Posts Made By: Philip Canard

A 12" Mak? Whoa!!! E. Popp must be some kind of Mak guru alright. That must be some kind of scope. LOMO was going to build a 8" or 10" Mak in the Astele Mak-Cass series, but LOMO shut down plans to produce it after making a few pre-production samples. It's still shown on the LOMO website. I guess they are still looking for solid interest, but are tentatively out of the amateur astro scope business. I own the 6" version, which was the largest one ever widely produced. It simply kills. No other words for it. It continues to amaze me for its modest aperture. I know of the 10" Russian TAL Cassegrain scopes with the Klevtsov corrector, and the 9" Intes Mak-Cass, but a 12" Mak would be awesome, and still portable.

An 8" Mak like you bought would be about the best size for lunar and planetary work on a night of good seeing around here. The seeing conditions around here often knock my 6" Mak in the head. I also own a LOMO 102mm Mak-Newt for lunar observing on nights of really bad seeing. Perfect star tests and perfectly collimated from the factory. It picks up Polaris's tiny companion with no problem whatsoever, and split the Double-Double in the Lyra at 62X. However, I wish I had at least 8" of aperture for deep sky observing, although the LOMO 150 Mak does extremely well for a 6" scope.

Good luck with that Mak. It should really be a killer when you get it up and running. Try the Telescope optics book by Rutten and Van Venrooji for ideas, then do some experimenting as others have suggested. You might want to try a fiber tube instead of metal, such as graphite. That should cut down on internal thermal tube currents, the bane of long focus Cassegrains. Properly cooling that 8" Mak will be your biggest obstacle. My 6" Mak cools down surprisingly fast, almost as fast as a refractor, a fact noted by other LOMO 150 Mak owners.

GoTo computerized is good for the first year or so. Teaches you where your targets are at. After that, you strap a green laser pointer to your finder scope mount and just GO TO the target without the $%^&*##@ computer if you feel like it. Of course, you still align the GEM mount for proper tracking of targets. Messing with a Dob or Alt Az mount constantly to stay on target is no thrill either.

The green laser pointer is a good teaching tool. After finding your target with the GoTo computer and centering it in the EP, you turn on your green laser pointer and stand back and study where the target sits in the star field. After you memorize the positions, you just slew over to targets at top speed with the hand controller or release the locks and just swing to targets almost instantly with help of the laser pointer. Way better than a Dob.

The 2" 4X Powermate is your best bet if staying with your f/5 scope as you are converted to an f/20 focal ratio without exit pupil setback as a Barlow gives you. Nothing else will work better in that situation.

You're thinking from the wrong end of the optical chain for high mags. Using an f/5 scope for very high mags would be unlikely at a pro observatory. The best way to achieve high mags is with a long focal ratio scope. Try something in the f/15 to f/20 focal ratio range. A 4000mm FL OTA and a 4mm Radian gives 1000X with no Barlow. There is the C14 at f/11 for starters, but a 10" refractor of around f/16 is a better bet. I use a 2.5X Powermate on my 8" f/4 Newt, and my 6" f/14.2 Mak is definitely better at very high mags. The short fat scope will lose out to the long skinny scope when REACHING for the stars, even when the fat scope is a bit bigger in aperture. That's the long arm of the law....of optics.

That said, I wonder where these nights of 1000X observing come from! I never get it around here. It's common to get nights when the Double-Double in Lyra can't be split at any magnification you try.

Phil

The Ultima and Axiom EP's are parfocal across the series and go from planetary to deep sky. Ultima better for planetary and Axiom better for deep sky. Axioms pair up well with Panoptics.

I would get a Baader Click Lock adapter and do away with twiddling thumbscrews and get better centering and alignment and put it on a 2" nosepiece for better stability. Great for holding heavy binoviewers.

Might want a 2" Powermate. Might want some 2" Baader filters, especially the Neodymium Moon and Skyglow.

Phil

Yeah, I have some info. For the same price on the used market you can pick up a LOMO or Intes 6" Mak that will blow it away in optical and mechanical quality. The quality of the Chinese Maks will keep the Russian Intes Micro scopes selling to serious observers for a while longer. The Russian scopes come with good quality finder scopes as well.

Floyd,

Maybe Bigfoot will finally get photographed, Hey? I mean, he has no more dark night spots to run to in a few years. Your scope will NOT be useless, as aperture rules in nighttime Bigfoot photography, I am told.

Phil

In one word....KODACHROME.

For about 70 years Kodachrome has ruled in color photography. Pros still use it. A Kodachrome 35mm transparency is equivalent to a 10 Gigabyte digital image in resolution at the very least. Talking your digital mere megabytes of jpeg makes me laugh. Any digital scan of a 35mm Kodachrome slide has destroyed some information that I have seen. I couldn't even focus on grain when enlarging a 35mm slide when I was a Navy photographer as it was too fine to find with a standard B&W film grain focuser. 35mm Kodachrome slides are virtually grainless, if you ever saw a slide show by a photograper that knew how to use Kodachrome. It's about the only film where nonphotograpers have asked me what kind of film and camera I was using. You KNOW when a 35mm Kodachrome slide pops into view if they are mixed in with any other type of transparency film. Nothing has closely duplicated it.

Remember, few camera lenses will be up to the task of getting the most out of Kodachrome. They have to be high end Nikkor, Zeiss, Leitz, Zuiko, Pentax, Canon, etc. We used Kodachrome to test camera lenses. With lesser films, you can use lenses to test the film. Kodachrome could show defects in the best camera lenses. In astrophotography, you probably can't use its superior resolution limits due to mount movement. Kodachrome 25 had the lowest reciprocity failure and color shift of any film I used at low light levels.

I do important travel photos in Kodachrome if I can. The slow speed survives airport x-ray machines better than other faster films if you keep it in a lead lined bag. Of course, a strong argument can be made for digital for travel. I hate packing all that 35mm camera gear. Nothing beats the Kodachrome slide show, however. The downside is the few labs that still do Kodachrome processing and the process is quite toxic and far beyond the limits of an amateur film developer in the knowledge of organic chemistry and the precision of developing steps that is mandatory. It is only cost effective in a large continuous processing scenario. Mini labs cannot do it, and you wait two weeks for the slides.

Maybe digital will catch up to it some day. It would be nice, because I don't like the Kodachrome development toxicity and need to send to Kodak for developing.

In getting the most amount of resolution in the shortest exposure time, film still wins. It will be used for high speed, high resolution scientific work and such until digital catches up. It's sort of like vacuum tubes in that solid state devices simply can't surpass vacuum tubes in some areas such as high frequency, high power radio transmission or x-ray production. The needed use of film is limited, but it's still there.

Those of the instant gratification generation will have to be satisfied with digital images, or shoot very expensive Polaroid instant films.

Floaters are mainly a lunar observation problem with me. I only go down to around 1.0mm exit pupil on deep sky, and then only rarely. My favorite deep sky exit pupil is between 1.5mm to 3.0mm. Floaters are not an issue then. Luna filling the EP gives floaters nowhere to run. Then I use a binoviewer and an exit pupil well below 1.0mm, usually 0.7mm to 0.3mm.

Bill,

Glad you are happy. It's your money and gear. However, $250 for an EP still isn't cheap to me and I can get a 40mm Axiom on the used market for quite a bit less. I gave $150 for a NEW 2" 34mm Axiom on eBay recently from a telescope dealer. Nobody bid against me. People are CRAZY for the big fat EP's these days. Would be nice to compare that 40mm Paragon to a 40mm Axiom on about an f/8 scope.

You use a fast Dob. The Paragon might work better on a Dob, but what will it be like on an f/10 to f/16 scope I would noirmally (normal is for daytime, noirmal is for nightime) use for visual observing? My Axiom gives no blackout and no kidney beaning. It is sharp all the way to the edge on my Mak-Cass. My 38mm Siebert Observatory is sharp all the way to the edge in my Mak-Cass and causes no kidney beaning or blackouts. Even a 2" 26mm fully multicoated Kellner is sharp to the edge in my Mak-Cass, and contrasty as can be. The Kellner cost $55 new. If I ever forget to bring EP's one night, I can just put my magnifying lens up to the diagonal and expect it to be sharp to the edge at f/14.2.

Yep, fast scopes have changed EP design. EP's have gotten big, fat and expensive. Light transmission and contrast have dropped. They work almost as well on edge in fast scopes as the cheaper classic EP's do in a long focal ratio scopes. Short tube achromat refractors, f/6.5 APO refractor, f/4.5 Dobs, f/5.5 Mak-Newt. People want faster scopes and bigger, fatter EP's. Now the EP case is starting to weigh as much as the scope case, and probably contains more dollars worth of goods. Once the scope was big and expensive and the EP's were small and relatively cheap.

Since my Mak-Cass can use cheaper EP's and still perform like a million, I took the money I saved by NOT buying Naglers, Pans and Radians and bought a TEC eyepiece turret that allows me to hang 5 Ultimas and Axioms on my scope at once. Deducting the $150 average price difference that I saved by NOT buying a Pan or Radian, never mind the Naglers, and multiplying by 5 for the number of holders in the TEC turret, that gives $750 savings, then deducting the $500 for the TEC turret, I still saved $250 over what I would have spent if I had bought similar FL Radians and Pans and stuck them in my diagonal one at a time and fumbled around in the dark and occasionally dropped one. That's the beauty of a longer focal ratio scope. You can save money and still get at least as good a view. The dropped Pan doesn't need to go back to Uncle Al for repair, either.

BUT WAIT, it gets better. The TEC turret contains a very high grade 1/10 wave mirror diagonal of enhanced aluminum on astrosital or quartz substrate. Easily worth $100 on todays market. That saves another $100 if anybody was needing a better diagonal for their scope, so the savings comes to $350 and mostly pays for my OTA as well. Yes, getting a really great long focal ratio scope and saving on EP's and getting more convenience in the bargain is the way I went. In other words,I got a 6" Russian Mak-Cass (used), A TEC turret, and 5 of the best new EP's for about $150 more than I would have paid for 2 Pans and 3 Radians alone....AND, they probably work better in the f/14.2 Mak-Cass than Pans and Radians work in f/4.5 Dobs. The TEC turret with 5 EP's weighs about as much as a 31mm Nagler and costs not a whole lot more (and you get a nice diagonal in the deal).

Let's see, a 10" f/4.7 Dob is 47" focal length. That's about 1200mm focal length. A fat little 4" f/6 refractor is about 600mm focal length. I can hang a 20mm EP on the refractor and see the same slice of sky as the Dob sees with a 40mm EP. I get 30X mag either way. The refractor and 20mm EP cost a lot less and are easier to transport. Cheaper EP's start to perform at f/6, and while the Dob has an exit pupil that is already too big, I can hang a 30mm EP in the refractor and get even lower 20X mag and have a 5mm exit pupil that wastes no light. It looks like downsizing the OTA works better than upsizing the EP to me, if low mag is the issue, and it costs a lot less to boot. Or am I missing something?

Certainly , the Dob would be better for deep sky at high power vs. the refractor, but for $250 I can get a good used fast 4" refractor and use an EP I already have to do low power deep sky work. Heck, I'll just slam in the turret with 5 EP's and get several low and mid power views. The Paragon might not be a bargain for me, but for allowing a bigger scope than you really needed for low power viewing to work anyway, the Paragon might be the hot ticket. I would think it would be better for those with a big f/12 to f/16 achromat refractor to get a decent sized exit pupil for high contrast deep sky work. Eye defects rapidly increase when the exit pupil gets beyond 3mm, especially in older observers. I am waiting for a review from one of those f/15 guys on the Paragon. A 6" f/6 Dob with a 30mm wideangle gets you 30X mag as well and produces a 5mm exit pupil that wastes no light. Going beyond a 5mm exit pupil has NEVER helped me detect the faintest fuzzies one tiny bit better. Others may see things differently and have eyes that dilate to 8mm. 8O

I need to start selling eye pupil dilation fluid so that people can use long FL EP's on their Dobs to their fullest extent.

Phil

It's probably a cinetheolodite for tracking missiles and other flying objects.