Posts Made By: David Johanson

I can't seem to get my Mac Ibook G4 to rrecognize a Toucam 740. I've installed the latest Drivers, which are System 9 native, but nothing will recognize the camera??
Anyone help??
Thanks
Dave

I have an Intes MN56 that appears to be out of collimation. See the attached defocused star image.
Question?
Should I get a cheshire eyepiece or some other device or try to collimate it on a star? I have a $34 credit at Scopestuff that would pay for a cheshire...

OR

Should I just leave it alone?

When seeing is good clusters look great, The weather won't let me see Mars...

I purchased a 14 UWA about a month ago here on Astromart.

Wednesday night I was out observing Mars and praying that the seeing would improve to show more than a little detail. As I switched from my 5mm ortho to the UWA to check it out I noticed a niose as I moved the UWA. I had used the eyepiece before and hadn't noticed anything amiss, but I always handle eyepieces very carefully so it's very possible that I wouldn't have noticed it.

I know that I haven't damaged the UWA but I also realize that the deal was done long ago so I don't feel I have any recourse.

The views through the eyepiece seem OK but there has only been two opportunities to use it and the seeing has been lousy each time so I can't really tell.
As you can imagine I am kind of freaked out...

So the question? What could be wrong? Is it possible to fix it? If I gently shake it, it definitely rattles...
Any suggestions???

I was out last night with my Intes MN56 with the intention of viewing Mars and the moon. Had the scope outside early, 2 hours before viewing, so it should have been well chilled and near equilibrium, especially since the temp was stable for the 1.5 hours I was out.

I should say that I live in Maine, on the coast, which is downstream from darn near everything in the U.S. atmospherically and often directly under the jet stream.

Anyway, I started on Mars with my 19 Panoptic to get things lined up. I had done a very rough polar alignment and no mount calibration.

I quickly stepped down to my 6mm UA HD Ortho (127x) and the view showed a bit of detail. The 5mm UA HD (150x) showed about the same. I figured the atmosphere was hindering the seeing and slewed to the moon and spent considerable time with the 5mm just enjoying the views. It appeared to be quite stable with fine details in the craters etc.
I then switched to the 6mm barlowed with my TV 2X (254X) and the surface of the moon was dancing around, in and out of focus dramatically. Very unstable. Almost to the point of seasickness! Fine again under the 5mm and back to wild at 250X.

I slewed back to Mars and the 5 and 6mm Ep's and still just a bit of detail, so I decided to go inside for a while and see if things settled down.
Back out at 9:30 with the 5 and 6mm and a very slight improvement on Mars but still marginal detail, just bits of dark areas off and on. I watched for 15 minutes until clouds sent me in for the night. During the 15 minutes the darker area would move a bit and make me think, briefly, that I was seeing some significant details but I had no WOW! moments.

I had checked the collimation earlier and there seemed to be a very slight shift from inside focus to outside focus at 150X on Polaris. I really had to study it so things seem pretty well lined up.

THE BIG QUESTIONS??

Is the image fluctuation on the moon at high power indicative of bad seeing that would account for the lack of detail on Mars?

Should I fine tune the collimation until it's perfect?

Is the atmosphere in Maine inherently unstable?

Try as I might I have a Dickens of a time getting good planetary views.

Thanks in advance for any ideas. I keep thinking I need more diameter but am wondering if my location is also holding me back...

I just bought (on Amart) a Burgess Binoviewer that I want to use with my Stellarvue Blackhawk 80mm f/6. I know I can't use it as is but was wondering if a TV 2x barlow would get it to focus like the OCS can?

Anyone know the weight of a Meade 10" SCT LX50 OTA?

That's the basic question...Now for the Big question...

Would a LXD55 mount on a very heavy wooden tripod handle this scope? For visual use only.

I'm home recovering from a knee operation, ACL replacement, and thought I'd try my new-to-me Burgess Binoviewer in the daytime.
I set up my Stellarvue Blackawk 80mm, f/6, on a Unistar Heavy mount and tried the binos with a pair of Meade 25 MA EP's.
First off, the binoviewer would not focus without the OCA (no surprise) but focused easily with it and with a TV barlow. The views are very good, no issues with collimation. I was quite impressed with them in daylight.
I was wondering what sort of magnification/FOV I was getting with them and set out to compare binoviewer's field of view with my other EP's.
I set up a vertical tape measure across my yard, 76 feet away, and ran each EP alone and through the TV 1.25 2X Barlow. I aligned the top of my field of view with the zero on the tape and read the field in inches at the bottom of the view. A little trig and I have the actual field of view in degrees.

The results:

4mm UO Ortho .322 degrees/.145 w/ TV 2X (38.6)
5mm UO HD Ortho .459/.204 (44.1)
6mm UO HD Ortho .495/.224 (39.6)
7mm UO HD Ortho .558/.259 (38.3)
12.5mm UO Plossl 1.539/.726 (59.1)
19mm Panoptic 2.464/1.209 (62.2)
32mm UO Konig 2" 3.889 (58.3)
40mm Pentax XL 5.036 (60.4)
Binoviewer w/ OCA 1.099
Binoviewer w/ TV2X .628
Binoviewer w/ both .416

I screwed up and didn't measure the 25 MA's FOV without the binoviewer. But seems that the FOV of the binoviewer is right between the Plossl and the 7mm Ortho, perhaps equivalent to a 10mm EP. I think I need a pair of 40mm's!

In all of this I was wondering how to deal with these numbers. First I figured that getting high magnification and high FOV in the same EP was a good thing so I multiplied the mag X FOV and got the numbers in parentheses above. (Something strange with the 5mm HD Ortho???) That number also puts the Plossl high on the list.
Dividing the focal length of the EP by the FOV gave a similar picture of the EP's only in reverse (lower = better).

The 5mm's numbers seem to be way too high. FOV should have been on the order of .410 or so. Anyone else ever do anything like this with these EP"S??

I don't know if this interests anyone or not, but it does show the 19mm Panoptic with the best FOV, followed closely by the Pentax then the Konig. The surprise in my book was the Plossl.
On the flip side, the Orthos were all nearly perfect edge to edge in this test. I could see no degradation from edge to edge. Each of the other EP's showed some very minor softening towards the outer edge. My Blackhawk has a 2-speed focuser and when I really dialed in the center the edge was soft, but I could still easily read the tape measure to 1/16. In the 19 Pan, of the 39.25" I could see on the tape, only the outside 4 inches or so was soft. The others were proportionally about the same.

Is there a way to actually measure magnification? I haven't done any research, all I know is FL(scope)/FL(ep).

I also just realized that I didn't test my 14 UWA. It wasn't in my case...I wonder where it is?

I'm wondering how the views of DSO's through the LXD75 SN compare to a 10" Dob. How about planetary performance?

The fast, f/4 optics sound great but I'm curious how the views are.

Any concerns about eyepieces like people have with fast dobs or does the corrector/ mirror combination alleviate the need for a Paracorr? Also, is it impossible to cool one of those down?

Sorry about the rhyme in the heading....
I've done a little bit of solar observing throough a C8 with an Orion full apeture filter and a C90 with a mylar filter. Neither setup showed anything more than the sunspots. I found it very boring.
Is the view through the $500 PST remarkably better?
Thanks

I received my Coronado PST today and....It was still light out and...IT WAS BRIGHT SUNSHINE!!!

When was the last time you bought something through Astromart, or anywhere else, and been able to use it instantly???

My first impression? The PST is much better than a white light filter. I was looking through a lot of atmosphere at the sun and I could definitely see more than I ever could through a glass or mylar filter. I can't wait to use it when the sun is more overhead.