Posts Made By: bob smart

I'm going to buy a CCD imager, should I get a SAC7 or a Meade DSI?
Thanks
Bob

I need to get my RV-8 mirrors re-coated. Al Misiuk re-coated them for me about 5 months ago and the coating is coming off already. I am wondering who's best at doing this, Clausing or Spectrum coatings?
Thanks

Bob Smart

I started a thread on this a while back asking where I should have my RV-8's mirrors re-done after Al Misiuk's Failed attempt. I was thinking either Clausing or Spectrum. Spectrum didn't respond to my emails, this was early in the hurricane season so maybe that was the reason. Someone mentioned L&L Optical in California which is close to me (Vancouver BC) so I gave them a try. They were responsive to my inquiries and cordial over the phone. I had the primary coated with semi-enhanced aluminium and the secondary done with a dielectric coating. They took a while longer to do than they originally estimated. They estimated 5 days, it took 5 weeks and for this they were apologetic. Holy shiny mirrors Batman! I'm very happy with the results and the price was very reasonable. I'd recommend them. Now if only it'd clear up! Off the topic, I bought a Skywatcher (Synta) 100 mm ED refractor on the weekend. Four hundred dollars Canadian (USD$340.00) for the OTA! This is one of the original designs with a triplet that they abandoned, the currently available model has a doublet. So far I'm very happy. Optically, it beats the crap out of my Stellarvue 80/9D. Very little CA, very good contrast. The R&P focuser is destined for the rubbish heap, the dewshield is kind of short and I don't like the color but that can be changed.

What you see through a DSI is about equivalent to what you'd see through a 10mm eyepiece in your scope. I've had limited luck on planets with the DSI. Saturn and jupiter turned out after much tweaking. The moon is easy to image. I've had some luck with globular clusters M13, M15 and M4. M27 came out ok, M31 is too large for any of my telescopes to capture entirely with one shot as is M42, you'd have to make a mosaic. I've found that the exposure times it comes up with after using auto-expose are wrong, too long for planets and lunar and too short for DSO's. Build a hartman mask for focus as it's the most important thing in photography and make sure you're polar aligned properly. Basically I'd say you get what you pay for and those excellent images from SBIG instruments come at a very high price.

Here's a shot of Saturn

Floyd, Bob and Doug

Thank you very much all. Off they'll go to Spectrum then.
Ta,

Bob.

PS
Any of you guys ever watch SCTV? Count Floyd and Bob and Doug MacKenzie were characters, eh?

Sure is! I've got two of 'em, one for my SCT and one for my refractor.

You might try Corel Paint Shop Pro X. It's a lot less expensive than PhotoShop and has some neat tricks of it's own. You can download a 30 day free trial version of it.

After 50 years of space exploration who is the leader? is how the question should have been phrased. The current phrasing of the question could be misconstrued as ; in 50 years from now who will be the leader in space exploration?

Tobacco and booze are by far the worst legal drugs. I say we execute the tobacco farmers and those pesky corn growers. It should be done publicly "Taliban" style so we can all get some enjoyment from it. The kids love that sort of stuff.