Posts Made By: arthur parizek

Hi Craig- Your mirror mount looks great! Where did you get the front surface mirror of that size and about how much did it cost?
Regards
Keith Parizek

I met him once at RTMC. He made the optics for a 24 inch Newtonian that was there every year. The optics were very good. He told me he gets burned out on mirror making and lays off for a while. I think it is just a pastime for him, but what I saw of that 24 inch, if I had a chance to snag any optics that he built, I would certainly do it.
Regards
Keith Parizek

Hi- I knew Max Bray and some of the people who worked for him. Max made his Maksutovs(up to 10 inch aperture) in fairly heavy wall aluminum tubes. These tubes were machined so that the corrector and the primary mirror fell into machined seats and no collimation adjustments were ever needed. I think he made the Ad Astra in 3.5 and 5 inch sizes. Some of the Ad Astras had a screw in corrector cell to allow the instrument to be used at very close distances. It sounds like the Jaegers Ad Astra and Max Bray's Ad Astra were two really different animals. My 11.5 F-23 Mak was made by Ken Hebert, who was an associate of Max Bray. It is in a machined Aluminum tube with seats for the mirror and corrector. Finding a tube with a thick enough wall and long enough to machine is nearly impossible in a bigger instrument. I really wanted a bigger Mak some day, but never could figure out where to get a tube to hold it. Max solved this by using a tubing and two cell arrangement for the 20 inch at Vega-Bray observatory. THis arrangement was used by the late Harry Simmons of Scottsdale many years ago for a 11.5 f-23 Mak that he made with the help of Max and Ken. Hope this sheds some light on the Bray Ad AStra.
Regards
Keith Parizek

Hi- I knew Max Bray and some of the people who worked for him. Max made his Maksutovs(up to 10 inch aperture) in fairly heavy wall aluminum tubes. These tubes were machined so that the corrector and the primary mirror fell into machined seats and no collimation adjustments were ever needed. I think he made the Ad Astra in 3.5 and 5 inch sizes. Some of the Ad Astras had a screw in corrector cell to allow the instrument to be used at very close distances. It sounds like the Jaegers Ad Astra and Max Bray's Ad Astra were two really different animals. My 11.5 F-23 Mak was made by Ken Hebert, who was an associate of Max Bray. It is in a machined Aluminum tube with seats for the mirror and corrector. Finding a tube with a thick enough wall and long enough to machine is nearly impossible in a bigger instrument. I really wanted a bigger Mak some day, but never could figure out where to get a tube to hold it. Max solved this by using a tubing and two cell arrangement for the 20 inch at Vega-Bray observatory. THis arrangement was used by the late Harry Simmons of Scottsdale many years ago for a 11.5 f-23 Mak that he made with the help of Max and Ken. Hope this sheds some light on the Bray Ad AStra.
Regards
Keith Parizek

Hi Chris- Your photos are truly amazing. When I look at your sequence of photos from October to November, as you note the northern hemisphere seems to change from blue to more blue greenish to my eye. Does anyone out there have any idea why the north and south parts of the globe should look so different?
Thanks again for the great work.
Regards
Keith Parizek

Hi Dennis - I have Quickset and ITE tripods. Their great advantages is the fact that they usually have elevating center columns . I use them with big binoculars. Don't get confused by the rating of the tripod if you are going to use the elevating center column, because you need to know what that center column load will hold up. For the Quicksets, the Samson center column is iffy for my heavy binos of 30 pounds. THe Hercules is stronger, but the brutes are the Gibraltar center columns. I have one Gib tripod that is so heavy that you would have a hard time moving it around unless you have a dolly cart. For me it is on my deck and I don't have that problem. My ITE pods are T-6 models and are good at holding my heavy binos. I should tell you that I make most of my bino mounts and they are steel with a worm drive in altitude. THey are heavy, very stable and really fun to use. I just finished one this week that is made extra wide so as to be able to hold an 8 Mak or Cass with no problem. I think it would hold a light weight 10 Newtoniam also. It may take you a while to locate some of these, but you can sometime pick these up for little money. Hope this helps.

Regards
Keith Parizek

Todd- What you have is a James Baker designed aerial telephoto lens. I had a chance to buy one once when I was active in Deep Sky photography, but I looked it over and couldn't figure out how I was ever going to be able to hook on an 8x10 cold camera that Evered Kreimer and I were attempting to use during those years. If I remember correctly the barrel diameter was smaller in the center section than the diameter at each end. It was and is a beautiful piece and you are lucky to have it.

Best regards
Keith Parizek

Gary- All those pictures are neat, but your first one posted is absolutely incredible. If S&T don't like it, I bet Arizona Highways would absolutely drool over it. I like to watch the moonrise over the mountains east of Rio Verde, Az. with my 20X110 binos. Even though the mountains are 20 miles away it is neat to watch the moon rise thru trees and saguaros even though they are that far away. Keep up the good work.
Regards
Keith Parizek

Hi John- In my experience more than 20x starts to be bothered b y seeing conditions when looking at objects at ground level over long distances in daytime.
Regards
Keith Parizek

Last night I used my 24 Cass at 250x and 340x and did not see the Cassini division. We have had very high winds and I was afraid to open the dome for quite a few days. A lot of subtle detail showed on the disk, but was not steadily held. I used a blue filter to darken the bright image. Seeing was 6/10
Regards
Keith Parizek