Fred Ley

Very interesting article. It is great that the two satellites are being used for something else. I wonder what they will discover out there? I guess that we will have to wait and see. -Fred

Out of eyepieces that I own, I would keep my 4.8 mm Nagler, my 13mm Nagler and my Tele Vue 55mm Plossl. I figure with a barlow the 55 and 13 focal length is halved. I do like my 18mm 2" Ortho and my 2" 32mm and 1.25" 40mm eyepieces. -Fred

These lectures are really worth watching. I started watching the first one tonight. His books also make for very interesting reading. -Fred

Hi G.Moralis, A person can buy mirror blanks in certain sizes that already have a pregenerated curve to them which saves some time on grinding. -Fred

Well, for meteorite hunting I use my trusty metal detector. Simply place the settings to infinity and start scanning the ground. I do have my geology tools too-the typical geologists hammer, chisels, goggles, etc. Greece does have a diverse geology and that should make for the ability to have a great collection. There must a geology group that gets together and goes out on weekends loooking for interesting minerals or meteorites. I do know one tavern on the road that leads to Aghios Konstaninos from Laurion. It is off the road a bit and on the right hand side as one drives uphill. I believe that it is called, phonetically, "Ermitis". Somewhere lurking in the house I have a nice piece of old volcanic lava from California that I field collected years ago. -Fred

Just remembered that in 1995 I visited a tavern in Aghios Konstantinos located in hills above Laurion. The tavern also had a small mineral museum attached to it. I don't know if the museum is still in operation. I don't recall the name of the tavern but, I gather the individuals that live there will know about the museum. I don't recall that they had any meteorites-unless that has changed. -Fred

There is one stone that I found on a friends property in California. It is a broken piece, looks like it is about one-quarter of the whole stone. It has chrondules, also has an ablation edge which would be generated by its passage through the atmosphere and is attracted to a magnet. I have attempted to look for the rest of the stone, but was unable to locate any more. That is a very nice collection of minerals that you have. It looks like your collection has outgrown its case. Are all of the samples local? If you had your collection on a different planet it would be viewed the same way that we view meteorites on this planet. -Fred

Hi Everybody, In 1982, when I went ahead and ordered my first metorite through the mail, there were not that many individuals interested in meteorite collecting. Since then there has been a massive increase of individuals who collect meteorites, tektite, moldavites, libyan desert glass, etc. Going out and searching for meteorites can be a lot of fun and it does take a bit of walking. Prior to going out and looking for that gem that fell out of the sky, a bit of reading should be done in order to better understand what one is looking for. Many times a meteorite that one finds ends up being a "meteorwrong" instead of a "meteorite". Here is a couple of sites to explore that provide educational material along with images and items that are for sale too. There are a considerable number of web sites out there waiting to be discovered. A few sites... http://www.minresco.com/ http://www.meteoriteman.com/ http://www.meteorite.com/ (this site has many links to other dealers) http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.com/index.html http://www.nevadameteorites.com/nevadameteorites/METEORITE_HUNTS.html http://www.meteoritica.com/ A site for persons interested in meteorites on stamps and coins... http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/metstamp.htm -Fred

Hi, Glad you all enjoyed the link. It is great that at various points in time we each come across items of interest and have this forum with which we can share them on. Fred

Hi, The link to the movie about the Sikhote-Alin crater is interesting. Great that you posted the link to it. Below is two samples in my collection that are from this particular fall. The scale is in inches. (1 inch = 2.54 cm) Fred

Hi, A 24-hour live webcam has been set up at JPL showing the construction of the new Mars rover Curiosity. It is scheduled to land on Mars in August of 2012. Note that California time is ten hours behind Greece time which means if JPL personnel show up for work at 0800 hrs., it would be 1800 hrs. in Greece. And the link is... Enjoy, Fred

Hi Lasithiotakis, Here is a couple of sites that will help you in the identification of meteorites. http://www.star-bits.com/ID.htm http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/space/meteorites-dust/collecting-identifying-meteorites/identifying-meteorites/index.html http://epswww.unm.edu/iom/ident/index.html Hope this helps. Fred

A very well worth project. The video was very enjoyable to watch. -Fred