of navigating the information on Meade products.
http://www.mailbag.com/users/ragreiner Doc G's Info Site. Lots of information on Meade LX200 telescopes and related items.
Classifieds:
http://www.astromart.com Astro-Mart site. This is a great site to buy, sell, and trade used astronomy equipment. It's free. You can either cruise the web page or get on the "emailing" list.
http://astronomy-mall.com Astronomy-Mall.com. Listing of lots of dealers and has a classified section.
Places:
http://www.morehead.unc.edu This is the web site for the Morehead Planetarium, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. The planetarium is a great place to visit. It has a top quality projector and great programs. There's also a nice gift shop and a neat museum.
http://www.aao.gov.au/index.html This is the web page for the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO). LOTS of cool pictures can be found here.
Software:
http://www.coast.net/SimTel/msdos/astrnomy.html This is the web site of the Astronomy Software Repository. It has a lot of neat DOS programs out there and you can probably go from there to other pages with more types of programs.
http://www.bisque.com This is the web site of Software Bisque, makers of TheSky astronomy software.
People:
http://www.astropix.com/INDEX.HTM This is the web site of Jerry Lodriguss. Lots and lots of very good astrophotography stuff at this site. Great articles!
http://panther-observatory.com This is the web site of Johannes Schedler. He has some awesome planetary and deep sky images taken with a webcam and a digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 995).
http://www.unc.edu/~pedit The is the web site of Joe Pedit. He is a Raleigh Astronomy Club member and produces awesome astrophotography images.
http://www.icplanetaries.com This is the web site of Eric Honeycutt. He is a Raleigh Astronomy Club member and dedicated amateur astronomer.
http://www.universebeyond.com This is the web site of Michael King. He is a co-worker, observing partner, and a Raleigh Astronomy Club member.
http://www.mindspring.com/~dlakey/astro.html This is the web site of David Lakey. He is a Raleigh Astronomy Club member and has a Celestron 14" SCT that he does CCD work with.
http://www.starsearching.homestead.com This is the web site of Bill Webster. He is a Raleigh Astronomy Club member and quite active in the club.
http://www.astroimaging.com This is the web site of Craig Zerbe. He use to be a Raleigh Astronomy Club member before he moved out west. He does imaging of the moon with an astronomical video camera.
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~ewatkins This is the web site of Ed Watkins. He is a fellow LX100 SCT owner that I "met" via the Internet. He's also into bee keeping and mini-reef aquariums.
http://members.aol.com/RMOLLISE/index.html This is the web site of Rod Mollise. He has an excellent article on buying a used, older Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. He has written a couple of books and gives all around good advice regarding astronomy.
http://www.darklightimagery.net This is the web site of Chris Anderson. He has a Celestron 8" SCT (Fastar) and a Pixcel 237 CCD camera. He has some excellent astrophotography images as well as some detailed pictures of his observatory. He also has cool nature and cave pictures.
Reviews:
http://www.weatherman.com This is the web site of Todd Gross. He is a weather dude up in Boston. His site has lots of good articles, reviews, and advice about astronomy.
http://www.scopereviews.com The Telescope Review Web Site. This is the web site of Ed Ting. He has tons of good product reviews.
http://www.cloudynights.com Cloudy Nights Telescope Reviews. This is a web site that has some pretty good reviews of telescopes, binoculars, and other astronomical equipment.
Other Astronomy Links:
Other Astronomy Links (latest update: 11/21/01) This link brings up a page with links to other sites that are astronomy related. Although I don't have them listed as my "favorite", I do visit them from time to time and consider them a great source of information. Besides, how can every site be a favorite. :)