Posts Made By: Kenneth Hooper

I plan to purchase the Night Sky Observer's Guide Vols 1 & 2 and I've seen reference to an oversize edition. I can't seem to find any details about this edition and Willman Bell doesn't list it on their web site. I would appreciate it if anyone can provide details and let me know if this edition worth the added expense.

I recently bought a Celestron 9.25" SCT on Astromart. This is my first SCT and I need some information about the tension on the colimation screws. This 'scope came with a set of Bob's Knobs already installed and each is extremely tight and will not turn with what I feel is "normal" finger torque. However, having never owned an SCT, I don't have a feel for what the normal tension of the colimation screws should be so I'd appreciate some advice on this.

I have a used, gray metal C9.25 OTA minus the Celestron dovetail and I would like to use the Losmandy DC9.25 dovetail and G11 saddle to mount it on a GEM.

My problem is that I can't see how to attach the Losmandy dovetail. The bottom of the OTA has one mounting screw on the front casting. However, the rear casting doesn't appear to have any mounting screw locations. Instead, there is one screw for attaching the tube to the casting and four, 6x32 allen screws nearby (I don't know what these are for and I am reluctant to tamper with them).

I assume that there must have been a Celestron dovetail mounted to the bottom of this OTA at one time, but I can't see how it was attached. :S

I'd appreciate some help on this.

John, Chuck, Kim

Thanks for your input.

My reason for asking about the oversize edition is that I looked on Amazon and saw that these books were also available from used book dealers. I checked out a couple of the dealers and they were asking about $70 per book (about
twice the price of a new volume). I saw the word
'oversized' in the their description and thought that this was the reason the books were so overpriced.

I called Willman Bell to inquire about the 'oversize' edition and was told it doesn't exist. I went ahead and put in my order with Willman Bell.

I haven't followed up with any of the used book dealers to find out why they were asking so much money. Maybe they were selling first editions.