Posts Made By: George Normandin

Well if you don't mind living in a very remote area, try Potter County in PA (Cherry Springs State Park area), or the central Adirondacks in NY (check the Wakely Mountain Clear sky clock - it has Bortle Scale 1 sky - look for Indian Lake). I rent a camp on Indian Lake and it is super dark. However the nearest hospital is a 2 hour drive in good weather, so if one of the bears gets ya, or your heart gives out, you're dead! Expect very sever winter weather and difficult mountain roads. For a less remote area, try the central Catskill region. If you're willing to put up with just a little light pollution check out other rural areas (for example near Bowman Lake State Park near Oxford, NY).

George Normandin

Linton Rohr said:

Well, it's about 35 years too late, but I just picked up
an Astroscan......
Linton

At the Kopernik Observatory (where I hang out a lot) we have about 4 or 5 of the things. They are very popular with the public and I've found that they work quite nicely with my old 16mm Nagler T2.

When I visited the old Edmund "factory store" in New Jersey in the late 1970's they were selling the primary and window/secondary unit together for something like $25. I was tempted to buy the set to put in a regular tube to use as a "finder". I often wish that I had done it.

George N

Rich Michal said:

..... I am trying to scout out some potential dark sites to observe from .....
Rich M

Rich,

Try the "Dark Sky Finder" website (http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/) that mashs up Google Maps and a light pollution map. It's really helpful and I've learned a few thinks, like where the dark sky is in the East. One surprise: The Pamlico Sound coastal area of North Carolina is pretty dark.

George N

Larry,

I could be quite happy the rest of my life using your "herd" of scopes. A 14-inch will show thousands of deep sky objects, and will provide excellent views of planets under good seeing conditions. Most 'big Dob' guys will also endorse having a small (6 to 8 inch) Dob for those times it's not worth pulling out the 'big one'.

My current "herd" includes an Obsession 20. For most of my wide-field observing I use Celestron 20x80 binoculars on a parallelogram mount. I have home-made 6" F/5 and 8" F/8 Newt tubes, and for imaging, I have an Optical Guidance Systems 10-inch F/9 RC Cass. All of the tubes go on a non-goto Mountain Instruments MI-250 mount. Currently this pretty much covers me except that I have a 'hole' where you have the smaller Dob. I've thought of building an 8" F/5 or F/6 Dob, or buying the Meade 8" F/4 SN on GoTo mount.

So, what do I need? a back-yard observatory, or a fully equipped cargo trailer (5x8 foot?) to act as a traveling observatory.

Wild Idea: Every once in a while I consider selling it all and buying a GoTo Obsession 30-inch and cargo trailer - and I just might do it!!

George N

Judson Mitchell said:

.....inserting a reverse thread rod from a wood clamp as shown in the photo.......

That's a really cool idea!

My mount is an older commercial affair that is made of aluminum. Although it works OK with my Celestron 20x80's, there is always a pretty long vibration damping cycle, and it vibrates in moderate wind. I would suspect that your wood mount is much better with damping vibration.

George N

Dave Mitsky said:

I hereby officially eat my words about purchasing a certain new eyepiece.....
Dave Mitsky

We all knew you couldn't resist.........

The owner of Obsession telescopes (Dave K) just reported on his week-long observing trip to the Australian out-back. He was using one of his new 18" ultra-lite scopes. He says that after spending a few hours swapping eyepieces, he and the other guy using the scope agreed that they would just leave an Ethos in the focuser for the rest of the run. Dave said that it was the only eyepiece that they needed.

George N

Dave Mitsky said:


17P/Holmes exhibited a distinct inner and outer coma as well as a fan-shaped area of ejecta extending southwestward from the true pseudonucleus, which appeared distinctly non-stellar at higher magnifications. I estimate that the outer coma subtended approximately 7 arc minutes.

On Sunday evening, before moonrise, I had my first look at Comet Holmes in dark sky from my rural NY home using my 20x80 binoculars. I thought that the outer envelope was about a third the size of the moon. After moonrise I had difficulty seeing the outer part in the bright sky. Since Dave liked the view thru a big scope perhaps tonight I'll drag out my Obsession 20.

George N

Alan French said:

...... There are so many things we have today that were not available back in 1957.

I am sure there are many more, but those are the ones that come to mind easily and quickly.

Clear skies, Alan

The only one I could add was already mentioned by Rod M - The commercial SCT. While I own 6, 8, and 20 inch Newts and a 10" RC Cass, I've always considered the SCT a wonderful invention.

I've been observing since the late 50's myself, and the only thing I miss from "the old days" is a darker sky.

George Normandin

Robert Provin said:

Hello David,
I happen to have a Tinsley catalog that I will soon post to my classic catalogs web site (referenced elsewhere in this thread). According to the catalog the Tinsley Cassegrains are Dall-Kirkham.

Robert 8)

At the Kopernik Space Ed Center we had a Tinsley 12.5" that had once belonged to the IBM Corp. It was always my understanding that it was a D-K. I never particularly liked the optics, or the secondary "spider", that was two circles meeting in the center of the tube. The optics needed to be re-figured. We sold the scope to someone who was interested in re-furbishing it. If it was my scope I would have had the optics re-done as a classical Cass, and I would have replaced the spider.

George N

dave raw said:

......suggest someone in the NYC Long Island area that can perform this so I don't have to ship the bloody thing back to Celestron for professional servicing :S

I know that the owner of Optical Guidance Systems has collimated the SCTs owned by guys in his local astronomy club for free by putting the tube on the same rig OGS uses to collimate their RCs before shipment. It should only take a few minutes and OGS (located just north west of Philly) should be a reasonable day trip for you. You can even go take a look at the Liberty Bell!

George N