Posts Made By: Ivan Gastaldo

Scott, out of those two, the Nexstar would be my personal choice... you can't beat the benefits of larger aperture...


Clear skies!

Sorry to hear Mike...
I wish you good luck in all you do...

Take good care of yourself!

Well, my friend Maurizio DiSciullo and I decided to go out and check out this area that one of his friends had noted. It is located on mile marker 70, out on I-75N, way west from the Fort Lauderdale area in S.Florida...

We decided to leave home around 5:30pm, so that we could get there with still a lil' bit of light in order to set up our equipment more easily.
We got there at about 6:30pm, and was getting dark, but we managed to set up our stuff without tripping on anything... that was good...

This place is actually a "Rest Area", with no lights, no buildings, no towers, no nothing! (besides some light poles which NEVER get turned on!)

Needless to say, we were very anxious to see what the skies looked like out there, in the middle of nowhere... and we were NOT disappointed!

As darkness approached, we started to see more & more stars, until it became dark enough that we could pretty much identify nebulas & clusters "naked eye"... talk about excitement!

We could see the main road, as this large "parking lot" is about 300 feet away from I-75, but it was not a big issue, considering what we were able to see...

M42 was a beautiful sight, quite different from what you can see from light polluted skies, as you miss a big portion of the faint nebulosity that goes all the way around it...

We looked at a good number of clusters, some galaxies, and had tons of fun with Maurizio's set of binoculars, which worked great out here!

After a couple of hours, some clouds approached and started messing around, so we decided to pack our things and get back to our families... (but we'll be back for more, that's for sure!)

Anyways, I think we've found a good spot, which will certainly become very visited by us, and all our friends that would care to join us...




Clear skies to all! 8)

Great shot Kirk! 8)

C'mon Hal, listen to yourself... you are gonna stop posting because 2 out of a hundred complained about your post... does not sound logical at all...

If it bothers you, remove your post, and keep going...
If it does not bother you, then ignore it, and keep going...

The final decision about sticking around or not is yours, but we all know that YOU know what's right...



Clear skies to all! 8)

One quick question to all the ones that are already into this SLR Imaging...
I'm familiar with T-Rings & their function, I know that there are different ones, designed for all different brands of SLRs and DSLRs.

Not too long ago I got a D70, which I'm in the process to get all set up to start imaging with my scopes, 10" LX-200GPS & Orion ED80, so I got a T-Ring, and I previously had a Meade camera adapter, so all is fine there...

Looking at Orion's instructions, it pretty much says that the T-Ring should be able to screw directly into the focuser drawtube, which is NOT my case, as the drawtube is way too large for the T-Ring to screw into it... am I missing something here? is there a T-Ring with a larger front, so that it will fit into the drawtube? (let me guess, we need to purchase Orion's "special" T-Ring?)


Thanks for your attention, and clear skies! 8)

Focusing is a real pain in the behind. Specially when you try to focus faint objects through the rinky-dinky viewfinder these cameras have!

Anyways, this is a single shot of The Beehive, 15sec exposure, ISO800, NR ON, on an Orion 80ED at f/7.5 with a Nikon D70...

Much to get, much to learn...

I have to get this baby to really dark skies, as this was taken from my VERY LIGHT POLLUTED driveway...


Clear skies to all! 8)

Well, here it is... not a Magazine Shot, but not too shabby for a 30sec single exposure...

There sure is much to learn, and since I'm still waiting for my mount's polar scope to arrive, this was roughly aligned, and that why the short exposures...

Thanks for looking, my friends, ... clear skies to all! 8)

What focuser alternatives are out there to replace the stock focusers that these scopes come with? is anybody here using any of them? what's your opinion about it?

Thank you for your attention, and clear skies!

Howard, that one seems to be the standard tripod that comes with the LX-200 scopes... (I do not recall a "deluxe" version)
I actually have a 10" LX-200GPS and it seems almost identical...

It is definitely NOT a Giant Tripod...


Clear skies!