Posts Made By: David Paessler

Bill,
I have seen IC 4617 in a 16" f/5 under superb skies once! There is a small asterism that it is near that helps to confirm the location. It is MUCH fainter than NGC 6207. In the 16" it took mag 6.8 skies to be able to make it out.
David Paessler

I have had the same problem with smoke smell in Rubber and treated them with "ArmorAll" (car stuff)and it helps to kill the smell and make it more pliable. After two or three treatments about a week apart, the smell was almost totally gone.
David

Vince,
Your best bet for the money and long term satisfaction is to pony up the whole $300 and pick up a used Panoptic 35mm here on Astromart. Nothing else even comes close at f/4.5. It doesn't even require a Paracor to preform wonderfully in my 16". I would never get a 31 Nagler as long as the 35 Pan is around at half the cost.
David Paessler

William,
I had all three eyepieces at the same time and spent many a night using them trying to decide on which I liked better. The T6 11 and 13 are superior eyepieces as far as contrast and edge sharpness goes, but I sold them and kept the 12T4 because it gave a bigger "Wow" factor in the view, probably due to the longer eye relief. This was in a 16" f/5 scope. The 12mm T4 is my favorite eyepiece in the box and gets used every night out!
David Paessler

Jim,
I know this isn't popular info, but I just rebuilt my old 16" f/5 into a much lighter, smaller dob. I took the 3/4" mirror box sides and replaced them with 1/2" baltic birch (11 ply). The rocker box was originally 1" thick sides and bottom. The new one is 5/8" thick (also 11 ply baltic birch) sides and bottom. They also have lightening holes in them, sides and bottom. I got a little carried away on the lightening and the rocker flexed just a bit too much for me, so I closed up the holes on the inside with some 1/16" 3 ply aircraft ply and finished it out with stain and complementing colors. The scope is EVERY bit as stable as it was before rebuild, and is 1 sq foot less large (floor footprint) and is 50 pounds lighter. This is about at the limit of stable as I found out, but when built well out of good materials, there is no reason to build it any heavier unless you just like weight lifting. I figure a lighter scope will get used more, and a scope that doesn't get used is nearly worthless to me.
My criteria for stable is to be able to move the scope while viewing without vibration, much less any after the scope stops, no vibration while focusing, and only about 1 to 1.5 seconds of vibration after a sound whack to the upper cage. You can find details at this site:

http://wkaa.net/gallery/index.php

The Kriege book way is very overbuilt in my opinion.

David Paessler
West Kentucky Amateur Astronomers

They say hindsight is 20/20 and that was definitely the case on the weather this past week. TLSP managed to pull 3 good nights out of 8 scheduled. The first Saturday was a nice clear night. Three days of rain followed with a very good if overly dew riddled night Wednesday. If you were prepared for dew, you could operate all night long. Two more days of rain followed with the skies clearing Friday morning late. The sun did a great job of drying out the field till sunset. We got another all nighter with Friday night. Saturday was looking to be a great night too and many remained set up on the field. We watched a beautiful sunset only to see it marred late with high clouds moving in. By the time it was good and dark, the clouds had made it overhead. We sadly started breaking down and minutes later were chastened with light showers that speeded us up.
The weather forecasts for Oct 14-21 were the most confusing I have ever seen. Each day they radically changed the 24 hour forecast about every 8 hours. I gave up telling people on the field what to expect. We were able to hold the last Saturdays events under cloudy but rain free skies and participants were able to finish packing up under dry conditions. I feel bad only getting 3 good nights, and at the same time fortunate that we got 3. So many partys have been rained out this season. Lets hope conditions improve drastically next year for all of our star partys!
David Paessler
WKAA Treasurer
TLSP Registar

I am still mad at Sister for running off and getting hit by a car, she was the best cat I had ever had and was very affectionate. She was the darker cat.
David

That is a nice looking cat. My cats like to go out back observing with me too. They have learned to keep 5 to 6 feet away though, as I am not always concentrating on their whereabouts. As an aside, if you play with your cat with a red laser pointer, be very careful collimating your big dob in the dark with them around. I got muddy pawprints all over the lower half of my mirror before I noticed what was going on! Ouch....
David