WHO AM I

• My name is Frank Jones and live in central New Jersey.  I worked for an electric utility in NJ for 30 years before retiring in Jan. 2004.  My wife of over 51 years is Wanda and we have 3 adult children.   I've restored a 1926 Model T Ford pick-up truck and a 1951 Chevy (both vehicles belonged to my wife's grandfather ).  For well over 30 years, I flew RC model airplanes and helicopters and recently became deeply involved with astronomy.  

HOW I BECAME INTERESTED IN ASTRONOMY

• I've had a casual interest in astronomy for a long time but after seeing images from the Hubble Space Telescope, my interest increased. 
• My initial purchase in 1999 was a Celestron Ultima 2000  8" telescope.  This telescope has "GOTO" capability (Once you point the telescope to a couple of bright stars and push a few buttons, the telescope knows where it is at.  Then you enter what you want to look at on the keypad and the telescope will GOTO that location).  I then became interested in CCD (Charged Coupled Device aka a digital camera) and purchased an SBIG ST-237 camera from Santa Barbara Instrument Group.

 GOING THE NEXT STEP UP ( Thanks to my loving and understanding wife ):

• Nov. 2000-- A vacation home was purchased in Sugar Run,  PA (a rural location).  The view of the night stars is spectacular compared to central NJ.  
• July 2001--a Celestron 11" telescope  and a Losmandy G11 mount was purchased.  The mount also has GOTO capability.  
• An SBIG-STV CCD camera  auto-guiding the telescope.  I became aware that no matter how accurate the mount is, it still will not follow the stars exactly.  An auto-guider monitors the star position and if it varies from a fixed position, the STV will send a correcting signal to the mount to get it back where it belongs.  Because of auto-guiding, longer timed CCD exposures are possible.. 
• A 10' fiberglass telescope ProDome from Technical Innovations was assembled along with an 8'x12' remote control house. 

• July 2002--An Astro-Physics 1200 telescope mount..
• Sept 2002--Takahashi FSQ-106 refractor was next.  
• Aug 2003--12.5" RC Optical Systems Telescope . 
• In Nov 2003, a  SBIG ST-10XME  camera  
• I tried to order an Astro-Physics 6" refractor in May 2002 but the waiting list was so long, I never reveived it--Now discontinued 
• Dec 2006, an SBIG  STL-11000M camera purchased.  
• Oct 2010 installed a grounding grid around the telescope mount and dome to reduce induced surges from lightening strikes--It did not help and all electronics were damaged in 2015
• Oct 2010 installed motors and controls to automate dome (Eliminated need to manually move dome every 15 minutes).
• Oct. 2011 installed a field flattener / corrector in the 12.5" RCOS telescope.