Science Project

So I am working on a really interesting project.  There was a fascinating presentation at the Antique Telescope Society Convention in San Jose about an amateur astronomer in Germany in the mid-18th century who did drawings of sunspots for nearly fifty years!  The short version of the story is that a professor at Stanford University is trying to "calibrate" the amateur's drawings to more modern observations.  He had hoped that ATS members with antique telescopes could do observations.  No one with an antique volunteered, so my friend John in Magdalena came up with the idea for two of us to build modern versions of an antique telescope and make the observations.  John has been doing drawings for two months now.  This is my brand new "antique" - an octagonal tube telescope made from Philippine Mahogany.   It only has a one inch lens in the front, however, which is really small for a telescope.  Today I made my first sunspot drawing!  It is really exciting to be part of of such an interesting project.