So what's the next "big thing"

Hi all,

Thanks for all your replys. Very much enjoyed reading all your responses.

John

John,

Found this lecture on liquid mirrors (video file). Veru informative, especially the ones he talks about that are a step ahead of the liquid mercury thing being build as they are reformable surfaces. Perhaps one day we'll have a new Newt

http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/seminars/online/PSC/borra2/title.html

-Bill

How about a "captioned eyepiece". When you saw something interesting in the eyepiece, you would press a button and see a description of the object, right in the eyepiece field. This could be done using input from digital setting circles and a computer. Sort of a Sky Scout at 500x.

What about a user-friendly instrument package to go with the telescope? Maybe a spectrometer(?) to breakdown the colors of the stars and an electronic reticle to estimate the height of lunar features or the size of solar system objects and then an interface to a laptop that would breakdown and present the results for non-scientists.

The next "big thing" for me would be a small, object locator, like the Sky Scout, that can be mounted in place of an optical finderscope. This would facilitate locating objects in light polluted skies. And based on current prices could be cheaper than digital setting circles ($600 and above for the box and encoders).

As I understand it, the Celestron and Meade object locators cannot be mounted on or near a metal telescope tube as the metal affects the GPS, so we're talking 2nd or 3rd generation object locator.

John Theodossy said:

Hi all,

It seems that things have been pretty quiet on the "new thing" front for awhile. Yea I know there are always some new gadgets coming out, but no "revolutionary" things for awhile. A few years ago the GOTO scopes had a big impact, and more recently the low cost ccd imaging devices surged. For awhile I thought binoviewers might become the new hot items, but these seem to be more of a smoldering item rather than setting things on fire.

So what does everyone think will be the next truly HUGE thing?

I think I just saw it. A night vision device that can be fitted with a camera lens and used to scan the sky, or can be put into an eyepiece holder (preferable a fast, well baffled instrument). It allows you to comfortably use both eyes.

Impressively bright views of the Veil complex with an NP127.

Clear skies, Alan

I've read on another forum site, posts made by Mr. Roland Christian about his experimenting with design & prototype work of a Riccardi-Honders OTA. After reading through all the related posts by Mr. Christian, I gathered that he was fairly confident that this type of design "may be what is in store for the future of telescopes, not something available in the near term, but coming down the road." He had many positive things to say about this design. He says, "they can be made with focal ratios from f/2 to f20, and utilize only common BK7 glass in their Corrector and Primary mirror." They have a refractive element up front and the primary mirror has actually both a reflective element and a refractive element to it since the primary is a rear coated Mangin. He further said that all the designs use only simple spheres, should not be all that difficult for a good optical shop to make, and will be interesting in sizes of 10" or larger.

I've sugested to my wife if Astrophysics should offer such a telesope in the next three years or so, I probably will want to be one of the first ones on the list to purchase one. I have been researching various OTA designs to obtain probably my last OTA; however, at least for now, I've decided to be happy with the telescopes I now have to wait to see if Mr. Christian can successfully design and market a Riccardi-Honders OTA.

Jim

John Theodossy said:
Hi all,

It seems that things have been pretty quiet on the "new thing" front for awhile. Yea I know there are always some new gadgets coming out, but no "revolutionary" things for awhile. A few years ago the GOTO scopes had a big impact, and more recently the low cost ccd imaging devices surged. For awhile I thought binoviewers might become the new hot items, but these seem to be more of a smoldering item rather than setting things on fire.

So what does everyone think will be the next truly HUGE thing?

John Theodossy said:

Hi all,

It seems that things have been pretty quiet on the "new thing" front for awhile. Yea I know there are always some new gadgets coming out, but no "revolutionary" things for awhile. A few years ago the GOTO scopes had a big impact, and more recently the low cost ccd imaging devices surged. For awhile I thought binoviewers might become the new hot items, but these seem to be more of a smoldering item rather than setting things on fire.

So what does everyone think will be the next truly HUGE thing?

I hope the next big thing is a mount that could do drift alignment by itself. I know it's no big deal for most people here but when you are like me in the Equator and can't see Polaris at all, drfut alignment can be a lot of work.