There’s a lot more in his store besides telescopes, though. It’s a great place for novice stargazers to get started with a good pair of binoculars and an introductory how-to book or two.
“Binoculars are a great way to get introduced to astronomy,” Sorin said. “This is where we direct a lot of people who are just wanting to get started. They don’t know if they want a telescope yet, but they want something.” The store, at 9797 W. Colfax Ave., carries celestial guidebooks for binoculars and small telescopes, such as ““This is a nice guidebook that introduces people to the night sky and to the constellations, and focuses on about 50 of the brighter objects that you can locate just by identifying those constellations and where to look,” Sorin said. “It’s a great thing to do with binoculars to help you orient to the night sky.”,” is described as “the beginner’s guide to successful deep sky observing.
Planispheres are inexpensive rotating gizmos that can help stargazers find constellations as they move through the night sky. , which indicates where Apollo missions landed and other prominent lunar features. There are stickers and patches from several NASA missions. I snapped up the Apollo 11 patch as a memento of that historic launch, which my family and I watched from a causeway near Cape Canaveral in 1969.
“All of us are amateur astronomers ourselves,” Sorin said of his staff. “It’s a passion for us. It’s really nice for us to be able to share that with people. Because we’re that informational resource, we can help you make the most of these events.”, which had the reputation of being one of the best optics stores between Chicago and California. Like Mile High Astronomy, S&S Optika catered as much to amateurs as professionals.