Halls Valley

Halls Valley (on Mount Hamilton Road) near San Jose, California is a nice site.

That's me, about thirty pounds ago! Posing with my Orion MegaView 20x80 binos. (You can't see it very well, but the highest peak on the left side of the picture is Lick Observatory.)

I love these binos: the Virgo parallelogram mount makes for a wonderful tool for star parties. You can adjust the height by raising and lowering the binos without changing its aiming position. This makes it easy for people of very different heights to enjoy sharing views of the same object without having to hunt for them. The parallelogram mount screws directly onto the top of the tripod via a 1/4 x 20 bolt, and rotates around this connection for azimuth adjustments.

My buddy Max looks for something in his bag. Max is getting into astronomy too. He's also responsible for the Thermoses full of Starbucks coffee. Notice the conspicuous absence from the picture of my NexStar 114GT scope. It's not worthy of inclusion, now that I have a lovely Meade LX90. 8/10/02 I'll be taking the Meade up to Halls Valley.

If you're interested in attending star parties at Halls Valley, check out the Halls Valley Astronomical Group web site. It's a nice site within easy driving distance of San Jose.

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