Posts Made By: George Normandin

George Kiger said:

The seller's claims of besting a variety of high-end instruments, including some more recent AP offerings made a fun read.

My club has had one of these F/12’s since the late 1980’s and I’ve spent hundreds of hours observing with it, both at our observatory and the 3 times we took it to Stellafane. (I hope to use it tonight!!) I’ve also used it for solar h-alpha and lunar imaging. It is a wonderful scope. I’ve used it side-by-side with various Taks, late 90’s era A-P’s, a C-14, and two Obsession 20’s, at both our observatory and at Stellafane. On those occasions as many as 200 people had a chance to compare the scopes, many at Stellafane being advanced ATMs. The F/12 holds up quite well vs the competition. On one night of very fine seeing most people believed that the Obsession 20’s were showing better views of Mars. On star clusters in particular the view thru this refractor is spectacular. After 20 years of hard use the focuser has mostly destroyed its bearings, gears, etc and will have to be replaced. I would assume that the scope for sale has seen a lot less use and will not need a new focuser.

George N

There *was* rain at Stellafane 2008 on Saturday evening – I left after the evening program. However, on Thursday night a few early scattered clouds cleared out for a wonderfully clear dark night. Friday night started out cloudy, but the clouds quickly broke up after 10 pm or so, and while there were some occasional cloud in the south, and the seeing was not as good, I spent another ‘all-nighter’ of great observing. My Sky Quality Meter gave readings of 21.00 and 21.25 at around 2:30 am respectively for the two nights. I believe that this was a result of heavy fog forming over Springfield VT, that held in the light.

George N

Gary Cislak said:

Hello just wondering how many people are planning on heading to Stellafane this year ? Also are gas prices affecting your choices Gary Cislak

My gas bill for attending Stellafane 2008 was about $138. That's for a round trip of 422 miles in a Chevy Tahoe pulling a 5x8 cargo trailer (w/ Obsession 20), and two people. It was money well spent for a great time, including two very fine clear nights of observing and attendance at many great presentations.

It seemed to me that attendance was down some. I'm not sure if that was because of gas prices, or the poor (and totally wrong) weather forecasts.

George N

What price did this scope go for?

George N

George Andrew said:

Last year at the BFSP I saw there was something happening at the north side of the park. It looked like they where putting in bathrooms and or showers. Does any one have any info on this?

"It" was completed when I went to the Cherry Springs Star Party this year. It's an excellent flush toilet facility, complete with handicap access, sinks, heat, and red lights. Probably the only down-side is that 'the public' has learned it's there and there are now frequent stop-offs just looking to use "the facilities". Of course it could be a long walk to this new facility, so at CSSP, and I would assume BFSP, the porta-johns will be there too.

They also completed a new hot-water shower facility at the near-by Lyman Run SP, mainly intended for CSSP users. It's something like a 15-minute drive.

Other changes: They added a lot more AC power, and were going to put in some more road(s) in the southwest corner (where all the RVs and CCD guys hang out) because people have been getting 'trapped' back there if the park really fills up.

On the down side: The State intends to remove the pay phone, and perhaps to pay for all of changes they have increased the nightly camping fee by a buck.

George N

bob Stenstrom said:

I have recently experienced three severely miss aligned diagonals. .....
what is your experience?

I’ve checked two Televue and one William Optics diagonals (2-inch) and all three are miss aligned. In the case of the Televue (at least the ones I have that are more than 5 years old) the mirror is an octagonal shape and just dropped into a milled slot. There is a little piece of foam plastic behind it. I don’t see how it is possible for the mirror not to be a little off.

George N

Gary Pakalski said:

Looking for opinions.

Lets say you have a 20d Canon and...
Gary

Forget the telescopes! 8O

The real question should be which camera! The new Canon 5D has a 21.1 mp full size chip, ISOs to 25,600 with good noise (who needs to mod the IR filter with this type of response?), HD tv video capture (stereo mike input for sound), unlimited 4 frames per sec jpg capture, live-view for focus, and 14-bit raw files.

George N

I use mine on an Orion EQ-1, plus their drive, and camera attachment gizmo. I bought all three of the Orion website as "seconds" for a very reasonable amount. It works for imaging with a webcam. I've found that I use this mount as much or more as a "tracker" for wide-field imaging with a DSLR. After seeing this set-up, two friends of mine have gotten the same mount.

George Andrew said:

...... But I’m upgrading to a used 20” Obsession telescope ....that has an OMI mirror. Yea, yea, I know you can’t compare the views in a 12.5” to a 20”. But you can talk about how good a mirror is in terms of its optics. So any opinions?

I have an Obsession 20 (which I bought used) with an OMI mirror. It is excellent.

Ask the seller for the serial number of the mirror. OMI publishes on their website the test results for each mirror they produce by number, and that includes the mirror test images. Anyone who knows how can "test" the mirror based on those images. If nothing else, you can see if it has a turned edge.

George N

Dawn Grove said:

The November 2008 issue of Men's Health magazine had an article about.....

I bet that the “Men’s Health” article did not cover the health benefits of hauling your wife’s telescope around.

About 10 years ago there was a lady in the same astro club as I, whose husband could not care less about astronomy. Although a reasonably healthy person, she sometimes found it difficult to move here Meade 10-inch SCT at the end of a night. After getting woken up at 2am to carry the scope into the garage for the 20th time, hubby finally agreed to the building of a roll-off roof observatory in their backyard.

George N