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Posts Made By: John Miele

March 2, 2006 06:07 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Need Some Field Stop Sizes

Posted By John Miele
Anybody know how big the actual field stop is in the new Meade Series 5000 24mm widefield EP?

And how about the UO 24mm Konig EP?

Thanks.

John

April 4, 2006 06:56 PM Forum: Beginning Astronomy?

Re: Averted vision with BV?

Posted By John Miele
I don't mean this question to be a joke and it's probably a stupid question, but here goes...where would one look to take advantage of averted vision when using a binoviewer? I never thought about that until I saw the figure in the article you referenced. It shows where to look for a left or a right eyed viewer. Does it even make sense to ask this question? Maybe you want to look in the same regions that you would as if using a single eye. Then at least one eye would get the advantage of averted vision. I'll have to experiment when my new BV arrives! Please keep laughing to a minimum!

John

June 5, 2006 08:54 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Re: What are your 3 most used eyepieces?

Posted By John Miele
Used to be:

35mm pan
14mm Meade UWA
9mm Nagler

with 16" f4.5 dob

Sold dob and bought a Nexstar C11. I now use:

35mm Pan
21mm Denk
10mm radian

June 17, 2006 08:36 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Jupiter from 5/29/06

Posted By John Miele
I finally had the chance to take some videos of Jupiter. Shot this with a C11 and a Toucam 740. Transparancy and seeing were average. Stacked about 700 frames in Registax 2.0. Used an IR block filter and a 2.5X powermate. 10fps. Still can't seem to get a sharp focus. Visually, Jupiter shows lots of features and low contrast detail, so I don't think it's the scope. But when I use the webcam, the image always looks a little mushy.

John

July 22, 2006 01:04 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Color Shift Problems

Posted By John Miele
Hi All,

Every time I image Jupiter, I end up with a very pronounced red halo and a blue halo around Jupiter after I stack the frames. This happens even when the seeing is good. I use the RGB shift feateure in Registax to try and align the colors but it never seems to work right. I'm wondering if I may have a problem with my camera? Anyone else have this problem? I attached an image I took a few weeks ago. I shifted the blue and red channels around as best I could but I always end up with a a large area of smeared blue around the planet's limb (look on the right side of the image). My equipment is a C11, a Toucam 740 pro, A Shular IR blocking filter, a Celestron 2x shorty barlow, and Registax and K3CCD tools for software. Thanks.

John

October 12, 2006 05:43 PM Forum: Star Parties

Allright...who angered the rain Gods?

Posted By John Miele
What gives with this weather folks? Last month it was crystal clear every day the week before the TNSP star party then it Monsoons over the weekend. So I peg my hopes on the PSSG. Right now and the forecast is showing showing nice clear skies THIS weekend. But next week is showing clouds and rain every day of the star gaze. I was also rained out at MSSG this past April except for 1 clear night. Grrrrrrr...

Ok...I know I'm ranting...but I do feel better now smile

November 8, 2006 03:01 PM Forum: Reflectors

Comet Catcher Focuser Upgrade

Posted By John Miele
Hi,

I picked up a used comet catcher (the 5.5" orange tube model) and I really like the wide field views. However, I don't like the focuser very much. I was thinking about locking down the moving focus plate and removing the threaded on eyepiece tube. Then installing a flat based rack and pinion style focuser right over the hole. I would lock the focus plate down in the center of its travel range and try to find a focuser that had about the same height as the eyepiece tube that came with the scope. Has anyone tried a mod like this? Any comments or thoughts on how well it might work. Thanks.

John

December 10, 2006 10:18 PM Forum: Reflectors

Removing a Comet Catcher Mirror-Help!

Posted By John Miele
I’m thinking about recoating my Comet Catcher’s primary mirror but I am having trouble removing it from the mirror cell. It appears to be glued tightly onto a cork pad. Does anyone know how to remove it? Should I just try to twist it until it pops off? Am I going to end up with cork pad chunks glued all over the bottom of the mirror and have to scrape them off? Help!

John

December 21, 2006 09:33 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

New Orion Planetary Camera

Posted By John Miele
Has anyone tried out Orion's new planetary camera with the larger 1/2" CMOS color chip? It sounds interesting but I'm not sure if the CMOS chips would work as well as CCD chips for planet work. They also claim it has 4 times the resolution of most cameras based on a 1.3 megapixels vs. the image size with a 640x480 chip. But would you have to also increase the size of the image on the chip to actually take advantage of the additional resolution, i.e.,use higher barlow power with this camera? And since you are capturing a larger image, would the capture software have to compress the image more to work at the same frame rates? Thanks.

John M.

February 23, 2007 01:35 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Saturn with C11

Posted By John Miele
Here are some pictures of Saturn that I took last Sunday in my backyard in Madison, Alabama. Processed them yesterday. The seeing was good and I caught the Cassini division, some banding, and the polar hood. However, none of these really show the crepe ring although it was easily visible in the eyepiece. I think I had the gain set too low. The stacked images came out dark and I had to stretch the histogram a lot to brighten them up. Got some funky colors on one. Each stack is from about 800 frames. I used a 3x Antares barlow and resized these two down by 10 percent. Taken with a Toucam Pro 740 webcam and a Nexstar C11 with IR suppression filter. All processing doen in R4 with some noise reduction and resizing done in PSP7.

John

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