Posts Made By: Donald Durbin

To all the Lunar landing conspiracy nuts,

Yeah, probably not too many on Astromart, but this is a nice read anyway even for the true believers

Here are photos of the lunar landing sites taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

Of course there are some people that no amount of evidence will ever convince. You know.. like Republicans.

Don Durbin

As someone who has worked in Healthcare, I came up with the following idea. I have sent it to my Congressman, Senators, and to the President. If you feel that my idea has merit, please feel free to send it to your elected officials.

Thanks,
Don Durbin

There are many problems with healthcare in this country. I will not attempt to list them here. I will however make a simple suggestion that if implemented can reduce healthcare costs by a significant amount.

My suggestion is to implement single point billing. What do I mean by single point billing? The current billing process for a procedure performed in a hospital is to allow individual departments and doctors to separately bill the patients insurance. Under the current plan a single hospital stay results in multiple bills to the insurance company. The radiology department bills separately from the radiologist who reads the x-ray. The surgeon, anesthesiologist, emergency room and emergency room physicians all bill separately. Every single one of these invoices could be billed by the hospital where these procedures are performed. I know this because I work in electronic patient records. I am an expert on the Sybase E-Biz Impact middleware engine and I have built billing interfaces in multiple hospitals.

The U.S. government can force the implementation of single point billing with the stroke of a pen. They only need require that all Medicare invoices be submitted by the facility where the procedure is performed instead of allowing separate bills from every possible entity within the organization. Since the hospitals will not want to implement two different types of billing, all of the billing, Medicare and non-Medicare will eventually be billed this way.

The current system creates a need to process multiple claims for a single hospital stay. A single procedure such as an abdominal hernia can result in 10 or more separate bills. I know this because I had this procedure in July of 2006; I was amazed at the number of separate bills.

Each one of these bills must be processed separately by the organization presenting the bill. This involves filling the claim in the correct format for the patients insurance.

Each one of these bills must be processed separately by the insurance company. This involves multiple steps. The patients insurance must be verified, the procedure must be verified, the procedure must be approved, a check must be run for duplicate charges, and the final approval of the charge must be made.

Each one of these bills must be reported separately to the patient by the insurance company. This is more paper work and often a separate mailing to the patient’s home address. The postage savings alone is significant here.

Each one of these bills must be paid separately. This is a separate check cut by the insurance company and sent to the physician, technician, or organization.

Each one of these bills must be separately added to deductible or benefit totals for each patient.
Each one of these bills represents a chance for error. Each one of these bills represents a chance for fraud.
In short the cost of processing the claim for a single procedure is increased far beyond the cost of processing a single claim with multiple charges.

There is also the emotional cost to the patient or the patients’ family of receiving bill after bill after bill after bill. You really begin to wonder if they will ever stop coming. I know this is not a cost savings, but it should help with public opinion on getting this change made.

Will this change cost jobs, the short answer is yes, less people will be required to process claims, but we have to consider the number of jobs the current high cost of healthcare is costing Americans every day.

I am sure the insurance companies will support this after we explain that the number of claims will be reduced by a factor of six or more. This will result in reduced costs to the insurance company. This should be passed on to the consumer in the form of reduced premiums.

Physicians and Healthcare organizations can reduce staff if the organization itself does not perform procedures. This should also reduce healthcare costs.

I have not heard anyone mention this as a cost saving option so I have decided to write to the people I feel can best help reform American healthcare.

I posted this on the political forum and then I thought it was better to post it here. I also took out the political dig because this is not that forum.

To all the Lunar landing conspiracy nuts,

Yeah, probably not too many on Astromart, but this is a nice read anyway even for the true believers

Here are photos of the lunar landing sites taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html


Don Durbin

Hi All,

I decided to go ahead and get a new toy to play with. So far all I have is the doublet in the lens cell.

I received this 210mm lens serial #001 yesterday. I have attached the Interferogram. You can have a look at that to start with. The numbers do not look too bad to me but I am not an expert by any means.

I was going to mount this inside an old reflector tube but the mechanics did not match as close as I had hoped. Instead I found an old tube ring that almost fit. I was going to go out today and get some rubber strips to take up the slack. On my morning walk I remembered that I had some old leather belts that I did not wear anymore. So I cut one to the circumference of the lens cell and it took up the slack perfectly. With this setup I can mount the lens cell on an equatorial head and begin some testing. Wish I would have thought of the belt idea last night.

I am hoping I can get a look at the full moon through the lens tonight. I might even try to get a photo, but I am not promising anything. In any event this would be a pretty poor setup and would not really show any lens quality. Holding a nice EP behind the lens I hope to get an idea of the amount of false color that I will be dealing with.

I plan to setup some artificial stars at dusk this week and see how the lens performs. I cannot promise anything as I am also preparing to teach a class in Chicago the week of the 14th. I really need to do a good job on that because it could mean more work and I need cash to pay for these toys.

Don Durbin

Hey Guys,

Lets stick to optics. If you are just looking to bash the Chinese try either the 'Political forum' or the 'I like to complain about everything forum'.

Don Durbin
Forum Moderator

Hi All,

Windows 7 Pro has a free program included with it called Windows Virtual PC which has a Windows XP mode that seems very good with running XP programs. As an example I loaded up and ran a Phillips Toucam Pro install and took pictures on it without any problems.

If you have a Windows 7 Home edition you will have to upgrade to Windows 7 Pro or better to use this software.

Don Durbin

The absolute best performance that you can do to your scope is get a good Binoviewer. Nothing makes a difference like being able to use both eyes. On SCT's it is the greatest thing you can do. I reccommend without any hesitation the Seibert Black Night Binoviewer. I have personally compared it head to head against a televue and it I found the Televue has a slightly sharper focus. When I say slight I mean slight!!!.

At $300 for the base unit the Black Night binoviewer is the best thing you can buy for the money.

Choose your favorite eyepiece and pick up another one of them and the Black night and you will be amazed at the difference in what you can see through your scope.

Don Durbin
Salem Ohio

I cannot tell you how a Black Night stacks up against a Denk. I can tell you how one stacks up agaist a Televue. My nephew owns the televue and I own the blacknight. We have used both in a Meade AR5, a C8, a C9.25, and a TAK FS-102.

The televue came to a slightly sharper focus. The difference however was very very slight.

The Blacknight will easily accept 1.25 filters. The Televue will not. Although the televue extender tube might. I am not sure about that.

You can get a basic Black Night for $300. The Televue BV is around $800 or $900

My opinion is that the Black Night is the best deal around and my nephews agrees that the difference in view is not worth the extra money he paid for the Televue BV.

Don Durbin

Hi,

I have found that if I put a laser used for collimating a reflector in the focuser I sometimes find that the focuser is not lined up exactly with the objective. Looking in the front of the scope the red beam should be in the center of the lens. I have then tweaked the focuser mounting to align to the center. You need to mahe sure the focuser does not have a loose fitting adapter in it and tighten down any friction adjustment on the focuser and rack it all the way in. Do not use a diagonal, but this is a good check afterward to see if your diagonal is a true 90 degrees.

After centering the beam on the objective I have actually found less flare on bright objects.

Don Durbin

Hi Tom,

I would be interested in knowing about the Celestron versus the epic EPs also. I originally bought a 3.7 and a 5.1 that I used in my Meade 90. They gave great views of jupiter. So I also got a 9.5 and a 14. Then I got the Binoviewers and I decided to get another 9.5 and a 14 to use with the BVs. I also picked up a pair of 12.3s from Orion as they were discontinued.

Harry is making me a custom Ultra Barlow, but he says it will be pretty high mag when it works with the extra length on the Binoviewer. He says it will be around X4. That makes me wish I would have grabbed up some of the bigger Epic EPs.

Are you talking about the Celestron Axioms?

Don Durbin