Posts Made By: John Linc

I am going to get myself a telescope here pretty soon. The question is which one? I have narrowed it down between 2 scopes. Lx200 8" UHTC GPS, or a Celestron 9.25 advanced series seen here in this link, http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=&pid=5254&m=1 (I know this telescope is not yet on the market).
I would like a 10" Meade but the weight I know will be in issue. Be honest. How are the optics on the 8"Meade, do the UHTC optics compare with the 9.25" Celestron? I have read that the Celestron optics are Very good, but I have not read too much about the optics on the Meade 8". I will be using the scope for planets as well as deep space observations. I know the Meade will be really nice for finding objects in space etc. Anyone who has looked through both the Meade and a 9.25 Celestron, I am looking for advice and opinions. Any information would be really helpful. Thanks.
jlink

I ordered a Celestron 9.25 Advanced series(11046). It will not be in stock until the summer. I have been doing some research and was wondering if I should just piece together a telescope using the C9.25, an EQ6 Mount(comes with a steel tubed tripod), and a (not sure which one) Decent Go-To system. I am pretty darn new to this star gazing so please have patients.) First of all, are these parts that I mentioned above the basic building blocks that I would need to piece to gather my scope? Will I need any other parts to make the scope complete, I don’t want to miss anything? I would wait until summer for the whole scope from a dealer, but I am not so convinced that the mount coming with the telescope is much better than the ones on older 9.25 models(with the exception of a GO-TO system, looks just like the CG-5). The Eq6 seems to be reasonably priced compared to a Losmondy GM-8. Also if anyone knows of a decently low priced Go-To system that will just get the job done(nothing special) and go with the EQ-6, feel free to speak up. Plus, any other suggestions are welcomed.
Very cool web site BTW!
John

I have been doing a bit of reading on Light Pollution Filters and cannot decide if I should get one or not. Most of what I read is really a bunch of mixed reviews. Now my House is surrounded by a moderate amount of light pollution. Although I can take a 15 minute drive and get into some nice dark skies with little light pollution, I know I will do a bit viewing from my own back yard, hence my question. Is it worth it to look into these light filters? It seems that the debate falls with these 3 filters: Orion Ultrablock, Lumicon UHC, and Lumicon OIII. Has anyone tried any of these Filters, and Do they work? If there are other LP filters I have over looked that work, please post them here. Any advice is very much appreciated. Thanks.
John

I have just received my new 9.25 today. Nice little Tube! I guess one of the first things people do when they get a 9.25 is ditch the diagonal, and get a new one. I need a couple recommendations so I can cash in on a decent Diagonal. It sucks because I have to wait until Monday or Tuesday for the Mount, and the sky is Sooo nice and clear tonight grrrr. I have the tube on a tv tray right now, and I caught a couple glimpses of the moon lol. Anyways, I am willing to spend about 100-150 US dollars for a diagonal, also I will be looking for a new finder.
On a side note... I don't know if anyone here has tried this but I have a Gen. 2 ½(D-121M) Night Vision scope, and when I look into the sky with it, I see TONS of stars that I would Never normaly see with binoculars or my naked eye. It really is quite cool, even though the stars look bright green. I think I might mess around with it and see how it works to find some objects.
I don’t suppose I could do some collimation through a back window, the window probably distorts it right? Any help would certainly be helpful. Thanks.
John in Cleveland.

I am looking for some opinions, and recommendations on new DSC's and GoTo units out there. I am waiting on a new Mount to arrive which is an HEQ5(or CG6), basically the next step up from a CG5. I have read the review here at this link from CloudyNights, http://www.cloudynights.com/accessories/sc_vs_ngc.htm
which basically goes over two popular units, the Sky Commander DSC (kind of like this unit with the Dew heater), and The NGC-Max (kind of liking this unit because of the cold resistance, star catalog). I was just wondering if anyone else out there knows of other units they use and what they like/dislike about it. I am not the one who is purchasing this unit, so money is not my concern. Any extra knowledge on other units, or the ones I have mentioned above is very much welcomed. BTW, if it helps things, I will be using a C9.25 with the mount.
Does anyone have the Home page for RXDesigns the makers of the Argo Navis?(I can't seem to find it through Google).
John

My Dad wants to take some pictures with the new scope I bought. What are good camera adapters to look into? If it helps anything, the scope is a C9.25, and the diagonal is a tv everbrite 1.25. He has two cameras he wants to buy adapters for.. The first one is a Nikon N80 SLR, and the other is a Sony Cyber-Shot Digital DSC-S70 3.3 Megapixel. If anyone has any good links or suggestions, please feel free to speak up. Thanks.
John

I just got my scope fully set up yesterday on StPatrick's day. The mount is an HEQ5. Last night for sh-ts and kicks I was looking at the moon through my window upstairs in my room. There was thick haze all night so It was basically to learn the controls of the drives etc. Now for the question. As the moon rose up higher in the sky I was able to slew the drive left and right using the DEC buttons on the controller (controller is the same controller for the EQ6 Mount, both mounts are very similar) however when I go to follow the moon Up, I can Not slew the drive up, or down using the RA buttons. If I put my ear to the Mount I can hear the drives humming in there, but there is clearly no movement, so I have been using the Altitude Adjustment T-bolts, to slew the scope upward, and downward. This is my first time dealing with drive motors so I am not sure if this is normal or what? Little help Please. Thanks.
John

I am new to the science of collimation. I have done quite a bit of reading on collimating, and even bought a great book on telescope optics specifically on star testing. I have received a set of Bob's Knobs for my 9.25. I am not sure If I did something wrong during the installation process, or if this is normal. I installed the knobs taking out one screw at a time and inserting one knob at a time using the spacers that came with the knobs. I know that from installing the knobs I knocked the scope completely out of collimation. I was using a star on a night I thought was fair seeing conditions just to get the scope back into decent collimation. While I was playing with the knobs I was looking through the eye piece at the same time. I noticed that as I turned the screws the star in the FOV would move out of the view. Now I was under the impression that only the shape of the circles around the star would change shape, not shift around. I am worried that the secondary is to loose or something. Is it normal for the star to shift around(or even move completely out of) the FOV while turning the secondary mirror screws? And I have another question. After I got all the star rings to be as Concentric as I possible could, I noticed that one screw was pretty loose, and the spacer was not even touching the front of the OTA. Should all the screw be fairly tight when collimating? I am worried I may have messed up the secondary when I was installing the Knobs, plus I am paranoid in general by nature. I am pretty darn new to this stuff so I may have done a bad job trying to explain what it is I have questions about. Any help would be very cool.
John

BTW I have been to multiple web site and links that I got from this web site, and google. All give good descriptions on how to collimate, what to expect to see when your scope is in and out of collimation, but I can't find anything about the questions I am asking.

Does anyone know a good web site that delivers information about Seeing conditions for star gazing in the different areas in the US? Any direction would be very helpful, thanks.
John Linc

Right now I am using all 1.25" eyepieces with a 1.25" TV Everbright diagonal. The scope is a C9.25. I am thinking about ordering a nice 2" diagonal.
My question's are: does a 2" diagonal improve the field of view even for 1.25" ep's? Does a 2" diagonal improve brightness when used with 1.25" eyepieces? Is a 2" diagonal really only used for 2" eyepieces for extra wide FOV? Any help here would be very Nice
jlink