Posts Made By: Howard Knytych

Tom,

There may be a 12-step group, Scope Collectors Anonymous, near you. It's for amateurs astronomers who admit they are powerless to stop collecting more telescopes, and who realize they have hit bottom. Tom, you sound ready...:-)

IMHO, I don't think one can assume that "it must be coming out somewhere" just because it's going in. For example, the idea of BHs being the entry point to wormholes with an exit somewhere or somewhen else in the universe remains speculative. Furthermore, the rate of Hawking evaporation is so small that it can be disregarded for all time scales less than trillions of trillions of years. BHs would be subject to the same laws of orbital mechanics as any other object. That implies they don't suck up matter any faster than any other massive object, and that less massive objects can remain in stable orbits around them for billions of years. The fact that galaxies do not disappear into their central BHs, despite huge masses, is the case in point. What distinguishes BHs is that they have **serious** gravity well gradients that distort local time and space to the degree that mass inside the event horizon is undefined, save for mass, charge, and spin. One could as well speculate that inside the event horizon is a world where fairytales really exist. Cinderella remains at the ball, because the clock never strikes twelve. Of course, you could never get that information to the universe outside the event horizon.

Daryl,

The fact that you're enjoying yourself is most important. We don't have report cards or effectiveness rating scales to comply with. But one thing: beware of aperature fever. You may find your 5" mak not quite up to the task of finding DSO objects described as "bright" or "large". I caught a bad infection as a result of looking for NGC891 in my backyard using a 10" SCT. Later, with more experience and darker skies, I could find it with ease. Nonetheless, that didn't cure my fever. I have an 18" dob now.

Howard K

Cool!

I believe you're posting to the wrong forum, otherwise I couldn't agree with you more.

Makes me wanna cry!!

Makes me wanna cry!!

Very nice! One question, though: The finder is set so far forward of the bino eyepieces, how do you use the finder without hitting the bino eyepieces with your chin?

David,

I'm not a collimation guru, but I've been practicing both with a cheshire and a laser collimator on my 18" dob. The results you're getting on your star tests indicate you're on the right track. Regarding laser collimators, don't assume you can get better results than with a cheshire. The view through a cheshire gives you a picture of all the elements in the optical path. With experience, you can determine exactly what's out of line. With a laser, if the return dot doesn't return to the source, you can't tell why. It's all too easy to assume it's one component or another, and to start fiddling with primary collimating adjusting bolts to get the return dot back in the source. What results is a systematic collimation error. I've found the cheshire to be a better tool to use just after setup. After using the cheshire, I use the laser to evaluate the collimation.

Good luck,
Howard Knytych

I was looking for it last night just before the moon came out, using a 10" SCT from my backyard north of Portland, OR. It kind of came and went - mostly went. I think I may have detected it a couple of times @166x. I plan to revisit it soon under dark skies using more aperature.