Posts Made By: David Hakenewerth

We don't need a top ten list because the number 1 myth is that we as a species can do anything to stop the process. We might slow it or alter it's effects, but humanity is on a ride that will not stop. We can't change mans need/desire to exploit the worlds resources.

Not to worry anyway, nature and evolution will do a much better job at solving this problem than we ever could.

Come to think of it can someone give me some examples of any large social/environmental issue that we've eliminated. Poverty? Crime? Human Rights? I can't readily think of any. Someone restore my hope.

Dave H.

Does anybody have the Meade MA 4mm starter eyepieces that they used to put in the EXT starter scopes? I have the 25mm and 9mm that I use at star parties and they are decent with good eye relief. I would like to get a cheap but decent high powered eyepiece for starparty use that has enough eye relief for eyeglass wearers to use without refocusing.

What do you think of the Meade MA 4mm

Thanks Dave H.

Wonder if they need help emptying the bottles? Kinda gives a new meaning the the term Schott "shot" glass. ;0)

Dave H.

Checked my last session results and see that I once again have misjudged the results. I don't need to deepen zones 1,4,&5 I need to increase the slope. What I did in trying to deepen the zone was flatten the slope which made it worse. This is process is not intuitively clear to me but all this visualization is helping. Thanks goodness you can go at it again, and again.

Dave H.

Hi Sonya, Glad to see you are pushing glass. You did not say what grit you are at so I assume you are still grinding and not yet polishing. I also am a newbie but am a little farther along than you at this point and here is my experience. The ATM Sag calculator gives a sag of .08333 for your mirror so you might want to give it the sun test. If your spherometer is a smaller diameter than your mirror the sag reading you get will be whatever 48inch focal length works out to for your spherometer diameter. I polishied a 10 inch F5 and got reading similar to yours. I saw a .001 measured difference until I got down to 12 micron grit, then I was able to get readings within about .0005. (estimated with a .001 micrometer) I never did get the same readings all over the face but after finishing 5 micron grit and polishing for 1 hour with cerox 1670 I tested with the foucault tester and was very pleased with the results. The surface was smooth and spherical leaning toward parabolic. I did my grinding and polishing on a machine. I got close with hand figuring but made a mistake which has required me go back and machine polish again. I hope to try my next attempt at figuring this week.

Good Luck with your project Dave

Sonya

Peter Smith has a nice page on Ronchi Rigs and also interpereting test results.

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pjifl/ronchi_rigs.html


Dave

Bill, This is exactly how my 10 inch looked and I had a hard time correcting it. Now that I've read Marks explaination I realise what I was doing wrong. How is your correction progressing? Any update?

Thanks Dave

Tom, I am a newbie to this but I think you will find all the info that you want at:

http://www.astrabio.demon.co.uk/QCUIAG/research/index.htm

K3ccdtools seems to be the software package of choice right now. Peter K. who wrote the software has provided a lot of features which simplify the process like automatic image selection and registration.

Hope this helps
Dave

Taylor, Nice job and thanks for posting. Did you use the Logitech software to capture the video? If the software allows you to manually adjust the gain you can get alot more detail out of the image. If not you can also let the auto gain feature get more detail by making the prime focus image bigger. You might try a 2X barlow. I think you will be able to capture more detail. I am right behind you. I am waiting for a Mogg adaptor now and cant get my QCVC in far enough to focus now except with eyepiece projection. I want to do prime focus imaging and I dont have enough focuser in travel. I hope to have this resolved soon. How hard was the long exposure mods? If you do any timed exposures please post them. Thanks Dave

PS You might want to down load K3ccdtools. I hear that it will automatically sort your AVI file images so that you can stack only the best ones.

Clear Skies for me tonight. First time in a week.

Dave

Ryan, You should be able to see it with your scope on nights of average seeing. I have similar experiences with my 8 inch reflector. Many times I have been observing Jupiter knowing that the GRS should be in view; but not able to see it. I have a decent observing site, but do have some light pollution. When I do see the GRS it almost always just jumps out at me after I have been observing for some time. I think getting your eyes adjusted to the dark is the most necessary ingredient. Try really concentrating on night vision. Use a red light, don't look at any other light source. Close your eyes for a minute and look again.

Good Luck Dave