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Posts Made By: Charles Hakes

April 21, 2003 02:47 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Mirror Coating

Posted By Charles Hakes
$30 sounds like a good price. I have had a couple of mirrors coated here with good results:

http://home.covad.net/~alcoat/

I don't know if you could tell the difference for more than 91%.

Charlie


April 21, 2003 06:44 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Good Films for piggyback?

Posted By Charles Hakes
I have used Ectachrome 400 and had the local camera shop push 2 extra stops (for an effective 1600). That makes for much shorter exposures, which helps me a lot. My favorite lens is a 19mm wide angle, but it is only f3.5, so need that extra time boost. So far, I have been satisfied with the results.

Charlie

April 28, 2003 07:24 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Surplus Shed Eyepieces

Posted By Charles Hakes
I recently got the Surplus Shed 38mm Erfle to be my "finder" eyepiece and have been meaning to post some sort of review of it. I have a 10" f9.6 newtonian and recently got to try it in a 10" f5 scope also.

The advertised FOV is 60 degrees, but I think it is a bit less than that. The field stop is a bit fuzzy, and if I position my eye to avoid blackouts, then I think the FOV is a closer to 50 degrees. The eye relief is long, but I'll bet it is not as long as a 50mm Plossl. The sharpness is OK in the middle, but falls off over the outer half. As I said before, that field stop is fuzzy and so are the stars that are near it. The construction is OK, and after talking to SS on the phone, I found out that they basically make these to order.

As a finder eyepiece, I am satisfied that it does what I wanted. (The price was right.) I would prefer a little more FOV, and a little more "comfortable" eye relief (don't know if it needs to be shorter or longer). I would never confuse this with a "premium" eyepiece, but hey, it was only $40. It won't stop me from saving up for a Pentax or Televue or...

Now my question is how this would compare to those 50mm Plossls they sell. Anyone do that?

Charlie

May 1, 2003 07:57 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Overkill: BORG 45ED + 72mm Plossl

Posted By Charles Hakes
Which end do you look through? wink

Charlie

May 15, 2003 02:49 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: Opinions on the Paragon XHD?

Posted By Charles Hakes
When I first got my HD-F2, I also thought I couldn't detatch the head, but have since figured out how to do it. You have to REALLY tighten down the tention knob and then a 1/4-20 inside will unscrew. The second time is much easier.

As for the XHD, Orion used to sell a similar looking tripod without a head on it. Ours ended up with a parallelogram mount and 16x80 binoculars. Very sturdy for that. That one had a 3/8 thread instead of a 1/4, so I am not sure which the XHD is.

Charlie

May 18, 2003 01:11 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

How to put your optics away

Posted By Charles Hakes
The best thing I did for dew was move from Houston to SW Colorado. wink

Charlie

May 18, 2003 01:19 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

LXD 55 mount question

Posted By Charles Hakes
If the saddle is the grove where the OTA dovetail fits, then I would have measured at 1.75". It might be 1.8", but my ruler didn't have those marks. If that's not the saddle, then tell me where else to measure - I have one in my garage right now, but it isn't mine, so I don't really "know" this mount.

Charlie

May 21, 2003 02:34 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Scope finished, thank you for your help!!

Posted By Charles Hakes
You could have fooled us on the size and said those were your Dobermans. wink

Charlie

May 29, 2003 07:14 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Panoptic/Nagler Question

Posted By Charles Hakes
I got a 4.8 Nagler for planetary viewing just so I wouldn't have to keep moving the undriven scope to keep up. So if your scope is hand powered too, the extra field is well worth it. Otherwise, for planets I would be very happy with a narrower Ortho or Plossl field.

Charlie

June 6, 2003 03:39 PM Forum: Telescope Making

on topic!!

Posted By Charles Hakes
I haven't done this yet, but what about just using a tap. A related question - any reason to use steel instead of aluminum? Aluminum conducts heat much faster than steel. (But then would you want aluminum threads?)

Charlie

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