Posts Made By: Ron Bee

http://members.cox.net/ronby/Observations/071002.htm

Enjoy,
Ron the 4-inch Tall Evangelist B[ee]

This is the 2nd of the Light Cup Hot Tip series ;-).

We've all probably seen M25 many times. But last night under poor seeing, using the 40mm Pentax XL eyepiece (22x at 3d FOV), my 4" TV-102 Light Cup noted that M25 contains a **huge** comma shape asterism starting at the mag 5.6 star HD 170433, on to the stars HD 170680, HD 171012, HD 171252, HD 171432, HD 171590, HD 171736, HD 171785, ending at HD 171877. Another way of looking at it is that M25 sprouts a giant spiral. Funny when I was printing out the
chart, I couldn't see the pattern and it was only evident under the stars! You need at least 3 degree FOV to appreciate the shape. Checking with O'Meara's book, he did note an "arc" though I'm not sure where. But the Light Cup scientifically declared that this asterism is actually part of M25 and christened it: the "Giant Comma Cluster" ;-).

Ron the 4-inch Tall Tipper B[ee]

For those of you who are Takahashi's eyepiece fan, they're coming out with a new 3.6mm ED LE and 2.8mm ED LE and thus extending the gap to the shorter focal length beyond the current 5mm LE (for which I own).
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product_list.asp?t=30&m=
No spec. yet. Urr, after calculating the magnificaiton I need, I'll stick with my 4mm and 3mm TV Radians ;-).

Ron B[ee]

I have both the Tele Vue and Tak LE in the 5mm focal length,
Rob. From using both so far, I haven't been able to see any
difference between the two, no difference in color cast, brightness or contrast that I could see, except the followings:
- the Tak has a very noticeable smaller FOV (felt constricted to me ;-)
- the Radian has a much more comfortable eyerelief, although the Tak is acceptable without glasses.
- the Radian has more lateral color (the Tak has it too!) near the edge of the FOV.
- the Tak is prone to fogging up due to my warm eyes. I solved the problem by folding down the rubber eyecup and it works fine now.
- the Tak is much smaller and much, much lighter than the
Radian. You should consider this to avoid balancing problem.
http://members.cox.net/ronby/Toys/Tak5-vs-Rad5-1.htm

Both eyepiece, IMO, are superb with the Tak having enough eye relief especially with the rubber eyecup folded down without wearing eyeglasses. I can't imagine you could go wrong with either. Though I now use the 5mm Radian much more often than my Tak LE, I cannot bring myself to part with the Tak. Why? It works so well with my 2X Ultima
Barlow ;-).

Why take my nobody's words for it ;-). See here as to what Thomas Back think.
http://voltaire.csun.edu/tmb/tmb3.html

Ron B[ee]

http://members.cox.net/ronby/Observations/080402.htm

Enjoy,
Ron B[ee]

http://members.cox.net/ronby/Observations/080502.htm

Enjoy,
Ron B[ee]

If you like double star and you like DSO, you'll like NGC 6934. At low power of 22x and 30x, it already looks like a "double" star with the star GSC 522:2249 with the GC being a fuzzy star in stark contrast with another pair of "double looking" star very nearby: SAO 125946 and SAO 125952. Pay special attention to how pin-point the
SAO 125946/125952 pair looked (through my T4" V-102 APO anyway) compared to the GC and GSC 522:2249. 73x and above turned it into the real McCoy. Another unique phenomenon uncovered by the Light Cup.

Enjoy,
Ron B[ee]

I was reading the article of antique telescopes in the Sept. issue of S&T. After shower still reflecting upon the article, my head hit the mirror while shaving: Eureka.

Why is that the antique telescopes, well at the least the ones I have seen in the museum, the magazine, etc. are mostly all refractors. Surely, at the time of Clark for example, there must have been Newtonian produced in the aperture of 4.25" and 6" for amateurs of the time, wouldn't it? Why is it that they aren't generally available? BTW, do the older Newtonian of 100-150 years ago come in brass ;-)?

The S&T article also stated the the 4" refractor (eg. Clark) continues to command high price and is in high demand. I wonder what's so special about the 4" aperture 100-150 years ago? Surely, at f/15 it was no small, portable refractor ;-).

Thanks,
Ron the Antiquely Hopeful TV-102 B[ee]

Well, Rob, getting a 12" scope for your kids [**other** than self] may be the oldest "pitfall" in the book. It is quite large and as the ole saying goes "the best telescope is the one **you** use most often". I'd say go slow, learn how to use your Nexstar, the sky, before the next quantum leap.

Just one of my 102 opinions,
Ron B[ee]

I'll confess that this is the first asteroid for the TV-102 Light Cup. I'll also confess that observing asteroid had never really beckoned me, until tonight at 11:01pm (6:01am UT) under a 8-day mooon to the southwest. Boy, was the !@#$%^&* moon annoying tonight! What's the LM of my sky? Let's just say I had a hard time seeing mag 4 Epsilon Delphini to start my HOPTO tonight. I also had to deploy the DSO trick of jacket over head in a vane attempt to get my eyes dark adapted :-(.

The Light Cup quickly and easily located the star field using a detail finder chart from my The Sky (one of its greatest feature is the ability to download comet and minor planets). At 22x (40mm Pentax XL), I centered the FOV at the two stars: a mag 9.5 SAO 126360 and mag 10.2 SAO 126359 which looked like a wide double star at this power. Then, I bumped the magnification up to 30x. At 73x (12mm TV Radian), NY40 (or what I thought was NY40) couldn't be held steady and upping to 110x (8mm Radian) did the trick. But the very dim star GSC 521:381 couldn't be held steady; 146x (6mm Radian) steadied everything. NY40 (remember I'm still not sure) could be seen easily with direct vision though obviously dimmer than the two SAO stars but much brighter than the GSC star (I'm guess the GSC star to be mag 12 or
dimmer). At 11:01pm, all four "stars" seems to almost a shape much like a parallelogram. Say, NY40 seemed to be moving and moving fast, much faster than the last 3 comets I've seen. Amazingly, at 11:11pm, NY40 has formed a straight line asterism with the star SAO 126359 and
the GSC star. The asteroid never looked like more than a tiny pin point light, no difference at all from the star. Unfortunately, the seeing is bad as both the SAO stars were twinkling at 146x; otherwise, I might have tried 586x on it to see if its ugly rock face could be viewed ;-). The asteroid immediately reminded me of Barnard's Star which was dubbed the "Runaway Star". Henceforth, my TV-102 Light Cup christened 2002 NY40, the "Gallop-away Asteroid" ;-).
I went out 30 minutes later and NY40 has disappeared from the FOV! As to its brightness, I'm guessing somewhere around mag 11.

I don't know about you, but it's amazing how such tiny point of light, if it hits our planet, could be the end of life! Just mind boggling. Also mind numbing was when Ceres was discovered in 1801, why didn't Piazzi think it was just another Barnard's Star that just move a heck of a lot faster? So many questions by the Light Cup, so little
answers from this astronomically illiterate scribe. Last but not least, we owe the Light Cup and its Radian "deflector beam" a big THANK YOU for successfully saving our planet ;-)!

Ron B[ee]