Restoration of a TAL-1 -telescope

Background and my history with TAL-1 -telescopes TAL-1 is a well-known Russian amateur astronomer telescope at least here in Finland. They used to be popular among beginners in 1990's and 2000's, in the 1980's the telescope was known as Mizar. Finnish Astronomical Association Ursa was importing and selling these telescopes in 1990's and early 2000's …

A new mountain to climb: film photography

I had been thinking for a long time that I need a new hobby or at least a new perspective to my hobby! Then during this summer I got an inspiration: I want to do film photography! I have been of course shooting film when I was young in early 00's, but then I was …

Goodbye to Celestron 102 mm refractor…

Year 2016 is going to bring some big changes in my life..1. I made the hard decision to continue my father's steel trading business, and to do that, I'm starting up my own company, which will be continuing the business operations of my father's company. 2. Because the company is located in Ulvila, which is …

Binoculars!

Here they are, my new binoculars! From now on, I'll be focusing on variable star observing with binoculars! The pair of binoculars that I bought are Helios 10x50 and the field of view of the binos is 6,5°. The binos are quite light, and observing with them is pleasent. I still have to make a …

Do it yourself -solar filter

When I purchased my new telescope, I also bought a sheet of Baader Astrosolar film for solar observations. I made a cheap and easy solar filter out of Astrosolar film and cardboard. In this post, I will show how to do a similar solar filter by yourself! For making a solar filter like this you …

A new telescope

I had long been thinking to buy a telescope suitable for observing the objects of our Solar system. I had several different possibilities in my mind, but after all I decided to invest 500 € in Celestron Omni XLT 102, which is a achromat refractor with 102mm lens and focal ratio 9,8 and with CG …