Posts Made By: John Miele

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. After all the wonderful transactions I had on Astromart, I ran into a bad apple. I would like to warn other users but do not know if I can mention his name. He has used two names actually, and has recently removed himself from the user list. He advertised a copy of Starry Night Pro Plus version 6 with manuals and discs. He sent me an earlier version with no manuals. He strung me along for about 5 weeks promising the correct version and the manuals but never deleivered. He then agreed to send me a small refund to compensate, but never did. Now he is gone and there have been no emails for about two weeks. What should I do? He did avertise other products and has some type of imaging business up in New York. I have to say at least I did get a product, not what was advertised, but a working prodcut, so this is not as bad as it could be. But I feel like he set me up!

John Miele

I'm looking for some lowcost software that will align and derotate images and then stack them. I don't want to do any fancy processing, just want to get the images aligned, derotated, and stacked. I have Registax, but I don't think it accounts for field rotation. Any ideas? Thanks.

John

Join their YAHOO group and send messages that way. They are very responive in that forum.

Hi Guys,

This is me with my Nexstar C11. I have a friendly Celestron f3.6 Comet Catcher piggybacked on top for the wide field stuff and occasional Mallincam video viewing. Only took about 6 lbs of counterweights to balance it out

John

I hesitate to post after Rolando's excellent image but this the best I got so far. Seeing was half decent in North Alabama for a change. Imaged Mars with a Toucam 740 with IR cut filter and a C11. Still a bit noisy, but a few details did show up. I think there may be some clouds on the lower right of the image. I'm still dreaming of a new Imaging Source Camera!

John

I'm looking for an equatorial goto mount to use with a 5.5" f3.6 comet catcher. The scope weighs about 7 lbs. I'll be imaging with a Mallincam and a DSI. I was thinking about maybe using a Celestron SE series goto mount if I could find one without its OTA. Any other ideas? A CG5 seems like overkill. I have a budget and need to keep it close to the $500 range. Thanks.

What are the chances that a C11 mounted on a new CG-5 mount will be able to take unguided 56 second images without trailing? I know that this is quite a load for the mount. But I will be using anti-vibe pads and will be careful to balance well. Nothing piggybacked on the scope. I will have a 9x50 finder mounted and I’m using a Mallincam video camera. I would be happy to get un-trailed images maybe 75% of the time with such a setup. Any chance of getting that performance? I can only integrate up to 56 sec with this camera so I don’t need to go longer. If I want to expose longer in the future I will upgrade to a beefier mount for sure. Just curious as to what I could expect with the CG-5. Thanks.

John

I just bought an item here on Astromart and sent a US Postal Money Order as payment. The person receiving payment said he would have to take my MO to the bank and wait for the "funds" to clear before he would ship. This is the first time I have ever heard of this. I always treat money orders as cash. I ship my item as soon as I receive a MO and have always expected the same treatment. Am I wrong here? Can a MO bounce somehow? Every time I took one to the bank they gave me cash with no hold that I was aware of. What do you all think? Thanks.

John Miele

Anyone know if the Barnard-Seyfert astronomy club is going to host a 2008 TNSP at the TAG youth camp this year? I can't find any information at the website and my e-mails to the club officers are getting blocked. This was a great star party last year.

Thanks.

John

Hi,

I have not posted here in a while. I bought myself a SV-102ED refractor to use for wide field and imaging. I decided to see how it did on Jupiter. This is my first test shot. Used a 3x celestron ultima barlow and a toucam pro 740. Processed in registax only. Used about 600 frames. Seeing was avergae and Jupiter was over my neighbors roof, so not th ebest conditions. I was very happy with the detail the little 4" refractor pulled out on this quickie shot. That little dot on the left is Callisto.