[rollei_list] OT: The Rollei List
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:45:43 -0400
At 01:02 PM 3/29/2012, Laurence Cuffe wrote:
I appreciated you post, It inspires me to dig
out my home made 8 inch Dob, or to do some more
work on the 18 inch which up to now is just a
collection of mirrors and parts for the mirror
cell. I have a Nikon D40, which I bought for
its good low light performance, and I have got a
couple of shots of the Andromeda Galaxy just
putting the thing on a tripod, pointing it in
the right direction, firing off the shutter, and
just letting the camera decide when it was cooked.
I know the next step would be a Barn Door
rig etc, but my interest in astronomy is more
of a put your eye up there and see what you can see one.
Your Questar is one of my dream machines, while
bigger machines may see more and fainter, a
telescope that size is a get up and go machine which is always ready.
One last thing which I find a joy in my
astronomical explorations, is the free program
stellarium <http://www.stellarium.org/>http://www.stellarium.org/
This is one nicest digital planetarium program's
I've found, and is a joy to use.
Re 62. That, as many of the folks on this list
will tell you, didoes even buy you into the game
on being old We treasure you custodian ship of
this list and your occasionally irascible and
often opinionated contributions. There is a
feeling here of sitting on some slightly
southern back porch as the sun goes down with a
scent of cigar smoke, or a good whiskey drifting
past and a critical appreciation of life and all
its technologies whether they be cameras, politics or ancient languages.
Shucks to your kind words. I wanted to learn
about Rolleis, so I set up this List. I have
learned a lot about Rolleiflex gear through this
List. I can be a jerk as the List owner but,
then, this List is mine. However and for the all
of it, I love this List, though I own a few
others and enjoy them (the Hornblower List, for
instance, on Yahoo!, is a creature entrusted to
me by its founder). You Rollei People have
taught me so very much. I stand astounded at the
collective wisdom in our midst, and I am humbled
(who ever would have thought that the terms
'humble' and 'Marc James Small' could be used
together? My oldest friends would be astonished.)
An isntance: I first met Jim Brick when he
chastised me about a calibre issue with my
Argentine Mauser. That was over on the Leica
Users' Group (now the LDG, the Leica Digital
Group, and <he grins>). Other than his hang-up on
BMW cars, Jim has turned out to be a really grand
person who has taught me a lot over the
years. (Jim, I just picked up a Taurus 605, a
five-shot .357 revolver. Just for your
records! I know nothing about revolvers, so this
will be a fun experience if I can avoid blowing off my big toes ... )
Richard Knoppow is the very soul of knowledge
when it comes to both Compur shutters and THE
WHISTLER ("I know many things, because I walk by
night", and you have to be there to understand
... ). Carlos was a friend to Prochnow and,
unlike the most of us, actually takes pictures
with his Rolleiflex TLR. Eric is at the cutting
edge of digital but still keeps an oar in the
swamp of film lore. Und so weiter:: dozens and
dozens of names pop up from these tired memory
banks of the List members who have taught me so
very, very much over the past decade and a half.
Your vision of the Southern back porch is true to
form, albeit one of my favorite films, THE
FLIM-FLAM MAN, is not yet available on
NetFlix. (The film is about me: 'he pays his
monthly rent with daily charm', as the song
says.) We congregate and then someone says
something and then we are off to the races. The
List will be silent for a week until someone asks
a question and, then, wham, bam, out of an
orange-colored sky (and watch out for falling
glass! Thanks, Nat Cole.), we are all a-gom over
the issue and then spin off into the OT areas. I
sit in wonder at the collective wisdom of you
folks but, then, I have sat on a Southern back
porch with a bunch of red-necks and I never came
away without learning a lot. In the end, despite
my proper education and my professional life, I
am true to my West Virginia roots and am very much the red-neck myself.
It has been my great honour to have led this
assemblage of the proper and the improper, the
good, the bad, and the ugly, the knowledgable and
the over-educated, the kind and the harsh, the
thoughtful and the rash. There has never been a
posting which has not caused me to think, often
in agreement and sometimes in disagreement.
Thank you, Rollei People, for having taught me so
much. You guys are without parallel in terms of
just plain decency and common sense and an interest in learning.
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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