Posts Made By: John MacDonough

Most every boy in my school was interested in space or dinosaurs. I was interested in space. Instead of knowing the name of each dinosaur by looking at a photo (I knew several, but not all), I knew all the planets and how many moons had been discovered orbiting each one. I was really interested in quasars, since they were the brightest, most powerful things in the galaxy at that time (boys are always interested in the biggest, strongest, brightest...).

Fast forward to 2005. One of our neighbor's kids is selling magazines to raise money for her school and I subscribed to Astronomy (still do). Trying to relive a bit of my youth, I guess. Then I see the Teaching Company's advertisements and order Alex Fillipenko's course. Then I spend the next three months learning about commercial telescopes and mounts. "Santa Claus" left a 4" Mak under the tree for our family. My two kids were interested for a while (my daughter inherited the Mak, my son has a 6" Newtonian), but not so much any more. I'm the one with two mounts and four scopes now.

Has anyone seen comet ISON with binoculars? I think I might have this morning, but according to the star chart at the Astronomy website, I could also have seen a star.

I was putting my insomnia to some use this morning and observing the moon. Did anyone see the moon occult a star at approximately 4:45 CDT (0945 UT) on October 28, 2013? The star passed behind the moon at approximately 62 degrees south latitude (I used crater Blancanus as a "land mark"). I didn't see it actually reappear, but it did after a time near the south pole.

If you're one of those beginning astronomers that is looking to purchase his first scope, my favorite recommendation is now available again. Thanks to Orion for reintroducing the 6" XTi. You can read my review here. I think it's an outstanding value. If you decide to purchase one, please also purchase a laser collimator (the least expensive available will do) at the same time. Keeping it collimated is essential, but also easy once you've practiced.

I'm so excited about this I'm posting twice. Thanks to Orion for reintroducing the 6 XTi IntelliScope. It's a 6" f/8 newtonian mounted on a Dobsonian base with the IntelliScope digital setting circles. I think it's a great value and almost the perfect starter scope. You can read my review on AstroMart.

Hooray!

Billy,

Astronomy magazine also has a feature that shows when the GRS will be visible. If you're a subsriber, log on to their website and then click "Observing" in the menu bar near the top of the screen. Then scroll down, near the bottom of the "Observing" page is the link to their Star Dome feature. Once you get that application launched, you can use the "Moons" tab above the Star Dome window to see events on Jupiter and Saturn.

Billy,

My guess is that they are waiting for you to upgrade your mount. That way they get mount money and scope money from you. Is that cynical? :-)

I wonder if the EDGE optics would improve the performance of a 6" scope appreciably?

Holy cow! I didn't have any real plans to observe tonight, either, but just like last night I reminded myself that I took all those pains to make setting up easy that I really shouldn't let a clear steady-looking sky go to waste.

I started with the moon and Mars and then Saturn at 310x and everything looked just as good as it did last night. However, a nagging thought that the image was not as sharp as it could be made me check collimation. The primary was out just a bit so I slewed to Zubenelgenubi and started working. When I was finished, I had my in-focus travel back and stars were so pinpoint at 310x that I could see diffraction rings from the secondary mirror. Back to Saturn...

As I said, holy cow! Saturn looked so good at 310x, I put the 10.5mm Plossl in. I didn't notice any loss of sharpness or brightness, so I put the 7.4mm Plossl in, 560x. At first I thought I should go back to 380x, but after the image steadied and my eyes adjusted, just wow! Seeing a 0.75' object in a 6' field of view was impressive in scale. The A-ring was a medium brown with black details. I still couldn't see a distinct band that made me think I could see the Enke minimum, though. The Cassini division was so clear and black that I flattered myself that I could see the planet's disc through the gap. The B-ring was pale yellow shading to brown as it faded into the Crepe ring. The A and B rings had white high lights adjascent to the Cassini division. The disc itself had seemingly hundreds of stripes as it faded from dark brown at the pole to yellow near the equator. I could also see Tethys, Dione and Rhea, but I missed Mimas. Absolutely mesmerizing. Too bad tomorrow is a work day, or I'd still be out there. I've never seen Saturn like that. 560x is fun, I hope I don't have to wait too long before I get to use magnification like that again.

On nights like this, who needs astrophotography? Too bad there aren't that many nights like this.

I tried something simple that turned out to be quite effective in increasing my observing time. Since I have space in a corner of my garage, I had started leaving my small mount assembled and covered. My next step was to make my normal observing spot in the driveway repeatable by drilling some detents into the concrete for the tips of the tripod to sit in. I know I'm not the first to think of this, but I'd recommend it to anyone who can leave a mount assembled. I can now be set-up AND polar aligned (well enough for visual) in five or six minutes. It's that I can interrupt observing knowing that whatever I was looking at before the home front crisis will still be visible in the eye piece when I return.

The process is simple. I set up my mount at dusk being careful to level it and get the elevation set as it's most comfortable for me. Then I did as accurate a polar alignment as is possible with my polar scope. Next I picked a star to track and started tweaking the position of the mount using the altitude and azimuth adjustment knobs until the star stayed centered for as long as I had patience to wait (about 30 minutes). By centered, I mean centered in a double cross hair reticle, I'd still get small star trails in a photograph. When I was satisfied, I marked the tripod legs' positions on the concrete using a permanent marker. When I returned in the morning, I drilled each position with a masonry bit, just 3/8" deep. Finally, I marked the mount with witness marks for altitude, azimuth and the length of each leg, just in case something gets changed.

Our club has this mount, but I need help identifying it. It looks like a CG3 or CG4 to me, but it has Japanese markings you may be able to see in the picture. Vixen? The motors are marked Nippon Motor and the connectors are 8-pin DIN. Does anyone know how to connect these and make them work?