Today, I'm at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show (PATS). Because this is the first time PATS has occurred, I really didn't know what to expect. Wow! There are a lot more dealers here than I thought would attend. Big ones like Celestron, Meade, Orion, Santa Barbara Instrument Group, Tele Vue, and Vixen. Small ones like, well, in many cases I hadn't heard of them. It's nice to attend a show and be surprised.
I've already seen several cool, new products. Take the Nitrogen II (NII) filter from Astrodon Filters. Many astroimagers use red, green, and blue filters. Some add Hydrogen-alpha, Oxygen III, and Sulfur II. Astrodon's new NII filter will allow them to show even more details in their images. Don Goldman, president of Astrodon, showed me an image he took of the Dumbbell Nebula (M27). The intricate filamentary detail around the central area really amazed me. I hadn't seen that in any other shot of this object.
Both DayStar Filters and Coronado Instruments had multiple telescopes set up outside the convention center so people could look at some Hydrogen-alpha images of the Sun. And all the scopes had lines.
Which leads me to the most gratifying part of PATS: The place was packed! This is a great sign for future conventions. It indicates the organizers were on top of public relations, a big part of any convention's success. All the vendors I chatted with said how clean the place was, how well laid-out the floor plan seemed, and how busy they were. And busy means they'll be back next year.
More tomorrow ...
Editor's note: We've loaded additional pictures from Michael's trip to an album that you can access:
Astronomy on the road: Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show 2008.