Posts Made By: Maurice Clark

Happy ANZAC day to all.

Maurice

Hi all. Here is one for the experienced. Sometime within the next 12 months I plan to completely upgrade my imaging equipment and I am pondering which mount to get.

The telescope will be a 14" celestron plus 5" f/5 refractor. The primary use of the equipment will be CCD imaging of asteroids and comets. GOTO is a must for this. I have been considering the Paramount, but one of the main features of this mount is the robotic possibilities. This I do not need.

Anyone have any thoughts on alternatives to the Paramount?

Regards,

Maurice

Hi all,

I thought some of you might find this site interesting. It belongs to the father of one of my observational astronomy students. The son has worked with his father on these images. And I am supposed to be teaching HIM how to do CCD imaging!!!????????

Regards,

Maurice

http://www.markandcandace.com/astronomy/

Hi all,

Just received an alert from the S&T warnings about possible auroral activity over the next few nights. (max chance May 30)

Could be worth keeping an eye out.

Maurice

By the way, did anyone see the auroral display last Wednesday? Many bright rays and some reddish colour visible early evening (twilight) here in Minnesota. Unfortunately by the time it was fully dark (at least... what passes for fully dark around here! :-() the display had died away.

Hi All,

Finally had a couple of clear nights here in Minnesota.

This is an LRGB of M16. ST-8E, 8" f/6.3 LX200.
10x1 minute L, 5 x 1 minute RGB.

Cheers,

Maurice

Here is an LRGB of M17.

ST-8E, 8" f/6.3 LX200.

18 x 1 minute L. 5 x 1 minute RGB.

Enjoy.

Maurice

"Blogs"?????????!!!!!!!!!

Maurice

Hi all.

Today I was having a look at a map of Montour County in central Pennsylvania and it had an observatory marked. It is called "Mhize-Rhuls Astronomical Observatory". No-one here at Bucknell University knows anything about it and a Google search came up blank.

Does anyone know anything about this observatory?

Cheers

Maurice

Has anyone seen Orion's latest S&T advert? (September edition already!!!! Do the editors have access to a time warp or something?? :-))

As part of the ad for their eyepieces they show a photo looking down onto the eyepiece and pictured inside the lens is a beautiful, full-colour image of M42.

We on this forum have often critized manufacturers of department store toy scopes for putting on the box Hubble-type photos to sucker in the buyers, but I certainly would have hoped that someone like Orion would not have stooped so low. While you would hope that readers of S&T would be savvy enough not to be fooled by such an add, it is still very deceptive IMHO.

Shame on Orion.

Maurice

Sometimes you wonder about some people.......

Maurice

The 2003 Darwin Award Winners:

When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.....

And now, the honorable mentions:

The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company.The company, suspecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

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A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
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After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to beltway had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.
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An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
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A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer...$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?) Hurricane Grad?

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