Posts Made By: Jim Highfield

There will be an informal star party for owners of (and people who want to check out) Orion XT-series Dobsonian telescopes.

This includes anybody who owns one of the Guan Sheng clones that are very similar to the newer, now Synta-made, dobs.

The date is the 5th of April with a make-up date being scheduled on the 26th.

Location: Hueston Woods state park - about 20 minutes north of Oxford, OH.

We already have between 10 and 15 XT owners signed up. This will be a great time to compare views, mods, and eyepieces.

Contact me for more information.
[email protected]

I have an F6 newtonian and I'm looking for an eyepiece.

I currently have a Pentax 10.5 XL (114X) and Pentax 40XL (30X). I also have an Orion Ultrascopic 15 (80X).

I'm looking for an eyepiece in the 25mm range. I would like to keep it under $120.

I have narrowed down my choices to three possibilities:
1. The Orion 25mm Ultrascopic
2. The Orion 25mm ED2
3. Univeristy Optics Konig II 24mm

I am leaning toward the Ultrascopic. I've enjoyed the 15mm ultrascopic that I currently have. I would appreciate any feedback or other suggestions.

Thanks,

Jim

Under ideal viewing conditions with 6.1 to 6.5 mag skies Thanksgiving night, I tried and failed again to see the Cone nebula with my 8" dobsonian mounted scope.

My previous attempt was last February at the same location with slightly less than ideal conditions . Both attempts were done with the object at least 45 degrees above the southern horizon.

The scope was calibrated, my eyes were dark adapted, and I used eyepieces of 30x (Pentax XL 40mm with narrowband filter) and 43x (Ultrascopic/Ultima 25mm with 0III filter.) I observed the Christmas Tree cluster for about 45 minutes trying to catch the Cone, with direct and averted vision. The conditions let me easily see the E and F stars in M42 earlier in the evening, and 5 moons around Jupiter later in the night. The scope has an Orion factory primary and an upgraded pyrex secondary and curved secondary mount from Protostar.

In Sue French's Sky and Telescope article, March 2005, she said that she can see the cone without a filter in her 10' dob at 44x. She said a filter brings out slightly more detail.
I thought this object would be possible for me to see with filters, but I guess I needed slightly darker skies.

Has anybody seen this nebula with an 8", or could I have spent my time better observing brighter objects? If you have observed it, what were the conditions and what type of scope did you use?

Did anybody make it to the TLSP this year? I was unable to attend and was curious on how it went.

Good evening all. The skies finally cleared in the Ohio river valley tonight, and I got the 8" dob out for a few hours.

Mars looked terrific. I could see the northern pole easily. I am about 80% sure I could see a few wisps of clouds. I used both a 15mm and 10mm eyepiece paired with a good 2x barlow and could see the same wisps with either combo.

My question is this: Did anybody else observe the red planet tonight? And if you did, did you see clouds?

This is the 3rd Mars opposition for me and, if I really did see clouds, it would be an exciting first for me.

I stopped on my commute home today about 10 minutes after the sun went down (about 5:40) and didn't see anything but vapor trails from high-flying jets. I gave up after several minutes and continued my commute.

At 6:03 I looked west as I crossed the Ohio river in slow, heavy traffic and saw it! I looked at it 3 times before I passed through the steel framework of the bridge, but I'm positive I saw it.

As others have said, I saw a bright, even large nucleus and what appeared to be a forked tail. The clouds are moving in tomorrow morning, so this will probably be the only time I could see this object.

I was at my clubs dark sky site alone one February night. It was about 1:20am and I planned to stay until 2am (because the temp was supposed to get really cold.) In this area of Ohio, Coyotes are heard on a regular basis. I heard some in the distance earlier that night, but for the last hour or so I didn't hear much of anything besides the quiet hiss of my AM radio.

Anyway, I was at the eyepiece, about 10 yards from the woods, when I heard what sounded like a scream from the edge of the woods. I immediately figured it was a coyote, but that didn't help my nerves. I mean I had chills going up my spine! Luckily, the scope I had that night was an 8" dob, so I was at the bottom of the drive, all packed up, and locking the site gate at 1:30!

Once I settled down, I started to think, "I didn't hear any leaves crunch, and my headlights didn't pickup any beady eyes, and that didn't sound like a coyote.." I figured that it was probably a screech owl. I wasn't too upset that an owl chased me away, since I was getting cold and was near the end of my observing session anyway.

George,

Thanks for posting that site. I've recently resigned from my group since they like to change locks at our dark sky site without letting anybody know. This gizmo, along with yahoo maps (which shows higher quality satellite imagery in rural areas) has allowed me to see several promising sites. I'll probably be contacting a couple of farmers soon.

Jim

John,

I've been wondering what star in Gemini was next to Mars, but I've been to busy to look it up. It's a good point of reference to observer how Mars moves over the next month. It has been "in-between" the twins for months now, but should quickly exit.

I have two Pentax XL eyepieces with my 5.9 FR dob. The Pentax XL 10.5 is my primary planetary eyepiece. It performs very well for this purpose. I have no tracking, so it is very important to me to have a clear image of the disk from one side of the FOV to another. There is no distortion whatsoever. I've had the chance to look through a Pentax XW 10.5 in my scope and it performed just as well with the slightly larger FOV.

I also have an XL 40mm but not used for planetary viewing much. It performs well under dark skies. Not so great under light polluted skies. A little bit of image distortion around the outside 5 to 10% of the FOV.

I hope this helps.

Jim