Posts Made By: Mike Clemens

What was the supposed possible outcome that was, or was not shown? That's a pretty vestigial dew shield you gotta admit. I think a big dewshield with end baffle like a TMB or a wholly flocked dewshield like an AP has might read differently.

Regards, and thanks for sharing the pics.

Mike

I just set them on the floor of the car and carry them both out by hand (about 42 lbs). Mine look like new still. They aren't much fun to carry when they are 80 degrees below body temperature though.

http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=hf_mars_rotini_040301_02.jpg&cap=Scientists%20will%20now%20use%20a%20high-quality%20ASTRO-PHYSICS%20refractor%20to%20study%20this%20object%20furthur%20from%20Earth.

I've been lucky I guess, but I do try to deal with members with high feedback, or a lot of community presence here on Astromart or in other forums like APUG.

I have never assumed any item I purchased on Astromart could be returned if I was unhappy. I assume everything here is "NON REFUNDABLE" and "SOLD AS IS".

The few times I've "knee-jerk reaction" and offered to buy something without fully questioning the cosmetic quality first (or determining some other minutia about the item), I've decided to stay with my word and buy the item, instead of coming back and saying "Well, tell me about the cosmetic quality first..." That irritates me when people commit to buy and then start asking questions.

My worst Astromart experiences have been with a buyer who was always posting ads looking for Zeiss APQ, and also was interested in super high quality AP or TMB stuff. He would commit to buy, tell me to NOT TO SELL without talking to him, and then he would fidget and question and discuss it and delay me for a few days or a weekend sometimes. The 3rd auction he wanted to do this on I told him, "sure.. take your time, but I'm selling to first bidder who offers my asked price." I started ignoring that members responses after that.

Honesty is the 5 star astromart policy. If you say you're buying, buy it. If you say it's in mint condition, it better not be chipped up!

I'm having a set of tubes painted right now by an airplane painter. He's dipping the tubes in an alodine conversion bath, which makes it ready for paint adhesion. 2nd comes epoxy primer, and 3rd is urethane paint for the final colors. All these processes and parts are probably available locally to you as well.

Nice work, Floyd. Nice collection too. Do you like the 31 Nagler or the 35 Pan better?

Losmandy GM8 would be a good partner for it. I used a motorized CG5 for a while with my own 6" f/8.

So is the Meade lens cell just like that?

Can you tell me what the diameter of your dew shield is?

Thanks
Mike

Hello Dave,

What do you mean by "dew shield easier to move" on the FS128? It threads on and off, but otherwise cannot slide or adjust. It cannot reverse for small storage, like an AP, or slide to a small overall profile like the TMB or TEC140's.

The FS128 is pretty long, certainly longer than the 140 f/7, especially in an 80mm shortened version (which is what I would get). I have heard Texas Nautical can adapt FS128 into a shorter binoviewing configuration, probably for bucks of course.

Color correction comparison between the FS128 and TEC140 is hard to know just from online reading. Yuri has said he left a little bit of color in far blue/violet in exchange for better overall correction. Tak doublets also have some far blue/violet. Maybe they are close in color correction? I dont know.

I've owned oiled triplets, air spaced triplets and air spaced doublets here in Alaska for 4 years and I have seen no practical differences in cool down time. However, I always let me scopes acclimatize for about an hour before I uncap them and begin observing. A nice kind thing to do to your precious optics anyway, right? I dont think cooldown comparisons are worth much.

I have owned a Synta 6" f/8 with a Chromacor, and indeed, photography with it showed incredible color correction! Just amazing considering the cheap Chinese objective. See comparison here:
http://eagleriver.com/images/tmb100compare.jpg
But visual use was another matter, the true APO scopes are a pleasing experience the Chromacor would never match for me. As your head or eyes move around you can see color effects in the Chromacor. With the APO, it's all corrected, all the time, gorgeous. YMMV, IMHO, etc. I sold the 6" f/8 and Chromacor once I used a true APO, the TMB 100/8, which was absolutely color free to my eyes.

I observed the Galilean moon events tonight with the 6" TMB, binoviewer, 1.7x corrector and dual 10mm supermonocentric eyepieces for about 204x magnification. The binoviewer works some mojo on the brain, so the image scale is surprisingly generous at this magnification. I've never seen any moon events before despite observing Jupiter on probably 50 nights in the last 4 years.

At one time tonight I saw 4 objects on the disc of Jupiter simultaneously - the shadows of Ganymede, Callisto, and Io, as well as the moon Ganymede. And bummer - I could have bagged 5 objects at once if I'd only consulted my chart before hand and knew where to look for the moon Io. Here was tonights greatest moment for sure:
http://www.eagleriver.com/tmb152/jupe.gif

Once I knew where the disc of Io was, it was easy to spot now and then, but Callistos shadow had egressed by then.

The shadows stood out like sore thumbs. Seeing Ganymede shadow ingress simultaneous with Callisto shadow egress was too cool. Ganymedes shadow is big. Ganymede itself stood out well. I could see the moon Io now and then, though it was impossible to hold in sight for very long as the seeing was quite variable. As far as contrast against the planet, I'd give the shadows a 10, the moon Ganymede a 7, and the moon Io gets a 2 or 3. During moments of greatest seeing shadows were inky black circles.

per observing session cost:
(purchase price - later resale price) / (times used)