Posts Made By: Anthony Graves

I recently purchased a Pentax zoom eyepiece that is very large. I am using it with a TV Ranger with a TV 1.25" 90 degree diagonal. The diagonal uses a set-screw to secure the eyepiece. When I twist the zoom to change power it puts considerable force on the set-screw, which I do not like to do. I'm looking for suggestions for a 1.25" diagonal that uses a compression fit to hold eyepieces. The Ranger will only take 1.25" diagonals. Thanks for any feedback.

The aurora was visible at approx 715 pm last night as a large red area fairly high in the sky in the north. My location is on the south shore near the midpoint of the island. It was visible for a short time despite some high altitude clouds and light pollution. I could not discern pillars or greens and blues as stated in some of the other posts. I checked the skies from 7pm until 2 am and the 715 sighting was the only time I saw the display. After having looked for the northern lights numerous times over the last two years it was really thrilling finally to see them!

I set my Ranger up last night. After letting it cool down for an hour the fine focuser was stiff to the point of being useless. Has anyone solved this problem? Thanks in advance for any info.

Glen; In taking my Ranger apart there were three allen head screws. Two tiny ones hold the retaining ring at the back of the rubber-ringed focuser and one larger one that is mounted in the internal focus tube.

In your shoes I would call Televue; at most they'd need to ship you the retaining ring and two tiny allen head screws, and maybe its only that larger allen head screw you need. Either way I would not expect it to be very expensive and think it is something you can fix yourself without sending the scope back to Televue.

Five of us observed it from the south shore of Long Island, NY from shortly after moonrise until about 9-930pm. With 8x binoculars it appeared to be cloudlike with oddly linear features and more of a three-dimensional appearance (like a nebula) than most terrestrial clouds. I say cloud, but it was so localized that it is hard to imagine it was in our atmosphere. We saw a blinking light at one end for a while.

The "object" was midway to the zenith and was bright when we first noticed it. In a loose sense it was also opposite the bright nearly full moon. It became progressively dimmer as it reached zenith. On another website I saw the possibility listed that it was related to the Atlas Rocket launch from Canaveral that occurred at something like 7:20 p.m. east coast time last night. Possibly a stage separation? Fuel dump? Whatever it was it was both eerie and spectacular.