Posts Made By: Brad Bassett

Neither Foxfire or IE on my computer can find www.astromart.com or any other URL's that should take me to a part of Astromart. I have no problem on my wifes computer, hence the ability to make this post. My computer is running on XP and I had it set to stay signed in. I've cleared the cache in Foxfire but it's still unable to find the site in either Foxfire or IE. Is this something that will clear on its own, or do I need to do something to my computer?

Thanks,
Brad

I don't have enough experience to make any recommendations, but I'd sure like to see a comparison with the Pentax XF8.5mm included.

Brad

William Paolini said:

Would like to know everyone's recommendation for what they have experience with and consider to be the absolute best performing high power eyepiece (10mm or shorter fl). Price is to be no object in the equation and the EP must still be in production. If you want to also recommend an out-of-production unit, that's fine but please don't forget your in-production selection. If you can give a short list of what it's better than, that would be great too

Would potentially like to add one very very best available EP to the stall. Planets and Lunar is where most of it's time will be spent.

Thx!

I designed and made mountaineering and backpacking tents for a number of years, solo shop. Now I design and sell solar electric system for one of the older (for this industry) distributor, and sometimes solar hot water systems. Sometimes I get up on the roof too. Haven't zapped myself yet, but an arc at 400VDC will get your attention.

Brad

I started with a Siebert power mag wheel, which was good, but the one I got required a lot of refocusing in my C8, and did not have a straight through setting (and would have required huge refocusing if it did). Some of the power mag wheels are closer to parfocal and I might have changed mine, but I ran across a Celestron turret used. This has a prism diagonal and holds four 1 1/4 eyepieces, made by Vixen with decent quality. This setup is a joy to use with near parfocal eyepieces. One thing is that it will not hold a heavy eyepiece in place if it's not counterbalanced by another one of similar weight opposite. And it does not hold a 2" eyepiece, and four eyepieces was maybe not as many as I would like. To use the 2" eyepiece, I have set up my C8 with a 2" visual back and used either the turret with a 2" nose-piece or a 2" diagonal and my 2" eyepiece. This works very nicely.

I'd like one of the nicer turrets, but they are a bit pricey for me. Just recently however, I've purchased a Hyperion zoom and find it so good that I find myself just using it and the 2" eyepiece in the 2" diagonal. If I had a telescope that was good enough for the best eyepieces to make a difference I'd probably opt for one of the good turrets, maybe a 2" Van Slyke, yowee! I'd like a turret that holds one 2" and five 1 1/4" eyepieces myself.

Brad

Paulo martin said:

Hello,

Anyone have used a turret holder(takahashi,Borg,Intes..Tec)on your telescope? What experience you have? not is negative for the image?

Thanks,
Paulo

I happen to like very much my zoom eyepiece, but if one were made that was 70 to 80 AFOV through it's range and still extremely high quality I'd say that was a big advancement. As it is I like my Hyperion better than any other options I've tried like the multi-mag wheel and turrets. I wouldn't mind a flip in barlow on that zoom either.

Brad

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll take apart the stock R&P focuser (C80ED) and see if there are any mods I can make to improve it. Really the only issue is that there is some image shift. I've adjusted it to the nth degree but can't get it all out. It seems to me that it would have been so easy to design it better without increasing the expense.

I'm also considering having my Virtual View machined to fit on the drawtube in place of the stock visual back, I like it so much. I'd have to deal with lack of in focus then however. If all I had to do was shorten the tube that would be fine, but the focuser is threaded onto the tube on this scope. I don't want to go to the trouble of re-threading the tube. When I think about it I still come to the conclusion that the scope is not worth that much trouble. I should have spent just a little more and bought an Orion version of this scope instead.

Brad

Generally great for buying and selling.

I'd like to see ratings for vendors that sell in the Classified. Otherwise there is no way to tell if they are good to deal with or not, and not all of them are good.

Brad