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Posts Made By: Joplin Motisher-Chittenden

March 8, 2010 01:13 AM Forum: After Dark

NEED HELP WITH MY 8MM ETHOS!

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
The quick fix is to use it with a 1.25" adapter, that will allow it to focus. The better solution is to get a baader 28mm finetuning ring and a 2" parfocal ring. That way the eyepiece will fit securely in the focuser and the parfocal ring can be set so the focus point is close to your other eyepices. I had a 16" Lightbridge and 8mm ethos and that was the best solution I found. You can get both parts from Agena Astro products for under $25 including shipping. Better than buying the overpriced televue barrel extension (which should come with the eyepiece considering the price!)

March 22, 2010 10:30 PM Forum: Wildlife Photography

Mojave National Preserve Reptiles

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
Neat pictures, I miss visiting the Mojave desert. The snake is almost certainly a Red Racer:
http://digital-desert.com/wildlife/red-racer.html
My best guess on the lizard is a Leopard Lizard, some pictures I saw online of the long nosed variety looked pretty close to yours.

Joplin

December 9, 2011 02:44 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

image inverter

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
Dave,

You will need a 45 deg. erect image prism like this:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/Products/1027-meade-928-45-degree-erect-image-prism-125.aspx

If you want to use 2" eyepieces this is also available:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/Products/26713-stellarvue-2-correct-image-45-degree-erecting-prism.aspx

There are also porro prisms available but they are much harder to find and usually quite expensive or low quality.

Joplin

January 9, 2012 02:51 PM Forum: Coronado-Lunt-DayStar Solar Filters

Coronado-Canon interface

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
I think your best bet is a 1.25" OCS designed for binoviewers like this one:

http://deepskybinoviewer.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=62

It should allow you to focus the camera without adding much magnification. I would contact Denkmeier directly to be sure but it should work for your application.

Joplin

January 11, 2012 08:40 PM Forum: Eyepieces

eyepieces for C-14

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
A few years ago a friend of mine asked for opinions for an eyepieces to use with his new C14. Since he wears eyeglasses I suggested the Tele Vue 26mm T5 Nagler and 17mm Nagler T4 along with a 2x Powermate for when the seeing gets really good. I think he also picked up a 40mm TMB Paragon for a max. FOV eyepiece in 2" format. I've had the opportunity to use the scope with these eyepieces a number of times and they are an excellent complement to the C14. These days the market is a bit different since there are 100 deg. eyepieces available. If I was going to buy just one premium eyepiece for a C14 it would be either the 21mm Ethos or Explore Scientific 20mm 100 deg. Being F10 the C14 will work well with most decent eyepieces of appropriate focal length. The 100 deg. fov eyepieces will give the best wow factor though.

Joplin

January 11, 2012 09:34 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Need Information on Paracorr

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
Here are some links to Paracorr info (note that these are for the newest model of Paracorr):

http://www.televue.com/pdf/Paracorr_T2_spotsizes.pdf

http://astronomytechnologytoday.com/pdfs/files/Nov10-ATT%20pgs34-37%20Paracorr%202.pdf

At F5 I find a coma corrector pretty useful with wide field eyepieces. My personal experience with my 17.5" F5 dob has been that any eyepiece with a field stop diameter much larger than about 12 or 13mm will show an obvious image improvement when using a coma corrector. I once had a Vixen R200SS (8" F4) - with that scope a coma corrector was pretty much mandatory for a decent image. With the ever larger field of view eyepieces that are now available I think a Paracorr or other coma corrector is a worthwhile investment. Personally I use a Baader MPCC since it is much cheaper & lighter at about 3 or 4 ounces. It is kind of hassle to use though since it has to be threaded onto the eyepiece with an appropriate extension tube. I recently tried out my 17mm Ethos with the 17.5" F5 dob with an without the coma corrector. With the corrector stars were pinpoint right to edge - without it I got the sensation of a movie warp speed effect (stars at the edge are pretty stretched out).


Joplin

March 8, 2012 08:30 PM Forum: Solar System Observing

Naked Eye Sunspot

Posted By Joplin Motisher-Chittenden
It's been cloudy here for a couple days but I'll have time to take look at it when I get home from work today. That's the same group that let loose an X5.4 solar flare around 0H U.T. on March 7th and then an X1.3 an hour later. Good pictures, etc. on spaceweather.com

Joplin

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