SUNSET: 
Even More Evidence for a Wet Mars
By looking at soil plowed up by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, geologists have some of the strongest evidence to date that ancient Mars was a wet place.
When Old is New: Pentax 100 SDUF II
Pentax has long been a source of quality telescopes and astrophotography equipment for Japanese amateurs. Now, thanks to the efforts of the folks at Oceanside Photo & Telescope (a.k.a. OPT), the Pentax line is coming to America.
Bigger, Better, Cheaper: New Kodak Chips
In the world of high-end astrophotography, the biggest news this year originates with Kodak. Its new large-format KAF-09000 and KAF-16803 CCDs offer outstanding features for astronomical use, but size is only one of them.
Learning from the Masters: Zone System for Astro Imaging
Teaching specialized Photoshop techniques for astronomical imaging has become a cottage industry. This year alone we found five offerings worthy of mention.
Planetary Processing Power: RegiStax 4
No single item in recent memory has had more of an impact on planetary imaging than RegiStax, developed by Dutch amateur Cor Berrevoets. In October 2006 Berrevoets released his much-awaited RegiStax 4.
Autoguiding Interface
Keeping pace with modern technology, Shoestring Astronomy now produces a series of adapters to connect your computer to your telescope mount.
Learning from the Masters: A Guide to Astrophotgraphy With DSLR Cameras
Teaching specialized Photoshop techniques for astronomical imaging has become a cottage industry. This year alone we found five offerings worthy of mention.
Little Shooter: Orion StarBlast Imaging System
You don’t have to break the bank to join the ranks of deep-sky astrophotographers with Orion’s StarBlast 4.5 Imaging System.
Pocket Full of Stars: Pocket Sky Atlas
The Pocket Sky Atlas has quickly become the atlas of choice whenever one of us is headed outside for naked-eye or binocular observing.
Cruise the Planets: Burgess Optical/TMB Planetary Eyepieces
In recent years a handful of specialized planetary eyepieces have entered the market, but what sets the new Burgess Optical/TMB models apart from others is price.
For the Road: LightBridge Dobsonians
Although the truss-tube Dobsonian was introduced to amateur telescope makers 25 years ago, the design has rarely been used in anything but costly premium instruments in the world of commercial telescopes. That is until now.
Different Dob?: Parks Astrolight AZ6 and AZ8 Reflectors
When is an altazimuth-mounted Newtonian telescope not a Dobsonian? When it’s a new Parks Astrolight AZ reflector.
Building a Better Bino Adapter: FAR-Sight
If you think there isn’t much room for improving the classic adapter for mounting binoculars to camera tripods, then you must not be one of the people at Farpoint Astronomical Research. These clever individuals have recently introduced the FAR-Sight, a stainless-steel, quick-release mounting system for most binoculars having a standard ¼-20 threaded socket.
Convertible Refractors: Stellarvue 90-mm Apo Refractors
The SV90TBV fluorite triplet refractor from Stellarvue sports several features that help set it apart from the multitude of scopes recently entering the market.
Bright Idea: SureFire Kroma LED Flashlight
The new Kroma LED Flashlight from SureFire delivers two levels of dependable white light in addition to high and low levels of red and blue light.
Learning from the Masters: Image Processing for Astrophotography
Teaching specialized Photoshop techniques for astronomical imaging has become a cottage industry. This year alone we found five offerings worthy of mention.
Learning from the Masters: Making Every Pixel Count
Teaching specialized Photoshop techniques for astronomical imaging has become a cottage industry. This year alone we found five offerings worthy of mention.
Faster Imaging for DSLRs: Starizona’s HyperStar M14
The new HyperStar M14 from Starizona transforms Meade 14-inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes into superfast f/2 astrographs for DSLR cameras.
Forget the Exotics: Tele Vue’s Paracorr for SBIG’s STL-Series Cameras
Thanks to Tele Vue the ideal telescope to cover the 35-mm-size chip in SBIG’s flagship STL-11000 CCD camera may be no further away than the venerable Newtonian reflector.
Cadillac of Finders: Stellarvue F50 and F80 Finders
While Go To telescopes may have reduced the importance of optical finders, they haven’t stopped Stellarvue from developing a line of premium models that are more closely related to small telescopes than they are to their namesakes from the past.
