Posts Made By: Donald Siwek

The skies finally relented a bit last night. Between the dew and the mosquitos, I finally got a reasonable start at autoguiding with polar alignment. I selected M57 and was able to get something to work with.
C8, MX5C, STAR2K, 240 sec, dark opt.

I rotated the image to match orientation of a nice Hubble image which is why the corners have no stars!. Being a starter (only my second deep-sky attempt)I was pleased with the image but also now inspired to move forward technically. Focus and guiding are weak, but now I have something to work from.

OK...I'm smart enough, but I had a near death experience last night with my scope. This happened about 2AM on the first crystal clear night we've had in months. The cables for the:
-HCU
-Dew Zapper
-Focus controller
-CCD
-DEC motor

...conspired against me and when I wasn't looking got SO F'ing tangled that I nearly took the whole scope down to the ground with me in a heap.

The HAS to be a better way. Has anyone seen a portable "console" that one could mount ALL the necessary apparatus to that would greatly facilitate setup and break down. I have some ideas, but would like to take the easier route of copying an existing solution.

OK...I'm smart enough, but I had a near death experience last night with my scope. This happened about 2AM on the first crystal clear night we've had in months. The cables for the:
-HCU
-Dew Zapper
-Focus controller
-CCD
-DEC motor

...conspired against me and when I wasn't looking got SO F'ing tangled that I nearly took the whole scope down to the ground with me in a heap.

The HAS to be a better way. Has anyone seen a portable "console" that one could mount ALL the necessary apparatus to that would greatly facilitate setup and break down. I have some ideas, but would like to take the easier route of copying an existing solution.

Whoo Hoo!
Selling a bit of real estate and so $ will be closer to my sweaty palms than usual.

Have a Celestar 8 Deluxe and figure nothing exceeds like excess! Or Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

The opinion sought concerns the Celestron CGE 1400. Imaging is part of the picture. Not going for National Geographic images mind you,but more for personal enjoyment. Since I do not (yet) posess a personal observatory, this is a setup/teardown thing. The C-8 with counter weights and equipment mounts and everything else MUST approach 40 lbs, so the issue of portability linited to my immediate 7 acres seems manageable. Traveling with it is something different I suppose.

1 - Apeture fever considerations aside what is the bottom line opinion of this instrument?

2 - Are there any hidden "portability " concerns? If I tell my wife that it doubles as a clothing mannnequin maybe she won't divorce me ...ANOTHER telescope? Whats wrong with otherone? It's smaller and a nice color..."

3- Would you sell the 8"? I'm thinking I'd be lucky to get $1000 for it, but then what do I need it for?

The point is, I may have an opportunity to effect a once nin a lifetime upgrade, so why not go for "Maximum Smoke"?

thanks

Greetings qand apologies.

AT the tender age of 50 I have taken up Deep Sky Observing as an avocation. I am secretly hoping that I might have the favor of an answer to this admittedly naive quetsion. Thank you in advance!

I have been searching for M101 and M57 for all of the recent observable evenings in Boxford, MA (Hmm...3 nights?). My principle scope is a C8 Deluxe AAM. Several weeks ago I managed to find and photograph M57, which to my great surprise turned out rather well! I have been frustrated byt my lack of success with 2 objrects that I would suspect are either in the same class as M57 or easier.

Suspecting that my difficulties might be related to my setup skills, I took my Nexstar 4 out last night (7/13/03) and decided to "punk out" and get a glimpse of either one with computer assistance. Threatened by mosquito-induced exsanguination, I aligned on Altair and Vega and Dubhe. I punched in M101 and M57 and was dissapointed once again. I reset the scope and realigned with the same [lack of] results. To test the alignment I slewed to Dubhe, Mizar, Alcor all with good success. These stars appeared in a 26mm plossl and tracked there just fine thanks. Finally I punched in M57 and bingo, in the field of view.

To be fair, I did see some stars in the target fields, but nothing that approached the grey fuzzy (as in M57)

I am guessing that there are several possibilites to explain my startlingly repeatable observations). 1) misalignment, probably not but then why can I not find them?, excess ambient light, Full moon, some house lights on, but I could see M57 easy-peasy., An evil spirit lodged under the secondary.

I would truely appreciate any constructive suggestions on what I am doing wrong or on where to find a priest qualified to exercise demons.

I finally got tired of the Rubylith and tape setup. I looked in the yellow pages, found an industrial plasctics company and he sold me a 4 ft x 16" piece of 1/8th inch thick "Ruby Red" Plexiglass for $20. He said it's the stuf that companies use ffor LED displays. I measured the dimensions of my laptop display, scored the plastice with a SCREWDRIVER (#$?!) and snapped a dark red eye saver shield. It just sits on the LCD. BEAUTY! I have enough left to last me through a new CGE 1400 ;-)

Holy Guacamole! The new episode of the Simpsons features Lisa pursuing a career as an astronomer! Lisa goes on a LIGHT POLLUTION mission! They crown Springfield the "Dimmest City in America" Lots of funny constellations.

Her first scope appears to be a Tasco 6 inch newtonian.

So far, according to them, polaris is 2 degrees West of Orion....DOH!

I have been practicing my CCD imaging skills for a few months. I have actually managed to work a method for finding my target visually, and then swapping the EP out and the CCD (MX5C) in. It can be done, but it requires extra fiddling etc.

It's a C8 (f6.3) with a JMI-NGFS. I have a Meade flip-mirror system, but getting it assembled and FOCUSABLE is problematic. Not enough back focus?, worng order of components, too many components?

I look forward to creative suggestions.

The sky will be GORGEOUS tonight finally (Boston) but of course IT'S A FULL FRIGGIN MOON! A good night for problem solving.

yeah I'm outside right now near Boston chasing M31. As I type this the thermometer reads 26 degrees! I turned on the red work lightt and even my laptop had frost on it! does kendrick make thumb heaters?

results in the AM.

EXTREME SOLAR ACTIVITY: One of the most
powerful solar flares in years, a remarkable X17-category explosion, erupted from giant sunspot 486 this morning at
approximately 1110 UT and, as a result, a strong solar radiation storm is in progress. The explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME)directly toward Earth. When it left the sun, the cloud was traveling 2125 km/s (almost 5 million mph). This CME could trigger bright auroras when
it sweeps past our planet perhaps as early as tonight.

Better cover the reproductive systems!