We’ve turned the corner and finally see a change in season. This is true regarding the weather as well as the occupancy here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. The last time the thermometer hit 100 degrees was October 21st – we haven’t been in the 90s since the 22nd of October. Daily highs range from the low to mid 80s.

The seasonal visitors (Snowbirds) from the north have arrived and the park is nearly full. This is really evident on the pickleball courts and the golf course. I haven’t started my pickleball coaching sessions for this winter yet, the pickleball courts will close for resurfacing next week. Unfortunately, the summer temperatures are too high for the surface to cure properly, so they’ll be doing the work now while demand for courts is high.

Donna convinced me to take up tennis. I started beginner tennis lessons last week and I’m hooked already. I’ve long been a fan of professional tennis and have been watching all of the major professional tournaments on TV since the days of Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg – that’s a long time ago! It’s not an easy game to learn, but I think taking lessons and getting my form and technique right from the start is the way to go. We have nine tennis courts here at Viewpoint and the tennis club is very active and well organized.

Donna is now playing tennis at the 3.0 level and plays in league tournaments. The league tournaments are played against teams from other parks in the area such as Leisure World and Mesa Regal. She’s playing really well and having a lot of fun.

Learning a new sport at the age of 67 is challenging. Pickleball skills don’t really transfer to tennis – it’s a new ball game for me. I’m looking forward to learning and with any luck I’ll be playing recreational tennis with the club within a few months.

I haven’t been out for any astrophotography sessions since I captured the Eastern Veil – see my last post. I avoided the full moon period and we had a few nights with high, thin clouds. I picked up a new telescope though. Telescopes, refractors to be more precise, come in a few flavors and design choices affect how suitable they are for certain tasks.

For astrophotography, these choices can be critical, as photos will show aberrations that we may not notice so much when observing through an eyepiece. One of the first considerations is the type of optical glass used – this can have a huge effect on the amount of apparent chromatic aberration (false color). There are trade-offs as each choice is a compromise. Most astronomers agree that a lens ground from fluorite crystal is the best. But it is very difficult to work with and very expensive.

A few companies have developed synthetic crystals that can rival natural flourite. The most popular is made by Ohara – a Japanese company – and it’s called FPL53. There are a few others, but FPL53 is the benchmark. They make another optical glass that’s slightly inferior when tested for chromatic aberration called FPL51. This glass is lower priced than FPL53 and relatively easy to grind and figure.

The two most popular designs for refractor telescopes are called doublets and triplets. As the name implies, a doublet had a lens cell utilizing two elements. To make a high-quality doublet, you must start with high-quality lens material to combat chromatic aberration and very precise grinding and figuring to reduce any spherical aberration.

The triplet has a lens cell with three elements. By grinding and figuring three lens, the optician has more design freedom on how the elements will interact and these designs are inherently superior to doublets. However, they are more costly and also heavier. Some great telescope designers and manufacturers such as Roland Christen of Astro-Physics claim they can make a doublet that equals a triplet in image quality, however it is more difficult and time consuming to achieve this.

I’ve explained all that to give some background on my new telescope. My first refractor was a William Optics ZenithStar 73III – a doublet made with excellent FPL53 glass. I loved that telescope and I started my astrophotography journey with it. WIlliam Optics has a great reputation for quality and customer service. Last month, I saw a special offer from Agena Astro – my go-to online retailer for all things astronomy-wise.

They offered the William Optics Grand Turismo 71 with a 0.8X reducer/field flattener and a William Optics guidescope for an unbelievable package price. The GT71 is similar to my Z73, but it’s a triplet made with FPL53 and people rave about it. I placed the order and listed my Z73 for sale. I sold the Z73 within a week and parlayed the cash into the GT71. I haven’t used it yet, but I know it’ll be great.

Externally the Z73 and GT71 look very similar. But, we know the triplet with FPL53 should handily outperform a doublet with the same material. The field flattener converts a telescope into an astrograph suitable for astrophotography. Without it, the image would have something known as field curvature which distorts the outer edges and corners of the image – stars would look like footballs or pear-shaped for example.

My Z73 had a 1.0X field flattener, meaning it corrected field curvature without changing any other aspect of the scope. My new GT71 has a 0.8X reducer/flattener. This not only corrects the field curvature, but through the magic of optical design, it reduces the effective focal length and changes the focal ratio – you end up with a wider field of view and a faster scope – a faster scope collects light more quickly than a slower scope and can capture images in less time. All three of my telescopes are equipped with field flatteners – a 1.0X on the APM 140 and a 0.8X on the AT 115EDT. I also have a 1.0X for the AT 115EDT.

I’m planning to try a capture of Jupiter tonight. I have to reconfigure the APM 140 for planetary work. I haven’t shot a planetary or lunar image in nearly a year. I have to wrap my head around the different requirements and software for this – it’s much different than capturing a Deep Sky Object.

My legs are a little sore and fatigued this morning. Not only did I have tennis lessons on Wednesday and Friday, on Thursday Donna and I practiced on the tennis court for an hour and Friday morning I spent an hour hiking through the riparian preserve.

As we head toward winter, more migratory birds are in the area. I also found many more people at the riparian preserve than a couple of months ago when it was still hot outside.

I shot a few bird images – that was the reason for hiking through the riparian preserve.

Last week I found USDA Prime tri-tip at Costco. Tri-tip is one of my favorite cuts of beef – I wrote about it here and here. I smoked it on the Traeger and Donna served it with jalapeno corn bread (made with jalapenos from her garden), green beans and sweet potato pierogies. Delicious!

As I mentioned, we’ve reached the time of year when cooler weather prevails. The forecast for the next couple of weeks calls for highs in the mid-70s to mid-80s with a chance of rain late next week. By the end of the month, we may have highs in the upper 60s – chilly by Valley of the Sun standards.