Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

victor truglio said:

I have a 12" Meade Lightbridge that I use in light polluted skies.
Will a move up to the 16 Lightbridge give me better or worse views factoring in seeing conditions, light pol, etc.
12" aperture is the largest I have used so far.
Thanks

I moved up from a 12.5" discovery to a 16" astrosystems truss dob a number of years ago and I never regretted it. In general, the 16" has always provided me with better views than the 12.5" and the latter had a good primary.
Big mirrors collect light indiscriminately so light pollution remains a problem but bigger scopes tend to do better with line filters such as an 0111 in light polluted and non-light polluted areas than do smaller scopes.
You'll notice the increased weight with the 16" lightbridge so be prepared for it. The 12" is a lightweight and the 16" is a heavy weight and there's no getting around it if you have to lift the latter every time you use it...

That's pretty good for a random sample of C 9,25s, is it not?

I see one prominent vendor in New York is selling both the Orion 120 EON ED refractor for $1999 while it also sells the skywatcher 120ED pro for $1495. Both scopes ship free.
Are these the same scopes made by synta or another company?
Anybody know?

Howie's are among the best:
http://www.collimator.com/coltext.htm

And you might want to consider an a less expensive alternative:
http://www.owlastronomy.com/kowldiag.htm

Paul,
I have an astrosystems 16" f4.5 dob and I know some of the components are similar between both scopes. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Nice color choice!

I've heard it both ways, ie you must level with these units and you don't have to bother doing it. It's been my experience that you get better results(better "warp factor" and accuracy) if the scope is level before you proceed with the vertical alignment or initialization. I've got the JMI minimax unit on a 10" dob and leveling it first seems to help a lot.
No problems with the sky commander and I was glad I used the latter on my 16" f4.5 dob when I was setup on rough terrain at the base of Pinos a few months ago when the parking lot was closed with snow. I was basically setup on what appeared to be a piece of lunar surface and I couldn't imagine a JMI unit working very well on it.
Give your unit a try without leveling at see how it works...

Let's talk about the real modifications of this toy hauler. First, it's been dealer prepped for the ultimate protection against combined CBN(chemical, nuclear, biological) attack. In it, Floyd can, at his command, activate anyone of several robotic telescopes simultaneously in six different states for real-time imaging, depending upon weather and seeing conditions. In addition, Floyd enjoys the security of knowing that only he can activate an enable button for the launch sequence of a minuteman II silo (genuine US government surplus)containing a 150 megaton nuke warhead preset for a fused air burst at 10,000 feet with a blast radius the size of Montana, uninhabital at ground zero for 100 years (200 years for commies!). (Floyd Blue Specs for the ultimate in quality devastation!)
Floyd continues to hone his skills in deep sky imaging, unfettered by adverse weather conditions, political upheaval, and un-welcome intrusions as he expertly captures photons in the environmentally controlled atmosphere of his state of the art toy hauler...

Do you think this gizmo works?
I hope it works better than its website:
http://supernorthstars.tripod.com/id2.html

While it appears Obsession has the market with their new ultracompact scope, it appears to have compromises like any other scope. While I think the strengths of the 18" ultracompact appear to significantly negate its weaknesses, here's what I would be concerned about:
1. 3 vane spider: I thought I read somewhere that the three vane units produce 6 spikes on the star image or is this not correct?
2. Use of a 3.1" secondary: I can't see how this size would be large enough to manage an 18" short f-ratio mirror without reducing the effective aperture of the primary. I note my 16" F4.5 mirror utilizes a 3.1" secondary which just encompasses the entire primary so I can't understand how it could possibly do the same with a shorter F ratio 18" mirror. I note both night sky scopes and starmaster use 3.5" secondaries with their 18" models which operate at F4.5.
3. Cost: While expensive, I certainly like the design and the latter, in my opinion, makes it worth the price.
Still, I've looked for an alternative and I found a website offering a lightweight design:
http://www.liteboxtelescopes.com/
Anybody have any experience with this design?