Posts Made By: Robert Szabo

After seeing the amazing results people are getting with webcams on planets, I want to give this a shot myself. I am a Mac guy, and I am wondering if the iSight would be a good camera to try. It seems like all the prerequisites are there-1/4" 24-bit ccd chip, etc. The iSight barrel even appears to be the diameter of an eyepiece socket (1.25"). Are there other Apple users here? Has anyone tried this to see if it would work? Any help would be appreciated.

-Rob

I took this pic from the balcony of our hotel room in Maui. Just for scale, I could only wrap my hand half-way around the the rail he is on. He was huge!

These critters move fast! Thankfully, one stopped long enough for me to snap this shot:

I posted this over at CN, and I thought I'd post it here as well.

What do you all think (or know) about making a tube out of perforated aluminum? There are a variety of types available, and I'm sure I could find something rigid enough to support the optical train of my scope.

I don't know if anyone has done this before, as I have not seen anything like it. There must be a good reason not to, but I'm not seeing it. I see a lot of benefits for my particular application. I want to rebuild my 7" Mak and accomplish the following:

-Lighter weight, which would allow me more flexibility with other gear on my mount for imaging

-Faster cool down time

-Looks really cool!

What would be the downside(s) to using this material?
I wanted to use carbon fiber originally, but I found out that it would have really bad tube currents due to CF's insulating nature. Your advice is greatly appreciated.

Here's Miska, my Hungarian Vizsla doing his best Jaguar hood ornament pose:





Thought you all might get a kick out of him.

Hello, ATMers!

I took my first official step toward making my own scope. By dumb luck, I bought an industrial mirror grinding/polishing machine right here on AM. I don't know much about its background, but supposedly it was used in the semiconductor industry. It's very heavy duty...solidly made and weighs a LOT. It's a little rusty in some spots, but it's in perfect working order.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure how I would attach a tool to it, so I thought I'd post some pics and see if I get any recommendations. If any of you live near me and are willing to help me out, you are welcome to use it for your own project as well. Thanks!!

That is exactly what I plan to do, actually. That would reduce dust, bugs, and scattered light.

I'm really liking this idea. I still need to find a good supplier of this material. The few that I have contacted either sell only to businesses or are very expensive. That might end up being my only obstacle.

Thanks for the input, and if you have any pics, please post them! I'd love to see your design.

I prefer crossing my eyes and looking at your Mars image in 3D. 8)

Nicely done!

What type of scope will you be using? The MK80 is my favorite and most used eyepiece. It's sharp (and wonderful) out to the edge in my 7" f/10 Maksutov, but I have no idea how it would perform in a faster scope.

UO 32mm MK-80
UO 18mm Ortho HD
Takahashi 12.5mm LE

Used with a 7" f/10 Maksutov.