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Posts Made By: Philip Canard

July 13, 2007 01:56 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

EQ-6 / Orion Atlas issues

Posted By Philip Canard

If your polar axis and OTA axis are not aligned, you will not have accurate GoTo, especially on planets which tend to be off more than deep sky objects due to the difficulty in tracking their positions.

It is your MOUNT that aligns on objects. If your OTA isn't aligned with the mount, then definitely will have problems. Your manual should have told you this (my LXD75 manual does) and there should be alignment procedures as well.

Is your polar scope aligned? You need to be sure it's aligned to the mount to be sure the mount is aligned with Polaris. AFter both are accomplished, align the OTA with Polaris and you should be good to go.

July 14, 2007 05:48 PM Forum: Beginning Astronomy?

2" UO 25mm MK-70 eyepiece in my 12" dob?

Posted By Philip Canard

A 21mm Baader Hyperion or Orion Stratus would cost less and work better at focal ratios below f/8. All the EP's in that series are about the same size and weight and will not unbalance your Dob, so think about the entire series of EP's you will be needing, not one particular EP. Rememeber that parfocal EP's are easier to live with, and EP's with variable focal length (Hyperion) are much more versatile and save money. Buying a few EP extension tubes is cheaper than buying a Powermate if money is tight. Three Hyperions will get you about every FL that you need for most observing.

Phil

July 18, 2007 01:01 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Do you Really need a 2" Filter?

Posted By Philip Canard

If you use a Siebert Power Mag Wheel, the answer is no as only the central portion of the cone of light is used and it has a 1.25" nosepiece. I use my 2" filters in the JMI focuser extension tube, Click-Lock nosepiece, eyepiece turret nosepiece, or 2" diagonal nosepiece, etc. I rarely screw them onto an EP.

Some filters should not be turned around and used in the output of the EP, such as nebular filters with front reflection coatings.

40mm Paragon yields too large an exit pupil with an f/4.9 Dob (without using a 2" Barlow). 27mm Pan would give you about all the exit pupil you could use.

I believe the Hyperion/Stratus EP's have 1.25" filter threads as they are Barlowed internally.

July 27, 2007 05:01 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Help Select Next EP!

Posted By Philip Canard

What you do is add an extension ring on the 13mm Hyperion to change the focal length. Alpine Astronomical can sell you the ring.

Buy the Hyperions and stay away fron the Stratus on future purchases as they are more versatile and have better coatings.

July 27, 2007 05:39 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: Mirror cooling

Posted By Philip Canard

I suggest going high tech and installing a powdered dry ice injector. You can also burn warts off of skin, so maybe make a few bucks on the side to pay for it.

Liquid oxygen/nitrogen injectors may be a bit overkill. Far be it from me to suggest something so radical. No, not me.

Phil

August 6, 2007 08:40 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Rich field scopes - nobody consider Newtonians?

Posted By Philip Canard

Since you are talking Newts, widefield, fairly small aperture, here are three choices:

LOMO MN102. At f/5.5 and 561mm focal length, you get 22X with a standard 25mm Plossl. This scope also accepts a Siebert BN22 binoviewer with the 1.8X or 1.5X OCA that Siebert makes for it. Drop in a Ortho or Star Splitter EP, and it's a fine star splitter scope as well. Built-in viewfinder that uses main EP and drops the mag by a factor of three. Mine came perfectly collimated and it stays that way. Rear scope cover pulls of and leaves the mirror rear surface totally exposed to air for a very quick cooldown.....without introducing dusty air into the scope interior. Focuser rotates and is removable. The ultimate portable richfield Mak-Newt. Small enough to sit in your lap while you sit in a chair or on the ground. No mount needed if backpacking. Comes with high quality rings and sliding dovetail mount. Fairly common on the used market, and a big step up from a Celestron Comet Catcher. When you want to go planetary, it can take crazy high mags, 300X is no problem. Famous LOMO optical quality.

Meade Schmidt-Newtonians. Available in 6", 8" and 10" versions. The 8" f/4 is the all around favorite. 812mm FL with a 27mm Pan yields 30X and 2.25 degree FOV. 31X with a 26mm Nagler and 2.6 degree FOV. Becomes f/6 focal ratio with a Siebert 1.5X OCA and binoviewer. Much less coma than a standard f/4 Newtonian. Much lighter for its aperture than a Russian Mak-Newt as the corrector is much thinner.

The Russian Mak-Newts of 5" to 6" aperture have already been mentioned. Much less maintenance than an open Newtonian, much less coma, no diffraction spikes, maintains their collimation unless severely mishandled, will compete against APO refrectors in color free high power views. If I didn't already own a 6" Russian Mak-Cass and 4" Russian Mak-Newt, this size and type of scope could fill in for both of them rather well.

The Meade 8" or 10" SNT will accept a drop-in JMI NGF-55D 2" focuser and becomes a nice scope once the conversion is made. If doing remote observing with a camera, this is the setup to use, and mine came with the necessary software. There are lots of these scopes now in use, and they routinely show up on the used market at very low prices compared to the Russian Mak-Newts of similar aperture. The Meade Schmidt-Newt would be my top value pick.

August 17, 2007 05:47 AM Forum: Off Topic Discussions

Most Difficult Book Read?

Posted By Philip Canard

Rational Fasting by Arnold Ehret.

It was written about 100 years ago, and based on pragmatic experience and proven results. He advocates fasting to clean out your system then proper diet to keep your system clean. Good health is achieved at the cellular level, by eliminating clogging of fluid interchange. Nutrients in, and waste out, without hindrance. V=P-O. Vitality equals pressure minus obstruction. As simple as Ohm's law, E=IxR. Electromotive force equals current times resistance. Bad diet plugs up cellular fluid interchange. If you increase resistance in an electrical circuit, current goes down, and power goes down as well if E is held constant. Plug up your cell walls, and your energy and health goes down along with decreased fluid interchange that gets energy in and wastes out. So freaking simple, but hard to accept for some.

I received my trainig at a conventional medical university. I had to unlearn a lot of false nutritional information (dogma, actually) that has been passed off as fact for decades at medical schools who receive a large part of their funding from pharmaceutical companies. Coffee, tea and beer really ARE better for you than drinking cow's milk as Ehret proved decades ago. Broccoli IS a much better source of calcium than milk. Milk is not a true calcium source at all, since all its calcium and more is used up to offset the acidity caused by milk protein. If that were not the case, a heavy milk drinker would die from acidosis. When you drink milk, extra calcium is pulled from your bones, so it's a calcium deficiency generator. Besides, milk plugs up your system as it's a mucus generator. Drink a few ounces of milk and later on a few ounces of tea. See which one causes you more mucus in your mouth and throat. It does the same thing way deep inside you as well, at the cellular level, where you can't spit mucus out so easily.

Also, cures for the common cold and flu viruses have been known for decades by the drug companies. It's called olive leaf extract. Works like a charm for me. I never take flu vaccines and can get over the worst flu in 3 days while those who go the conventional route can take 3 weeks or more to get over flu.

After reading Rational Fasting, if you think Ehret is full of crap, then it shows how messed up in the head YOU are from modern medical misinformation. It's fun to give the book to a doctor or nurse and have them come back and tell you how screwed up Ehret is, based on their advanced medical training. Their general state of health tells me they hardly know what THEY are talking about as far as real health goes.

I have followed Ehret's advice, and I know he is the one who was/is right. His clinic took in incurable patients and usually cured them, after conventional medical doctors had given them up for dead. He did it over and over and got lots of doctors mad at him for showing them up.

If you have been brainwashed by conventional medical and nutritional sources, you will find his books hard to accept. One guy that writes nutritional and health books is married to a doctor, and he asks her advice when he is sick, then does exactly the opposite, and claims he hasn't made a wrong decision so far. I had one doctor at work tell me he went against conventional medical advice at times, but his patients would DEMAND he do the conventional treatment or they would go elsewhere. He became a radiologist to get away from internal medicine dogma. That way insurance still pays his fee. Become an alternative medical doctor, and you'll probably see your income take a big nosedive.

Some people are seeing the light now, but 20 years ago when I was reading Ehret, it sounded rather strange. He throws the "balanced diet" concept right out the window, but it was based on what he saw in nature. Ancient people ate a lot of what was in season or available, and any variety came with the seasons and not in the same meal. You cannot digest all 4 basic food groups at once, so putting them all in a single meal is not he best thing to do. It's better to eat a pound of cherries or carrots at one sitting than to eat a pound of salad made from a half dozen or more fruits or vegetables. Add meat, bread and dairy.....and your are headed for indigestion and toxicity.

I talked to four professional dieticians at work, and they had never heard of Ehret, and he was the father of modern alternative nutrition. When you question them, they don't know much of anything that the really good nutritionists know. That's the way the medical industry likes it.

When I had jaw surgery, my first hospital meal after surgery was jaw breaker hard candy and a can of Coca-Cola. No fooling. Hospital dieticians are mostly brainwashed parrots for pharmaceutical companies. Refined sugar depresses your immune system. And these are the people that say Ehret is all wrong. His book isn't hard, it's IMPOSSIBLE for them to accept.

Phil

August 20, 2007 05:12 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Stellarvue F50 finder

Posted By Philip Canard

I use the F50 on my Meade SN8. It's decent for the price.

The 40mm finder that came on my LOMO 150MC is better, in spite of the aperture reduction.

The F50 is better in one way: you can change the mag by changing the EP. I usually run at 17X with a 12mm Plossl.

I also use a 10mm illuminated Celestron EP at times.

I will eventually mount my NHII on the SN8 and just clamp a laser in the finder scope mount. If you want a SERIOUS finder scope, an 80mm short tube refractor is the minimum scope, with a good 2" star diagonal, not an erecting prism. The cheap erecting prism causes noticeable image degradation in the F50, but good for the price. Far better than the crap finder that came on the SN8.

You need about 15X or more and a wide FOV to actually find things.

February 26, 2008 11:12 PM Forum: Global Warming - REAL or NOT

Another viewpoint...but who is listening???

Posted By Philip Canard

At the present rate of environmental pollution, we would all be dead from toxicity long before we were warmed to death. This should be obvious to anybody who is presently not in a coma. If solutions to real problems were the issue, government and the mass media would be addressing toxic pollution first and that would automatically address many greenhouse gas issues and such. Falling for the global warming nonsense and parrotting the viewpoints of the proponents just makes you a puppet in a mass delusion. Why not get interested in some more pressing issues if you have any environmental concerns?

August 10, 2008 02:26 PM Forum: Eyepieces

what to buy

Posted By Philip Canard

Try Baader Hyperion and Eudiascopic. The Eudiascopic is basically the same as the old Ultima series and they work great at f/10. The old Axiom wideangles are hard to beat at f/10 as well. At least as good as Televue at f/10 and much cheaper. I have Ultima, Axiom and Star Splitters as my premium eyepieces for my 150mm LOMO Mak-Cass, and it's pretty much the optical equivalent of a $5000 refractor (1/8 wave optical performance) and soundly beats a C11 I compared it to in visual sharpness, if not brightness. It has no tendency whatsoever to decollimate in transport and does not shift when focusing....but it was sold as a pro level scope. Any eyepiece good enough for a big LOMO Mak-Cass is more than good enough for a Celestron or Meade Schmidt-Cass with their typical 1/4 wave optics and tendency to decollimate in transport.

Also consider the eyepiece turret from TEC. It works great in any refractor or CAT scope with a 2" visual back and has a 1/10 wave mirror for $500.

TeleVue will repair their eyepieces, and this is the main reason to buy TeleVue, if you are hard on eyepieces. They hold their value for resale and are easy to sell. I am easy on eyepieces, I needed bino pairs, I needed all 1.25" EP's to be parfocal for the turret, and I have no interest in reselling. Ultima and Axiom were a much better deal in a scope of focal ratio 8 or longer.

FWIW, EP's that are not parfocal are hard to use in a Schmidt-Cass as focus is harder to find than in a refractor. You'll be spinning your focus knob a lot and putting up with image shift unless you lock mirror and install a Crayford focuser. I just spin my turret and my Ultimas are in perfect focus.