SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASTRONOMY EXPOSITION 2008 Last updated: 31 July 2008

The Southern California Astronomy Exposition 2008, held at Oceanside Photo and Telescope on Saturday, 12 July, and Saturday, 19 July, is now history. All of the events and talks on both dates were excellent and well attended. I was able to attend on both dates and I gave a talk on "What You Can See With a Meade ETX" on Saturday, 19 July. Slides from my talk are online.

Besides my photos below, OPT has posted other photos from both Saturdays on their web site.

Here are some photographs from Saturday, 12 July. Following the photos from the 12th are photos from the 19th.

OPT Store


Scott Roberts (right, formerly of Meade) and Mike Weasner (taken by Neil Sumner)

SCAE 2008


Scott Kardel - The History of Palomar Observatory


Paul (right) and his 10" LX200 in the OPT parking lot


Gary Palmer (right, handing out T-Shirts) - The Sun in Motion


Another one of Paul and some more SCAE attendees


Arlene Martel - signing an autograph for my wife


Nicholas Law - Beating the Hubble from Here on Earth


Dr. Marc Rayman - The DAWN Mission to the Asteroid Belt


Some of the attendees at SCAE


Star Party - Vixen


Star Party - TeleVue


Star Party - Paul's setup


Star Party - Celestron


Star Party - Pentax


Star Party - telescope


Some of the attendees at the evening presentations


Arlene Martel - reading from The Little Prince


Dr. Seth Shostak - When will We Discover the Extraterrestrials?


Star Party - some of the attendees


Star Party - some of the attendees

Here are some photos from the 19th:

OPT booth


Lunt Solar Systems Seminar - How LSS Filters are Made


Takahashi Seminar - The Baby Q


Tele Vue Seminar - Choosing Eyepieces




Rigel Systems Seminar - Stellar Spectra with a Canon Rebel XTI


One of the displays




Hotech Seminar - SCA Laser Collimator - New Adapting Technology


iOptron Seminar - Smartstar GOTO Technology


Denkmeier Seminar - BIPH - Binocular Photon Machine


iOptron Seminar - Smartstar GOTO Technology


Meade Seminar - mySKY Demo - Announced the "mySKY plus"

(New software will be available to current mySKY owners on Meade's web site the first week of August.)

Planewave Seminar - The CDK Optical Design


Part of the line for FREE PIZZA!


Pentax Seminar - Digiscoping with Pentax


Telescope Stability Systems Seminar - A Great System Starts from the Ground Up


Booths












QSI Seminar - Understanding FFTS - How to Analyze Noise




Vixen Seminar - Vixen Astrophotography


OPT Store - Lots of buying going on!


Giant Giveaway Raffle - last minute entries


Giant Giveaway Raffle - Part of the crowd awaiting the drawings!


Giant Giveaway Raffle - some ETX owners I saw in the crowd






Giant Giveaway Raffle - Some of the prizes




Giant Giveaway Raffle - Craig (OPT owner) beginning the Raffle

After the event was over OPT hosted a very special dinner for the vendors and presenters. Thanks OPT! After I arrived back at my hotel I noticed the Moon was visible so I took this photo as a final tribute to the Southern California Astronomy Exposition 2008. It was taken with my new (purchased at OPT on 12 July 2008) Nikon 70-300MM F/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor Lens. I used 300mm (450mm 35mm equivalent) at 1/250th sec ISO 400 handheld (the Vibration Reduction really works).

SCAE 2007

SCAE 2005

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