Posts Made By: Larry Stange

Does anyone have a photo of Jupitor or Saturn taken thru the CR150 at prime focus?. Am considering the purchase of this model if photo's show acceptable optical quality.-Larry

I am seriously considering this model as an upgrade but need to see what I can expect with photos taken at prime focus. -Larry

I get the feeling the results were so bad with a normal camera that no one wants to come forth. Even a bad picture is better than not knowing. C'mon guys/gals I posted some with a C102-HD even tho poor in quality.

Purchased the NEW SERIES CR150-HD today from Earth & Sky Telescopes(http://www.astrosales.com)from Joseph, [email protected]. It came with diagonal and ocular labeled MA 20mm, Wide Angle, Long Eye Relief with rubber cup. Not occustomed to wait on anything like putting it on the mount, I open an upstairs window and spread a nice fat soft coat(my wife's)on the sill to rest my brand new telescope on, and inserted the diagonal and the eyepiece then carefully & slowly adjusted it into focus on the moon. Good thing I was setting down! I SAW THE HOME OF THE GODS! or certainly a piece of Heaven!. The light was absolutely BRILLIANT! almost painful to the eyes!. The MOON!...THE MOON!, its craters looked like a giant cactus field standng in stark relief mile after mile!. I have never seen such razor sharp focus over that much moon surface in my life! It must be close to 20% or more from the edge to inland in razor imaging. (I have owned 8 inch Mead SCT with star coatings etc. It will not compare to this scope.). COLOR?...What Color?...THERE WAS NONE at the moons edge with the 20mm. NONE! Not even a teeny bit!. I emmediately, reverently, carried the telescope to the guest bed and gingerly lowered it lest that fantastic imaging disappear forever. Buy another?......in'a heartbeat!. Now all I have to do is wait for my eye to pull itself back into the socket.....

Internet solutions to adding the much needed weight to your field aluminium tripod is to fill it with sand......Oh goody!. We can look forward to very fine sand eventually working its way out and all over your lenses & equip. especially if tripod is stored in your carry bag.

Better solution is obtain moderate sized round lead fishing weights, small enough for reasonable gaps around & between them as they stack up inside each tripod leg. Then, (and here is where CLASS shows,), obtain lead birdshot from your local "Killing Store" and pour it from the top down inside the legs so that it starts filling around the fishing weights as it fills up to the top. Much like how your coins fall deeply into the slot machines of your local casino. The end result?. Vastly heavier & more stable tripod, and has further use as a giant castinet at your local symphony playing the the opera "Carmen".

Would damage occur to a web-cam camera CCD chip with a lux rating of say...0.003lux when turned on to a high light subject such as the moon?. Or would it have to be confined to deep space objects under timed exposures due to the high sensitivity?. Reading various web sites seems to indicate lux ratings of 1 lux for planetary work and near infra-red sensitivities for deep space. I am assuming simple filter additions would not be a good way to reduce sensitivity so as to allow one camera to do all. Tnx. -Larry

Kindly confirm my impression here....if a B/W CCD pixel is 6 microns in diameter, then a color CCD pixel would be comprised of 3 such pixels of red, green, & blue with an overall diameter of 18+ microns. True?. 2nd question: If the 18 micron overall diameter pixel groups mentioned are packed as I think they would be with minimum surface area, by rotating them as close together as is possible, this would then mean a great deal of FALSE COLOR would be apparent to the viewing eye which would naturally "blend" the colors "BETWEEN" the groups of 3 pixels. True again?. Last question: Would this explain why B/W CCD's do so much better in resolving deep space objects because pixels are only resolving, not providing color?. If this also is true, grade me an "A". Tnx. -Larry

Made the mistake of joining this group for CCD investigation If you want an e-mail copy of every single comment made in this groups communications to each other sent to you....no problem. You'll get enough to fill your HardDrive in no time flat. Trying to unsubscribe is nearly impossible. Used all the URL routes provided for that purpose, but does not stop it. Have had to put up about 7 filters and some still gets thru.

In Scintillators an optical oil is used to couple the Sodium Iodide Crystal to the Photomultiplier tube. In Microscopes there are oil emmersion objectives. So....are there any oils with the refractive index of air that would be transparent in the light ranges used in astronomical work with CCD's & CMOS quickcams/web cams?.

Coupling in this manner should result in brighter images and a truer contrast. -Larry

Supurb colors "Maestro". That belongs in Sky & Telescope as a cover photo. -On a parallel topic, Is it possible to take a moderate length shot(call it #1), then take a goodly SERIES of long aperature(period) shots to bring out all the faint detail, but before stacking, SUBTRACT #1 from EACH of these?. Then at the very end of the series one last set of shots specifically for brighter stars which had been subtracted by #1?. -Purpose of all this would be to bring out all the deep sky imaging possible without the brighter stars interfering or corrupting the photographs from the longer exposure. The bright stars would be added in LAST. Does ths make any sense to you Paul?. -Just'a'beginner