Posts Made By: Michael Tencza

Before the humidity hit I was also able to get some viewing time here in NC for about an hour on Saturn. This was with a 150 mm f/8 newtonian, the best views coming with a 9 mm Nagler and 7 mm Pentax XL. I am just a beginner, but it is my impression that I am seeing more banding on the globe at this time. It may just be that I am observing better.

I have no data as yet, but I believe fine grit sand paper will obscure any cloudiness.

Excellent discussion guys. I should have given more information, but things often get left out when posting like this. Here are some of the details.

The sky was very clear, but the atmosphere in our area is not ideal (Jordan Lake, NC). The more experienced club members told me that the viewing in Florida is often much better if that helps anyone.

Many of us arrived before nightfall and setup before dark which gave us roughly 90 minutes of thermal equilibration time. BTW it was great to see Mercury for the first time, just over the trees early in the evening.

Back to the topic. When it became pretty dark out I took a look at Saturn to compare the view to what I normally see from my front yard. It was very beautiful and defined and I told everyone around to look for themselves.

Eventually we began swapping scopes and eyepieces to compare them. One was a 14.5" Starsplitter. The owner is very experienced and always collimates the scope before using it. Anyway, while there were moments of good seeing at the eyepiece in this scope, the image vascillated and that made it hard to view. The smaller scopes did not show this, surely for the reasons all of you mentioned, and were easier use for Saturn. I understand the Starsplitter is a great telescope and your explanations jive with what I saw. I only asked the question because I am interested in a larger aperture telescope than what I have now and want to know what to expect from it.

My vote goes with Jon, Uncle Rod, etal. I hesitate to respond to nonesense like this as I hate to encourage it, but this time I will, only to support the people on this site who really know quality and what it costs. If you don't care about this hobby go to a department store, buy a $50 500x refractor, and leave the rest of us to suffer with our "bloated American optical equipment".

For star parties at f/7 to f/10 I would wait for a used gso superview 30 or 42mm to come up for sale. You can get them for $50 or less and they work well enough for what you need them for. Check out Amart reviews for more info.

Follow up to the original post: Same site, one week later.

Saturn was great up to about 300x and even beyond in a 14.5" Starmaster, so it was indeed turbulent atmosphere that we had one week ago.

BTW this time one of our club members brought out a complete line of Ethos eyepieces (plural=Etha?) and my vote as well as everyones else's there goes with Uncle Al. These occulars are simply a remarkable achievement and just plain fun to use.

I was at a viewing session last night where one of the guys was using a 12", formerly Orion Dob. I say formerly as he has had the mirror reconfigured (Swayze) and added a Protostar secondary which has improved the optics remarkably. He had the complete set of Ethos eyepieces with him and from what I saw made a great choice. Just be ready to be wowed when you see M13 through your new Dob and a 6mm Ethos.

Your last comment was right on. Considering you could only use 180x on the moon, your skies were likely the culprit. We do not have the best skies in NC, but I routinely use 300x on the moon with excellent results. To see the best out of the ZAOIIs also make sure you have a fine quality objective or mirror.

Nice job of machining. Orion sells something that works similarly but it does not look nearly as nice as the one you made.

If you know what model of EQ it is you can google vendors for the proper RA tracking motor.