Posts Made By: William Paolini

I heard that too. Also heard that the preannounce stated not expected to be available for 2-3 months yet. Will be interesting to resurrect this thread in several months to see which way things landed.

Lee Spain said:

According to the Census Bureau, there are about 6.5 billion people in the world:
( http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html ) By my limited math, there are only about 31 million seconds in a year. So, if God heard a 1-second individual prayer sequentially from each person, it would take over 200 years for him to hear each prayer in turn.

This is nothing compared to the problem Santa has getting to all those kids between midnight and 5am, in addition to having to load up all that weight on the sleigh and then move all that mass that fast.

But he does doesn't he 8)

I have never found neutral density or polarizing filters benefitial for lunar observing. My eye usually gets used to very bright image after a few seconds so never found them useful for comfort. Also never noticed any better feature rendition with them.

However, I have found that yellow and orange filters do show subtle shadings in the highlands that are not readily seen without filters. In maria, an OIII filter apprears tp bring out some stark shadings not normally seen without a filter either.

As far as whos filters are best, I don't know. I just went for best value with the color filters and they have performed excellently - Burgess Optical which I believe are like $6 each or thereabouts.

I don't think he would like this forum...or any as a matter of fact...perhaps not even the Internet and the whole 21st century!

"Traveling by boat is the best way to travel ... one is thoroughly cut off from letters and papers and the tax-collector..."

[originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune July 9, 1886; it was later reprinted in the Washington Post on July 13, 1886 which is the source of this text.]

Jon,

I've been thinking exactly along the same lines as you evidently. Would be nice to have an optimized 6" or 7" although I'd prefer f/9-10 to f/8 so perhaps easier to figure in production to a a better wavefront.

-Bill

Casey Whalen said:
Still getting my feet wet when it comes to eyepieces. I plan on buying a Tele Vue 2" 27mm Panoptic and a 12mm Radian. Should I shoot for a nice 40+mm ep as well?

Casey,

In your XT12i the 27 Pan will give you about 1.23 deg TFOV with a 5.5mm exit pupil. If you go with a 40mm Paragon your true field will increase by about a little more than 6/10th deg but the exit pupil become over 8mm. You will notice dramatic light loss on Nebula! I have the 10XTi and moving from a 32mm to a 40mm (6.8mm to 8.5mm exit pupil) shows a dramatic loss in nebulocity. However, star fields are still very pleasant so I keep this 40mm for largest TFOV scanning.

So if all you are looking for is the widest possible TFOV then the compromise with the 40mm will be light losss making DSO viewing less than optimim.

Although expensive, the 31mm Nagler will get you close with a 5/10th deg increase TFOV over your 27 Pan and still keep the exit pupil managable at 6.3mm. So this would be your best choice.

If it were me, and it wouldn't be a stretch to afford it, I'd compliment your intended 27Pan and 12Radian with a 31Nagler and 19Pan. With these you'd have a nice rannge of varying TFOVs out of your XT12i of 1.70deg, 1.23deg, .88deg, and .48deg. A nice spread.

-Bill

Greg,

I'd 2nd Michael's suggestion to look into BO/TMB Planetaries. Eye relief is 16mm and 60deg afov. Given what you said, that 5mm for your observing area and scope are about as high as you go (41x/in for your scope), this puts you similar to my area. Using the 5,7,9mm Planetaries, on the vast majority of evenings they are as sharp as my Pentax .965 Orthos. For me, only twice has the Pentax shown more resolution, and even then it was a minor amount.

As far as sensitivity to eye positioning, I find the Planetaries fairly good. I feel they are sensitive to a degree but no where near as my experience with the Radian. The Planetaries also have a twist up eye gueard which allows easy precise eye placement so that helps a bunch.

I have had a few 20mm eye relief eyepieces and I feel as you have noted, that eye placement seems more sensitive in these long eye relief eyepieces. IMO it's not a function of any optical problem, but probably due more to the fact that we're not used to holding our head so far away and don't realize just how much we move. With closer eye relief EPs this tends not to be a problem when you get feedback from your skin, face or eye lashes as to the steadiness of your position since they are touching or near touching, so you naturally self-correct your head wobble. Being far away as 20mm puts you, I tend to feel less feedback so keeping a good eye poisition feels more difficult.

In any event, the Planetaries are a tad closer at 16mm which helps, plus they have that adjustable eye guard which does solve the problem significantly.

-Bill

Here's a review. Didn't seem to have good edge correction in f/6 as the author just called it "acceptable." In your SCT though it should be excellent based on the review.

http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/konig.pdf

btw - I never used this ep, but I do have the UO 32mm 1.25" Konig which does have some edge issues in my f/4.7 with coma in outer 1/3 but minor compared to some others. Used these go for between $75-100. AFOV is not 80 deg though...probably more like mid-50's. Persues Double is gorgeous with this in both my f/4.7 and f/11 scopes.

Hi Pete. I am the keeper of the spreadsheet. Yes...too optimistic...no slow and steady work. There was an approaching critical mass, but then all the rods got pushed it and the reaction ceased :-o I ran a review or two using it also, and put those up on AMart.

I am considering morphing it into a bit of a different interface based on my experiences using the process. Hard cold standards on performance are great -- which this sheet facilitates. But qualitative narratives are also of extreme value. The last incarnation has elements of both, but does not integrate them that successfully IMO. Plus there really isn't an effective quick and dirty look at results capability - sort of a dashboard guage concept if you know what I mean. Finally, a picture is worth a 1000 words, particularly for some aberrations. Anyway, I've been pondering in the back of my mind how to integrate all of this. I'm planning another review shortly so am going to use that to try some new concepts.

If you want to work off-line with me, drop me a line on private message and we can arrange to talk.

Thx,
-Bill

What was the temp outside when this happened? Reason I ask is that this has happened to me on occassion where everything "looks" like the EP has gotten fogged, but it has not. For me it only happens when it's cold outside and my eyes are producing tearing due to the cold. So when it starts happening I just rub my eye dry and all is fine again until the tears from the cold start up again.