Thanks for the nice report, Larry. -- Joe ________________________________ From: Larry Holmes <larry@kijoda.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 10:33 PM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Tucson, 2nd day Well, long day. Finished visiting all the vendors, approximately 100 covering every facet of astronomy, books, binos, bux, a lot of the latter. I believe the largest diameter unit was a 24" PlaneWave. Starlight Express had a wide variety of their Feathertouch focusers. ScopeShed had 7' dome, AstroHaven w/7' +/- clamshell and another company with inflatable observatories-I believe they claimed 45 people capability, but you would have become very aware of your neighbor. Several vendors from off the continent with interesting products ranging from heavy weight bearing mounts to large refractors, cassegrains, and binos. I tried a pair of Cannon image stabilized binos and was amazed. My tremor was almost undectable. Guess I need to start working on Mrs Santa. NASA, Kitt Peak, and Lowell had displays, mostly targeting the younger people and seemed to be generating a lot of interest. Meade was there breaking the myth that they would not exhibit at a show that Explore Scientific was also at. All in all, a very tempting candy store! Dean of Starzonia was amazing. Took my Nexstar on Sat & worked on it last night & had it back to me this AM. Cannot sing his praises high enough. Neither Charlie or myself made any purchases, tho I think I will be ordering one of Tom Fields diffraction gratings & software--he did not bring anything to sell at the show. Anyone on this site using his items? Would appreciate any feedback. Storey Musgrave was to speak, but he did not get here. There were 3 sessions on meteorites, the final one featuring Geoff Notkin as replacement for Musgrave. He is really funny, but kinda full of himself. Charley & I really envied you folks up North as all we had down here was warm breezes and blue skies. Seemed hard to estimate the attendence. I will try to get a headcount before leaving. A star party is scheduled for tonight & I said we would come, but as the site is 90 miles outside Tucson, and both of us pretty beat, we just took the night off. 73 _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".