Posts Made By: Steve Sands

I planted the seed with Jim at ScopeStuff for a Lunt 60 sunshade. He asked for some measurements, I provided them and he came through with a solution. They are listed on their website: http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_psl6.htm

Excellent shots, Tom! I had my 60MM Lunt DS out over the weekend and the view was spectacular! A couple of the largest filaments I have ever seen, sunspots, prominences, etc. I am playing with a new Lunt 152mm modular scope now and would love to get into imaging. I also have the Lunt 60mm CaK which I use with a cheapie Meade mono electronic eyepiece and small monitor. However, I am at odds over which camera to get. I am not an imager and want something as simple as possible, but high resolution. I have read about the Lumenera SkyNyx 2-2 mono, but it is more than I care to pay at the moment just starting out. The DMKs look promising. Any words of wisdom? What are you using? How much processing is required and what software is required? I would like to start out with something I can be happy with for a long time. 8O

Hi Mike,

These are probably not the words you want to hear, but IMHO you need to replace the entire focuser. The one they put on these scopes is not very workable for what you want to accomplish. Ron Newman at MoonLite would be able to set you up with any configuration you need for this scope, including focus travel, tri-knob, tube bezel, color, etc. They are awesome focusers and Ron is a great guy to work with!

Jesus...Since no one has chimed in on this query, I will give it a shot.

Some "traditional" hA scopes tune to the proper bandpass by tilting the etalon. The etalon is the unit that is on the lens end of the telescope. By tilting, you can tune to see surface detail or prominences. The primary problem is you are limited as to how much tilt you can get before throwing light path too far off-axis. Tilting is usually accomplished by a thumb wheel and hinge assembly and has a very limited travel. In Coronado terms, this is what they call the TMax tuner. Also, as is the case of my SM90/BF30, it is difficult to reach the tuner from the eyepiece.

Lunt has invented the pressure tuner which has improved the tuning scene dramatically. Since the etalon is INTERNAL (i.e. not attached to the end of the telescope), it resides down by the eyepiece end of things. It is simply a piston that varies the pressure on the etalon, allowing for a significant amount of tuning. Also, this piston is easy to reset for various altitudes. For example, if I take my Lunt 60mm on an airplane with me, all I have to do at the destination site is to fully remove the piston and then put it back and I am ready to view.

Pressure tuning is the way to go. It took me a short while to get used to it, having always used a tilt tuner. The large knurled knob makes gripping it very easy, even when wearing gloves. The combination of this tuner and the fact that the Lunt etalons have no central obstruction make for some very enjoyable solar viewing.

Clear as mud, huh? 8O Hope this helps.

I see folks simply putting $1.00 in the price field to get around that issue. That seems like a reasonable solution, but I would think that it shouldn't be required for want ads.

Dave,

Someone advertised a Tak Lapides with encoders not too long ago on AM so I know it can be and has been done. It was the first time I had ever seen it. Apparently JMI makes a kit specifically for this mount.

Hope this helps!

Steve

Go to "Account Menu..." on the left hand side of the screen. Then scroll down to the "Ratings" section, then select "Ratings I Have Given". There is an option next to each rating you have given to delete it. Ratings can only be deleted, not modified.

Oh my...too FUNNY! However, I don't think it is very realistic: There is NO WAY you are going to get an AP telescope in 10 years 2 months and 16 days!!!!

Drew,

What is the EXACT error message? There should be some further verbage. It is more than likely telling you that the image is larger than allowed. With today's digital cameras, the image sizes are huge. There are two ways to fix this: 1.) Set your digital camera to take smaller images. This is what I do when I am shooting images for an AM ad. Go the smallest size possible. That is all that is needed for an ad anyway. 2.) If you have an image that is already taken and is too large you can use photo editing software to reduce its size. I use Picture Publisher which allows me to scale the image way down.

I believe that the limit is .5 MB per image (500,000KB). Also, unless the rules have changed the image needs to be in .jpg (JPEG) format.

I would bet that if you shoot smaller images they will upload.

Steve

Hi Michael,

There is absolutely no one in this forum who can do anything about this particular issue unless Herb accidentally stumbles onto this post. You will need to contact Herb York directly at [email protected] for any type of possible resolution.

Steve