Posts Made By: Mike Ratcliff

Hi Rod,

Nice observations!

IC 1613 is a tough one. Requires excellent dark skies and transparency. I first saw it on a night that ranks as one of the best in my life. It is large and dim, and I wouldn't be surprised if giant binos could see it the best. It's crazy that it is included in the Caldwell catalog, the catalog touted as a bridge between the Messiers and the Herschel 400. I don't know what was being ingested when they put this in the catalog. Science-wise it is interesting, and would be a good item for a challenge list.

Dang, I hadn't noticed the teardrop shape of NGC 247 despite having looked at it several times. It is on the dim side, especially compared to the better known neighbor NGC 253. I'll have to check it out again. The DSS photo does show the north end has some dark areas and oddities.

Thanks much,

Mike

I read almost all of the deep sky posts here at AM and also at Cloudy Nights. However, I rarely reply unless I can be of help on some issue.

CN definitely has more traffic and some very experienced observers which I like to follow.

I tend to enjoy the quick posts on a single object, such as "Can anyone help me with ...?" Or "I finally spotted ...". A recent post on CN I enjoyed was the question on how people's interests in deep sky have changed over the years.

The longer logs of 10 or 20 objects viewed with lots of details, these posts for me aren't as interesting to read but are good for reference. If I have a question about some object, then I can use the search engine. I'm currently not good at taking notes or drawing sketches, so I don't post logs myself.

Yes, the number of visual observers is declining, but I think this particular forum has been eclipsed by CN.

Deep sky is by nature non-controversial (unless the Caldwell catalog comes up), which is fine with me. So the volume will be lower than a lot of other topics. The quiet nature of many of us doesn't help either.

Mike

Most memorable:

Spider web-like nebulosity and blue color in M45 directly visible from N. Calif 16" SCT observatory scope at an outreach night. Maybe once in a lifetime night? I was a beginner and thought it was just the large (to me) 16" scope doing that.

Another near perfect night at Grandview campground in N. Calif, saw low surface brightness IC 1613 galaxy in Cetus easily. In my 16" dob but also glimpsed in the 60mm finder!

Veil nebula for the first time in 16" scope with O-III filter at dark site, wonderful.

M51 on exceptional night in S. Cal. in 16" scope. Fog over LA. The main arms seemed lit up like the Vegas strip. Not seen that well since.

Being able to follow northern half of Barnard's Loop with H-beta filter in the finder scope.

Dark band in NGC 891 through another's 25" dob. Seeing swirls in the band, not just the band. I wasn't expecting that.

M42 first time in 16" at dark site.

Finally saw the snout outline (barely) in Horsehead nebula a few weeks ago, 16" and 20" dobs H-beta near Desert Center S. Cal.

Seeing M31 and M110 together for first light in my 6" scope, N. Cal dark sky.

Thanks for starting this thread.

Mike

Supposedly you can determine the number of elements by shining a small light through and counting reflections. Mike Hosea has a post on CloudyNights (Feb 2010) on the details. 6 reflections for a 2-2 plossl, 8 reflections for a 2-1-2 design. Mike says they can be tricky to see, but if you get 7, then the 4 element design can be ruled out.
Mike R

Does your eyeglass prescription have astigmatism (I think it is referred to as "barrel" or "cylinder" or something like that)? If no astigmatism is involved or it is a low 0.25 or 0.5 in value, then you just need to refocus the eyepiece to adjust for near-sightedness or far-sightedness. The only grief is that parfocal sets of eyepieces are no longer exactly parfocal. You do not need to wear the glasses when observing.

If you do have significant astigmatism, then you may need the glasses, especially for larger exit pupils. (exit pupil = eyepiece focal length divided by f/ratio of scope). Large exit pupils mean that more of the eye surface is involved and the non-symmetric distortions of astigmatism are more noticeable. The televue dioptrix can also be used instead of your glasses. But you need a dioptrix level that is close to your astigmatism correction level.

If you need the glasses for astigmatism you then may be forced to go to long eye relief eyepieces like the Delos.

I needed glasses for near-sightedness starting at about age 35. Astigmatism has been low for me, 0.25 to 0.5. I don't normally wear glasses observing, but have to put them back on when using the Telrad.

Just recently (age 58) I suspect astigmatism is getting to be a bigger problem, because I'm seeing the oval shapes when out of focus with the larger exit pupils. I may be facing some of these issues soon.

If you have simple near or far-sighted, then you probably have many years to go before astigmatism is an issue.

Mike

I'll have to say seeing the M57 central star at 600x this summer. (16" dob)

Mike

Personal astigmatism would show up in the star test. But there are some caveats. Star tests are best done at high magnification, and eyeball astigmatism is less of an issue at such magnifications. The high mags use a smaller area of your eye that would eliminate some of the eye curvature issues.

Here is a good writeup by Mike Lockwood

http://www.loptics.com/articles/starshape/starshape.html

Sorry to hear this!

"He sent me his amart feedback account ...".

Normally we don't get or send feedback ratings, we just look them up ourselves. Did you look up his account before the transaction? Did you get one of those Astromart email reply messages? Or was it direct from him only?

Mike

There have been a number of posts on Cloudy Nights about Protostar not responding to emails etc. I have used Protostar myself twice with good results.

Reading the posts, I believe he is honest and you will get your product sooner or later, but he could do better with replies. He is a one-man operation and maybe his second job too. It appears the issues are on certain items that are sub-contracted out.

Mike

I had to google Magic Mike and now wish I hadn't...

Anyway you might check with Normand Fullum. He has built crazy looking, artistic, wood telescopes.

Mike