Posts Made By: Garrick Taylor

I just acquired a Skyquest XT 10" Dob to replace my crummy 60mm junk refractor. Now I have plenty of telescope for a while, but am short on eyepieces.

It came with 25mm and 10mm Orion Sirius Plossol (1.25") eyepieces. I don't have a fortune to buy eye pieces, so what should I buy next?

I was thinking of first getting a good star map and a laser colluminator.

Next I was thinking a 2X barlow and then a 30-32mm 2" eyepiece.

I thought that would give me one wide FOV eyepiece and using the barlow 25, 12.5, 10, and 5mm eypieces. This would give a magnification range of ~40X to 240X. Is this a good inexpensive way to start? If not, what would those of you in the know out there recommend?

NBC had a story this evening about a couple in Norwood, Ohio. The city is trying to take their home using eminent domain. This is not unheard of when government takes land for public use like to build a highway, etc. This case is disturbing, however, because eminent domain is not being used for a public use. Instead, the city wants to sell the land to a private developer to build condos and a mall. The city calls the people's homes "blighted". When I hear of blighted homes I think of burned out crack houses, not the middle class homes this city is talking about.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6891224/

This is a case of government greed trampling personal rights. The city wants all the taxes the mall would bring regardless of whether the property owners want to move or not. If the government can take my land and pay me what they feel it is worth opposed to what I feel it is worth, do I really own my property?

This is becoming more and more common the last few years and it is really scary.

I am asking for some suggestions.

I have a 10" Skyquest XT dob
1200mm focal length, f=4.7

I want to start to get some decent eyepieces to replace my cheap plossls. The first I want to buy is something in the 5mm range for planetary viewing.

My MAX budget is $100 per ep. That will exclude all those nice Naglers, Radians, and Pentax EPs out there.

I have looked through a 5mm Vixen Lanthanum and I should be able to get a used one under $100. I liked the view through it, especially the nice eye relief. Is that my best bet or is there something else better within my price range? Ideally, this would be something where I could then replace other EPs with the same type later on (7.5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 25mm, 32mm, etc.)

The Orion ED-2 (there is a similar Celestron line X-cel, I think) looks promising at an even lower price point ($50-$65). Anyone have any feedback on these?

Any good suggestions out there?

Thanks,

Garrick

Has anyone here ever made an equatorial platform for their dob?

The commercially available ones cost more than a good telescope, which is more than I can pay. I have read quite a bit on the net and was wondering if anyone has made one and might have some sage advice.

At $1000 for a platform made from $100 in materials, a person could start a business doing this.

Where oh where are the clear skies? :C
I didn't know you could have so much white on a sky clock -- see the attached image!

Garrick

you see 4 wild boar crossing the road on the way up.

I was on vacation last week in the Smoky Mountains and went to what is called "Sassafras Ridge, TN" by the clear sky clock. I saw 4 wild boar on the road on the way up. I almost hit one of them.

Despite a quarter moon, the view was awesome! Never before have I seen so much detail on many things. I will have to post an observing report later. I got in over 40 Messier objects before a heavy fog rolled in at 2:45 am.

Unfortunately, that was the only good night that week. I will have to go back again, though!

Ray Medhurst said:

"They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore."
George Carlin

I wish George Carlin would run for president. He's a nut but he makes more sense than any politician I have ever voted for!

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/carlin4pres/signatures

I am fairly new to this as well, but here is my 2 cents.

I started out with a junk 60mm refractor, so you are at least skipping that step. I now have an Orion 10" Dob, without the "intelliscope" part. I really love this scope, I just wish I had all the money to buy all the accesories I would like to have.

With that in mind I might start with the 10", which gives you plenty of aperture to see a lot of stuff. You will then have spare money to buy the intelliscope controller ($75), a good set of eyepieces ($250 and up), a good filter set ($100 and up), a good set of binoculars ($100 and up) etc., etc.

The accesories you will need may very well cost as much as the telescope you buy.

I am sure others will have better advice than I do......

It's near the Pleiades right now. You can find more details here:

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/comets/article_1396_1.asp

Garrick

Mail one to my address. It doesn't matter which. Hope this helps