Posts Made By: Gary Pakalski

Hi Everyone,
New to the group. Here's my 18" I started building last August. I have it on a make-shift rocker box so I can atleast use it.
Gary

Anyone out there have any experience building a Schiefspiegler style telescope with a 16" f4.5 mirror?

I have the mirror and am thinking outside the box on this one (or should I say inside?) .

Everything I've seen on the internet so far is smaller/slower mirrors. Is his even possible?

Any advise is welcome, including telling me I'm nuts and just build another Dob :S .

Gary

This is a 10" f4.5 dob that I built last year. The white material on the scope is from a chunk of 12" PVC water main pipe with a wall thickness of 7/8".

I named her "Aquarius" ( get it? water main pipe?)

Gary

Hi All,
I have a 16" mirror that came out of a M**de Dobsonian telescope. It has markings on the back (in Magic marker). They are a series of numbers printed in a vertical column as follows:
.3
-.7
.1
.1
.5
.7
There is a small 7.36 written next to the last .7

Any decoder rings out there?

Gary Pakalski

Hi everyone, I have a question. I have a 16" mirror from an old M..de Dob and I wonder if it's possible to drill a hole in the center and use it to make a cassigrain scope. No corrector plate. Truss design. I'd like to eventually mount it on a GEM and use it for photography. Assuming this is possible, what size secondary should I look for?

Any comments would be appreciated,
Thanks

Gary Pakalski

Hi everyone,
I'm have an opportunity to pick up a Televue 101 (not an NP) and I'm thinking of putting it to the top of my LXD75 mount, then mounting my WO 66ED on that for guiding. With the 2 scopes, 20d,and a ST4 I should be well under weight limits. I've done my own degrease and polished the gears. Tightened the worm gear.

Anyone have experence with anything similar? I'd love to hear any and all opinions!

Thanks,
Gary

Hi Everyone,
Here's my stack of 5 - 10 second shots. Cannon 20d unmod, 8" Newt on a Advanced Series GT mount. I shot several 30 sec. and tried to stack them, but it get's so washed out, it looks like an over exposed moon pic with a weird blue halo!

Thanks for looking,
Gary

Anyone see the 16" mirror on *bay? They say it's f/1.2 "Terabeam". Anyone got any better ideas what this would be for other than what I'm thinking?

Gary

Hi everyone,
Two weeks ago, my wife and I went on vacation from Arizona, back to our "homeland" of Wisconsin. I was born and raised in the valley south of Green Bay,but this time we stayed in a small town on Geneva Lake (those of you history buffs know where I'm going!). At Williams Bay is a observatory not like any you may have seen. A dome housing the largest refrator in the world. Built in 1895! With an OTA over 60 ft. long! Built and maintained by the University of Chicago and named after a wealthy but somewhat questionable guy buy the name of Charles Yerkes (pronounced Yerk-ES).

I had the opportunity to have a tour of the facility along with two friends, on a cloudy, rainy Thursday afternoon. Our tour guide was an extremely knowlagable fellow by the name of Rich Dreiser. As we walked up to the large 3" thick wooden doors of the frony entry, and rang the bell, Rich came to meet us and after the customary introductions, our tour started.

OK, so it sounds like the start of a Hitchcock movie, but it was INCREDABLE!

To listen and learn of the begining of the observatory sponsered by the University of Chicago in the late 1800's, and the would be astronomers of the time, who became part of our everyday venacular. From Kuiper and his "belt", to Ritchey and his lenses, to Barnard and "what was missing" in his early photography. And most of all the early years of Spectrographs with G.E.Hale and Sherburne Burnham. Oh, Ya a guy named Eienstien also hung out there too.

Any of you within one light year of this facility, and loves astronomy............
you gotta see this! I promise you, you'll go home, and first night out next to your scope, you'll look up,think back,and have a new appreciation for how far that "liitle" hunk of glass you just went to your local store and bought, has come.

gary

P.S. Yerkes operates on donations and it's main focus today is on outreach and education to schools. Help their stuardship and keep the 40" alive.

P.S.S. I have no connection with the observatory, other than my one visit.

Hi Everyone,
I need some help.

I have a Celestron C8-NGT that I bought (traded) less than a year ago (my 12th scope in 10 years). I have an opportunity (I think) to trade it for an Atares 153mm f/6 achro refractor on a Sky Watcher HEQ -5 GEM (non-goto, not an issue with me). I also have a WO 66 Petzval to mount on top or use buy it's self. The HEQ-5 seems much stronger than the Celestron. Camera: Cannon 20d. I am also about to finish building a 16" Dob for star hopping.

I'm really thinking about it mainly for the mount. I could see using the scope as a "down payment" on an NP101 down the road.

Help!
Gary