Posts Made By: Don Spencer

the 12mm and 17mm t4 naglers. Of course you all know what happens now...CLOUDS! Damn marine layer!

Have have an opprotuninty to pick one of these eyepieces up. Anyone have any experiences with it? Does it work well in an F/10 scope?
Thanks,
Don

Well, it seems that the threaded whole that the set screw threads into on my MEade 2" diaganol is stripped. Is there anything I can do to fix this or should I just bury it in the back yard? (BTW, I like the latter..means I'll have to run out and get an Everbright! :-) )
TIA,
Don Spencer
member SDAA
www.sdaa.org

Posted on Wed, May. 29, 2002

Tasco starts selling assets
Telescope maker squeezed by debt
BY PATRICK DANNER
[email protected]

Miramar-based Tasco Worldwide, an importer and distributor of binoculars and telescopes and once one of South Florida's largest privately owned businesses, began the process of liquidating on Tuesday.

Tasco tapped Miami accountant James S. Feltman to take control of the firm's assets and represent creditors' interests. The liquidation will be overseen by the Broward County Circuit Court.

The company, which controlled production of its merchandise by manufacturers in the Far East, had been searching for a buyer before selecting Feltman to oversee the sale of its assets.

''While the lenders were very cooperative, it wasn't able to find a buyer to preserve the company as a going concern,'' said Brian Gart, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer representing Tasco. He added it ''remains to be seen'' whether the company is sold intact or in pieces.

Gart said Tasco wasn't able to service the debt to its secured lenders, led by Heller Financial, after a dramatic drop-off in sales. Last year, Tasco went into default on the lending facility, which stands at about $30 million.

Tasco still has a couple of dozen employees on the payroll to assist with the liquidation, which is expected to run through September, Gart said. Two weeks ago, a company official said Tasco had about 70 employees.

Tasco ranks have been significantly thinned since company founder George Rosenfield sold the business in March 1996. At the time, it employed 160 in Miami-Dade County and as many as 40 in distribution in the state of Washington. Annual revenue was about $110 million when the sale closed, he said.

Reached Tuesday, Rosenfield lamented the demise of a business he started in 1954.

Well, I have been reading this forum since its inception, so I thought I would make a meaningless contribution.
Under less than ideal conditions (LVM estimated at at 5.0 at best), with a very heavy haze to about 40 degrees above the horizone, I set out to observe some spectacular carbon stars and some previously unseen NGC objects.
With the 12" LX200 cooled and ready for action, my first target was the "Christmas tree light", V Hydra. Sitting at about 25 degrees above the horizone in the SW, I found this fascinating red star, virtually alone in my 31mm proxima's FOV.True to peoples word, this star looked like a stand alone red Xmas tree light at Mag. 10.
Next up was U Hydra, shimmering at mag. 9.4. This was significantly less red than V Hydra, glowing more at a bright orange.
U Hydra was follow by the less known globular cluster 6229 in Hercules. Viewed at both 179 and 254 power, this glob showed itself as just a faint hazy patch, being brighter towards the middle. At 254 power, I was able to discern some outside stars with AV.
At this point, I was startled by an amazing fireball, running south to north, 10 degrees below zenith in the east. As the fireball broke up, it displayed greenish red colors. At this point, the seeing started to go to pot, so I finished up with a good look at NGC 4697 (9.3 E4 type galaxy in Virgo), followed by carbon star V CRB (Corona Borealis) and carbon star VY Uma. It turned out to be a splendid night, considering the crummy seeing conditions.
DOn

Well, good old "Murphy" gave us a break and allowed us some great clear skies for the eclipse. Here in San Diego, we got approx. 75% coverage. This is my first eclipse through a telescope and I thought it was fantastic!
Don Spencer
member SDAA
www.sdaa.org

taken through a 12" LX200, 31mm Proxima, and a thousand Oaks type 2 solar filter...

YEsterday, my wonderful children bought me a canon scanner with 35mm negative film capabilities. So, I scanned in some negatives last night, all of which were shot on Fuji Press 800asa. what a big difference between scanning a negative and scanning a print. I finally see how much over processing my developer was doing. I also found out why! My 2 45 minute shots from my dark sky site had sky fog in them.
The fuji PRess 800asa film really impressed me. Definetly much more color than the Superia 800.
Now to my ? Which film do you all think is best for scanning negatives?
Don

The 9.5mm ED-2 arrived via Fedx this afternoon, so tonight, under an almost full moon, I decided to give it a quick test drive. The first thing I noticed about this eyepice is the rose color of the exit pupil, but it did not seem to bother me once I started looking through it. It feels well built in your hand, comes with 2 very secure end caps and a nice bolt case. The first test of the eyepice was on the moon. Right off the bat, I had to battle the kidney bean effect, which is a little worse than what you see in the 35 panoptic. Once you get used to where your eye positioning should be (the eye cup is very comfortable), the kidney beaning is less noticable. BAck to the moon. Even though the SCT wasn't quite at ambiant temp., the veiw of the moon was pretty clean and crisp. It did, however, have have some false color on the edge of the moon (a blue hue). I tried to test it on Vega, but the SCT just wasn't cool enough, so I went to both M13 and M92. Very nice. The stars seemed to be pinpoint (as best I could tell) all the way to the edges and the contrast seemed quite good. Lastly, I went to M57. Even with the moon up and from light polluted skies, I stood out against a pretty dark background. So, bottom line is, this eyepiece received a thumbs up! Price with shipping and tax, around $84 dollars. I guess I will have to wait for Saturn and Jupitor to show back up to give it the ultimate test.
Don Spencer
member SDAA
www.sdaa.org

Here is the film I have been working with. So far, I have been satisifed with it. Anyone else tried this?

http://www.fujifilm.com/JSP/fuji/epartners/Products.jsp?nav=-2&parent=238566&product=2300863
Don Spencer
member SDAA
www.sdaa.org