Posts Made By: Ryan O'Grady

You are walking your dogs at 8pm, and look up into the sky to see what direction you're walking, and see nothing. No stars. Then, when you look away, 2 stars blink through your averted vision. Castor and Pollux. God Bless street lights!!!

Does this exist? I have Cartes Du Ciel which goes down to 12, but would like to go deeper if possible.

He bought something from me on "blank"Bay. Payment was received, but I misplaced the return address, and I can't get in contact with him. Obviously I don't want to say what it was and the $$$ amount because then I will get 50 "yeah I'm James Tucker" responses. Hopefully you are out there James.

And yes, I had Safe Harbor try to find him, with no luck (phone number was bad, doesn't answer email, no street address, etc).

Hello - is there a GEM that can handle simple digital SLR/webcam (i.e. exposures <5 mins) astrophotography, but at the same time has GOTO that is as easy or easier to use than the Meade LX200 Classic? I'm not looking for a $10,000 Paramount, but something that can handle a TEC 8" Mak or a scope of similar weight/size.

Thanks!

The www.skymaps.com link was great - I cross-referenced that with the suggestions made by the replies and headed for the mountains.

Unfortunately, 26 miles of the LA Crest Highway and 5300' was still not enough to get out of this humid haze that has been plaguing Southern CA for the last few weeks. Nebulas were out of the question, galaxies were really only interesting to me (M81/2 were SO faint, M51 barely visible also), and Venus at high mag looked like it was under a puddle of water. Plus, the LA glow was to the south, right where all the cool Sag/Sco objects are.

That said, it is true that you can impress people with the simplest things. M13 was a hit, but the biggest pleaser was pushing the mag to 750X, putting the crescent moon above the field of view, and letting it rotate through. They kept asking me to reset this! It was pretty cool to see how fast the Earth turns at such high mag.

I ended up finding 8 or 9 Messier objects, and called it a night at 11pm - guess I gotta wait until September or so for the slime to move off the LA Basin.

I don't know the circumstances behind this, but all of the sudden there are many imitators to the Orion XT-10, with generic names (such as the one on the website you posted). Orion has a message on its website entitled "Beware of inferior look-alike telescopes!". I bought one of these imitators from another outfit that is well known (for a lot less than 599 - shop around if you are really interested). I don't have any experience with a reflector other than the one I got, so can't tell you if it is better or worse than an actual XT-10. Ed Ting's review of the true XT-10 indicates that there have been some concerns about the optics, although overall he gives it a good recommendation. I have bought several accessories from Orion meant for the XT-10, with no compatibility problems.

The design itself is excellent, which I guess is why it is getting imitated. Quite light for a 10", pretty easy to get around, very quick to set up, holds collimation very well (at least mine does), and the spring tension allows me to switch in and out heavy eyepieces like the 22mm Panoptic without the scope budging. My only fix recommendations would be to sand down the teflon pads touching the altitude bearings (too smooth), and add some smoothness to the az motion (milk jug washer, furniture slider, etc).

Ryan O

The really cool thing about eyepieces is you can sample them - buy one used from Astromart, and if you don't like it, resell it. You're only out the shipping (usually $5). The scopes you list are not very similar so eyepiece recommendations would not be the same for both. I have a Dob, and my favorite are:

2" widefield - at f6, you could go for a University Optics MK-70 40mm, Siebert 39mm UltraPlus, or the grandaddy of them all, the 35mm Panoptic. The first two cost about half the Panoptic. I use the 32mm Siebert, as I have an f5.

Midrange (14-21mm) - I absolutely love the 14mm Meade UWA - given the 84 degree field, its ok to have such a gap between the 2" you choose and this one. I own a 22mm Panoptic, but will probably sell it (rarely gets used). The Meade 14mm is expensive, but given the range it covers, its as good as owning 2 lesser eyepieces.

High power - This would depend on what scope you go with. I have a Televue 2.5X Powermate, which I really like - hook this to the Meade 14UWA and you get 217X - about as high as you can comforably go on a Dob with no tracking system (although that is quite a long train hanging on the end of a scope - could cause balance problems). I have a 3.9mm Siebert that puts you over 300X, which I use for the Moon and bright planets. At 300+, you can't really sit there and study something because it is moving out of view too fast, and atmosphere/vibrations come into play. The SCT might be better in this regard with a sturdy mount.

As long as you stick to high profile names, you are guaranteed to find a buyer if you decide you don't like the eyepiece. So, dive in and go for it!

Ron -

Once again your detail is invaluable - I realized this morning that the ephemeris I was intending to use was from a website in Italy - was guessing the parallax was going to be at least 30 arcminutes, but was confused about what direction to apply this differential ("right" and "left" are still a challenge, lets put it that way). Well now I know - thanks buddy! Of course its totally foggy right now, hopefully it burns off...

Ryan O

The rule of thumb is that the total cost of an astrophotography setup is at least 3 times the cost of the OTA. The XT8 is not good for astrophotography because to get a picture that looks any better than what you are seeing visually, you need long exposures. Therefore, you need a scope that can track against the earth's rotation. If you wanted to take pictures of planets, the moon, and the sun, you could get a fast achromat refractor on an equatorial mount with an RA drive, and hook a digital camera to the eyepiece. Unless you got all of these things used, or you already have a digital camera, that is already over your budget. Anything dimmer than a planet is going to take a longer exposure. For long exposures that look good, there are some people who have made nice pictures with digital cameras such as the Nikon Coolpix 995, but that requires a lot of know-how (like surrounding your camera with ice to reduce noise, or stacking many photos into one with software like Astrostack). Really you need a dedicated CCD camera, some sort of guiding system for manual corrections, and a mount that is rated for at least double the weight of your telescope, to take the weight of the added CCD equipment and to hold steady for long pictures. The drive system has to be a well-oiled machine - most good astrophotographers make alterations to the mechanics to reduce "periodic error". A lot of people use film for astrophotography - I don't know much about that, but I do know their exposures are even longer (i.e. they need even better mount/tripod performance).

The best way to learn something is to do it, so don't be discouraged, but know that the costs will be well higher than for visual observing.

Ryan O

Hi - right after posting, the Astronomy Magazine "Explore the Universe" arrived in the mail. It lists the top 50 telescopes (in their opinion), separated into use-type. The cheapest scope in the Astrophotographic telescope section is the LX-10 deluxe (deluxe comes with the Dec drive), at $1150, although you could pay less than that used (I just bought one yesterday right here on Astromart, and was happy to see it on the list!). The XT8 did not make it, but probably because the XT6 made it in Beginner Scopes and the XT10 made it in Deep Sky scopes. The XT8 is also an excellent scope.

Ryan O