Posts Made By: Gianluca Valentini

I apologize for crashing the party, but I recently read something that could be of interest to all who are interested in a Sky 90 or FSQ 106:
this Italian website page, http://www.sidus.org/proveStrumenti/telescopi/taka90.html
refers of a turmoil launched by a German guy in March 2004 on a Takahashi forum. This gentleman and many others after him evidentiated a problem in the cell design of the new Sky 90 II. I can't accurately translate what the problem is but it seems that all 90s and some 106s are affected by problems of dilation/restriction in the objective cell at low temperatures. This Italian guy, continues on saying that both the European and American importers are aware of this problem and that Takahashi is preparing a Sky 90 III to correct this imperfection. I would like to stress one more time, that I have no idea of the reliability of this whole piece of info, but I thought it fair to circulate it: if it's true, good, if not at least we've been thorough.


However, the test conducted by the Italian guy on the 90 defines it a great scope nonetheless.

Bye guys

Luca

PS As far as I know the 60 and 90 have the same focal length options: 4.5, 5.9 and 8 since they can use the same corrector and extender (not 100% sure on the extender) of the sky 90.

Ben fatto Paolo!!

Coooool picture 8) . Unusual perspective: it really gives the impression of watching from out of a little window while hovering over the surface in a lunar module.

Ciao e congratulazioni.

Luca

Hello Martins,

the .33 Meade works on all SCTs.
However, keep in mind that it will create SEVERE vignetting, especially if you use a large CCD detector. Even if you don't have a large chip, you must take into account the fact that, at f/3.3, you will HAVE TO use flat fields for your image reduction. Ron wodaski, in his very good book, says that a "burnt" center is a problem to be expected in your pictures whenever imaging below f/5 and I found this to be true in my experience.

I have the .33 reducer for my 11" Celestron, but I used it only once because the vignetting was so severe that my selfguide CCD (SBIG) could not "see" any star and so I had to image unguided (no biggy at such a short focal ratio, but still annoying). The final image was so badly vignetted that I had to crop it since I could not get rid of the problem even with flat fields (although I must admit that it was my 1st experience with flat fields, so the problem may have been mainly mine).

My advice is to stick to the .67 reducer (the Meade and Celestron are both OK, but there also Astro-Physics) or get a variable reducer that will allow you to get to f/5 (such as the Alan Gee II by Baader or the Optec Maxfield). These latter ones are a little more expensive, but they give you a much wider flexibility and also a better image quality.

Hope this helped.

Ciao
Luca

Forget about it! Nobody touches Jim and his big scope!!

He's a friend of OURS, a connected guy. FAMILY: you know what I mean? 8)

The Pizza Connection

Bellissima Enrico!

Keep them flowing.

Luca

8O

Luca

Hi Jose,

condolences for your father.

Beatiful image of a very beautiful object. I had never heard of this galaxy before, so thanks for this too.

Ciao and welcome back.

Luca

Very nice John!
Do you remember how many final images compose the mosaic?

Ciao
Luca

Very nice picture Ralph: aren't you overheating that AP shooting out all these images?
Just a bit of envy man! Here it has been raining forever. Paolo and I live in the same country but he seems to be imaging from another planet (mosty likely the moon)

Ciao

Luca

Hello Wes and WOW for your new picture!

I also tried out my lumenera color last night, but the seeing was really bad and nothing even average came out.

Would you be so kind to tell me which settings you used? which software do you use to acquire movies? I only have an 11" (some light deficiency problem even at 30fps, alas) but my biggest problem is color balance.

Well now you could really do luminance with you firewire camera and chrominance with the lumenera: can't wait till you try!!

Ciao Wes

Luca