Posts Made By: William Paolini

Jim Nelson said:
"...some people can be turned off by the effect [pincushioning] you get while panning, but I habituated to it very quickly."

Jim,
Really like that word! This makes me recall my first days...no weeks...of training in the A.F. Nausea and puking on many of those initial acrobatic flights. I guess I "habituated" to that too...like hitting my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop 8)

Donny,

Since you are new to this, it will be hard to tell what will be best for you since personal preferences and ergonomic and time all play factors, not just optical capability.

I started with refractors, then moved to newtonians on equatorial mounts, driven and undriven, and then on to SCTs. The 1st factor above all that affected my observing was how heavy and large the scope was. So of the group above, the SCT got the most observe time since it was so compact (it was an 8").

Next came the mount. Most of the time I ended up only roughly setting up the equatorial...i.e. aligning it to the pole. To do it with precision for photography was too much of a hassle most of the time.

Size wise I've had scopes from 3" to 8" in the past. I had a 4.25" newt and 5" sct. Ended up giving them both up because the image just was not bright enough, especially for deep sky and even more so if you live in light polluted suburbs.

Today, although I was always against them in the past, I decided to give a Dob a try. I just can't tell you how much fun that design is. Point and shoot! It's fast and fun. Much more so than the equatorials or tripod/fork mounted SCTs.

So my advice for you...since you are a beginner, is the 6" based on your price. It will serve you a long long time. And then when you want more...bump up to a 10 at least instead of an 8. But for now a 6" I feel would be perfect.

If you stretch a little more case...I'd go with the Orion XT6 Inteliquest. I used to do everything with charts and binoculars...and still do on occassion. But as work and home demand more time, I am loving the "push-to" computer to locate my targets. I can go out in the evening and inside of 3 minutes have it all aligned with the computer waiting for commands to show me where to go. It has made life very simple and fast so the only planning time is inside decidings what set of targets to observe so I know what to punch in. And when I don't know that, I just scroll thru the database going to things in close push-to range.

But, if you can't spare the extra cash, then binoculars and a good chart/book is certainly workable, especially if you live in darker areas where it's easy to see a good amount of stars in the evening in the first place so you can star-hop easily. Just means a little more patience.

So the 6" Dob should be absolutely perfect and last a long time. After that, I'm imagining your next post will be about eyepieces Then you'll be in real trouble 8)

-Happy Observing (future)

Don't forget to give your scope some time to thermally adjust to the outside temp. Sometimes takes an hour or so. If you don't then convection currents around the mirror as it cools (or heats) to outside temp will cause imagry to not be sharp. So try taking it out and viewing right away, then come back in an hour or 90 minutes and look at the same object, you'll see a big difference, especially at higher powers.

I had the older generation of that scope and it never failed to please. If it wasn't stolen during cross country shipping I would have never parted with it.

btw - what the other person said is true...M13 rocks through that scope under a dark sky!

How about something in the 40mm range like another person suggested??

I've had the Optiluxe, and yes while I hear it is great at longer FLs, I havean f/5 and it was only bearable. But good fit/finish, light, and optics good.

However, consider waiting a bit before you leap, especially if you wish to save some bucks. TMB Optical has come out with a new line called Paragon's. Thier 1st offering is a 40mm with 68deg afov. Initial reports (cloudy nights) say its color free and pinpoint to the edge, flat field, basically excellent. Supposed to be absolute premium glass and coatings. Initial price is $249. High Point Scientific is selling (i.e. taking orders). So promises to be something special in the 65deg afov competition.

https://www.highpointscientific.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=3411
-Bill

Floyd Blue said:
It seems that there is some concern about the quality of personal observations regarding eyepiece evaluation. I am now hesitant to post any findings that I have gleaned from hours of careful study with these eyepieces. One would hope that you are correct in your findings, but after expert testimony about the possibility that my Dob might not be up to the task of properly displaying the potential of eyepieces, I am undecided whether to post my review or not.

Floyd,

FYI (to all others) - A definition...
Noun
S: (n) expert (a person with special knowledge or ability who performs skillfully)
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=expert

I believe, that you certainly qualify as an expert by that definition...especially when we are referring amateur observational astronomy. I might raise the point, other than the experienced amateurs in the hobby, who else would be an expert? Afterall, professional astronomers rarely, if ever, use an eyepiece. When they do, it's usually for pleasure rather than serious study in their professional field. So, do you have special knowledge and perform skillfully? Based on the review you wrote on the TMB/Planetary EPs I'd say that would be an easy answer...YES! I thought it was balanced enough and it also qualified the conditions and limitations. People need to take that in context. If they don't, then I suppose they just did not read critically enough. I would also have to ask the question, if as you say others might feel you cannot properly analyze and EP due to your scope not being able to relay the potential of the EPs, then who's scope is up to that potential? Further, does anyone have this scope? If they do, exactly how rare is it? I suppose it is the perfect scope. Bottom line is who cares how something performs under perfect conditions since those conditions never exist! That was quite drilled into us in the USAF as a pilot. Every flight you calculated your aircrafts performance envelope based on the prevailing conditions and the standard formulas which are based on a "perfect" (i.e. homogenious" atmosphere). Then after that you repeated to yourself "Remember, the perfect atmosphere never exists." So you always carried with you the knowledge that theory and practice are different, and to be prepared for that.

Anyway, lots of babble on my part just to say...Hogwash! Of course you should keep posting reviews you do. In fact, I think you should feel obligated to. How else can the greater community of users benefit from the experience of our peers unless we communicate....and communicate freely.

Anyway (again)...good job. Keep it up.

-Bill

Floyd Blue said:
I am becoming increasing tired of having to defend my every statement and having to try to get points across.

Floyd,
Don't give up. Don't quit. Don't become frustrated. I'll have no more of your talk like that! Seriously. As you recall from past posts, everytime I made a personal judgement about a certain brand, "some" people could just not handle the critising of their favorite EP. You know what...who cares. What do they know anyway? Too little as they are clouded by their preferences.

Anywho...why not just let us know who the people are who so frustrated you so we can give them our what for! This is afterall an open forum so let us know exactly who the cuplrits are. Remember...team work...no one is an island nor should they try to be. So please, happily post your thoughts on another set of EPs you decide to test, and if anyone gets overly critical, we'll pounce on them!

As far as these people being experts...well that's a bunch of #@*! The "experts" like everyone else, make just as many mistakes and bad judgements as the novices. In fact, they must be particularly careful as they often make incorrect assessments due to their lack of objectivity and overinflated egos. For instance, anyone who might have been overly concerned about edge performance in a planetary test is basically screwy. Sure, let's keep Jupiter at the edge of the field to view it...that makes perfect sense! Jeeez. I suppose those people also bend over the top of the bike to take the nut off the tire hub on the other side instead of just walking around the bike. Go figure. Actually, don't go figure cuz they have no common sense.

Anyway...just forget about them and keep your EP comparisons coming Next topic ok...

-Bill

My Favorites...

1. 6mm Siebert Star Splitter...just never ceases to amaze me.
2. 7mm Nagler smoothside. Loved it on the Moon and on M42. But its eye relief just too tight to view the entire afov so had to let it go. Perhaps a 12mmT4 will be in my future to replace with a good 2x barlow to compliment
3. 11mm Siebert Ultra...probably not the "best" in any category, but is great in absolutely "all" categories! Makes it quite unique and always grabbed every evening out. Don't know if it should be considered inexpensive though at $150ish.
4. 13mm RKE...really tight star points and lots of throughput. Also barlows better than any other EP.
5. 16mm UO Super Erfle. Lots of contrast...lots! Nice wide field, good edge correction in a fast scope, and under barlow amazing on Jupiter's cloud belts.
6. Old 24mm TV Wide Field smoothside. Lots of edge distortion on the outter 30% afov. But still, something about the image makes it look like things are hanging in space. So unique from that standpoint. Almost sold it, but then couldn't.
7. 41mm Surplus Shed Erfle. Only $24 and incredible edge considering my fast f4.7 scope and a good wide afov.
8. 2.8x Klee Barlow. Only barlow I have, but never seems to amaze me as being totally transparent.

ps - Larry...have you ever compared the 20mm Meade RG Erfle to the Celestron counterpart from that era or to the UO Super Erfle? Would be interested in your thoughts if you have, or what you may have heard.

For those interested in helping out, where the pickle will be is in how to remove subjectivity from the rating of each category (i.e., row). What we need is a sentence or two (or three) describing what would justify a given rating. For some categories it will be easy. E.G., for "Scatter" we could define for instance the number of planet diameters that scatter appears on Jupiter which constitute the rating of significant, or some, etc. That way we'd have standard "guidance" for the rating process. For other categories it might have to remain completely subjective like for contrast or spot size unless the guidance picks some common brand eyepiece to be used as the middle ground standard. So these are the things I'd like to work on next, or get consensus on from those interested.

The weighting factors would be next, although they can be quite personal. But there could be several sets of weights that might characterize a type of observer. For instance, primarily DSO observers might consenses on one set of weights to be used, then that would be the standard for the rating and I could adjust the spreadsheet to just have a pulldown menu to choose your weighting factors (or customize your own), etc.

Anyway, these are my thoughts at the moment. Please help us out in ironing this concept out

-Bill

ps - I'm also thinking "External" reflections should be moved down to the Usability Performance section since these are easily eliminated in most cases by shielding around the focuser or eyeguards, etc.

7 is typical for me. 8 on great evenings.

Vienna, VA
Light Polluted

Orion 10" f4.7 Dob
Usual Eyepiece is (in order of detail resolution):
16mm UO Super Erfle + 2.8 UO Klee
6mm Siebert
6mm UO HD Ortho

I got a suggestion to change all the rating verbiage to numbers instead. The spreadsheet does this behind the scenes and is how it gets the numerical score. However, I was wondering perhaps all the ratings should just be Poor to Excellent instead of so many different rating nomenclatures? If we reworded each criteria correctly, they all could be just poor to excellent.

For instance, Astigmatism could be worded as "Corrected for Astigmatism", etc. Similarly for rest so can be uniform across all categories starting at poor and moving to excellent.

Also might add a half-way between them all. So: Poor, Acceptable -, Acceptable, Solid -, Solid, Solid+, V.Good, V.Good+, Excellent. And of course, exactly what "Solid+" means would be in the instructions, etc. Numerically: Poor=1, Acceptable -=1.5, Acceptable=2, Solid - =2.5, Solid=3, Solid+=3.5, V.Good=4, V.Good+=4.5, Excellent=5.

Thoughts on all this?