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Posts Made By: Tybee Evans

September 12, 2003 11:44 PM Forum: Eyepieces

UO Orthos – Standard or HD?

Posted By Tybee Evans

I’ve got a Pentax Ortho and would love the whole set but reality says no can afford. I’d like to get a full set of the UO Orthos and am wondering if the new HD’s are noticeably superior? Has anyone had a chance to compare these? Is there a compelling reason to spend the extra $20 on the HD?

September 27, 2003 03:36 PM Forum: Refractors

Small Refractor for Wide Field and Planetary?

Posted By Tybee Evans

I’ve been using one of the short tube 80’s recently and have been having a ball with it. I’ve really enjoyed the Wide Field scanning on a photographic tripod. Some of my favorite targets have always been the planets but when I try to pump up the magnification to get a good view of Mars it’s been pretty disappointing. It’s been awhile since I’ve given a nickname to one of my scopes but I’ve been calling this one the Kaleidoscope lately.

The high contrast and pinpoint stellar images have made me want a high quality refractor. I’d like something I can still use for Wide Field scanning on a simple photo tripod with a pan head, but I’d also like to be able to use 175x to 200x for discriminating observations of planets. Is there such a scope?

I like the concept of the Borg design and have looked at their 76ED coupled with a 100ACH objective. I think the achromat would be fine for the Wide Field work but I’m not sure if 76mm is enough aperture to resolve planetary detail.

I also like the Takahashi Sky 90.

Are there others I should consider? Am I making a mistake by ruling out a higher quality achromat like the APM 102 triplet or the Stellarvue AT1010?

Budget is always a concern or I guess I would just get a AP Traveler and be done. It looks like I’ll be able to budget around $1500 for an OTA. I’d like to be able to attach it to a standard photo pan head, but I can also mount it on a Super Polaris mount when necessary. The idea of purchasing used is appealing.

Any thoughts or recommendations would be appreciated.

Tybee

October 18, 2003 01:55 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

I need a case for my Orion 80ED

Posted By Tybee Evans

I’m trying to find a travel case for my 80ED. I don’t want to spend $250 or more so the nice custom cases are out. I’d like to keep it below $150. I’ve found two possibilities:

1. The Williams Optics case for the FLT-110
2. The Stellarvue Long Refractor Case – #C6

The Williams Optics case for $189 is a little higher than my price-point and the dimensions aren’t listed on their web site. All they mention is interior length 600mm and that it also will also hold a Takahashi FSQ-106

The Stellarvue case is 10” x 10 ½” x 32.5. I’m not sure if this is the outside or inside dimensions. It sounds about right and at $100 looks very attractive.

Are there any other contenders? I’d really like a case that could hold the OTA, 2” Diagonal and about a dozen eyepieces but I haven’t found anything like that yet.

Thanks,
Tybee

November 23, 2003 05:28 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

First attempt with Orion 80ED

Posted By Tybee Evans

OK. I keep telling myself I’m not going to do this anymore. It’s just too much trouble and too much expense and there are people doing this who are FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR better at it than I, but I just can’t control myself.

This is an attempt to see what this Orion 80ED may be capable of. Other than being out of focus, having an extremely dirty CCD chip (and no flat field processing), and saturating out the detector on almost all the exposures, this ones pretty bad. I’m only posting it because I have yet to see any attempts at this type of photography through this scope and I figured someone might be interested. If I keep the resolution low maybe you can’t tell just how bad this really is.

I can tell that someone is going to be able to take excellent Astrophotos through this scope.

November 27, 2003 03:34 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

2nd attempt with 80ED

Posted By Tybee Evans

OK, I got a little more serious this time. I learned that this camera saturates out pretty quick so I limited my exposures to 30 seconds this time. I also used a flat field. I think I got some pretty good data but now I need to work on my processing technique.

Orion 80ED - prime focus
D100
36 - 30 second exposure with auto dark subtract
Aligned and stacked in K3CCD Tools
Final processing in Photoshop
Resized to 1/3 for posting

December 4, 2003 12:05 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

What Mount?

Posted By Tybee Evans

I was trying my hand at some piggyback photography last week. I mounted my Nikon lens piggyback on my Orion 80ED and my Super Polaris mount collapsed. What kind of mount do I need for this lens?

December 27, 2003 09:54 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Saturn with a cheap WebCam

Posted By Tybee Evans

And I mean REALLY cheap.

This is from a Micro Innovations IC50C Web Cam. I bought this one at the local Micro Center for less than $20 but I see the big auction site has plenty of them bidding for $5 and less.

This camera is about as basic as you can get. It took a lot of processing to get it this good. I’m sure most of you could get much better from this little cheap camera.

4 AVI’s of 1300 frames were captured with K3CCD. Then 400 frames from each were automatically aligned and stacked with K3CCD. Each image had each channel individually stretched. This was necessary because the green and blue channels had much less signal than the red. Then the resulting images were unsharp masked in Photoshop 6 before final stacking in K3CCD. Then a final sharpening in Photoshop finished the processing.

October 4, 2006 12:15 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Re: Uranus last night

Posted By Tybee Evans

That looks very good Alvaro especially with such modest equipment I'm impressed.

October 3, 2003 09:21 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

144 tooth worm wheel

Posted By Tybee Evans

My Vixen Super Polaris mount uses a 144 tooth gear. My old Meade DS-10 which later became the Starfinder also used a 144 tooth gear. I recently bought a motor kit for a CG-5 and modified the motor mount to use on my Super Polaris. This is the same as Orion’s #7832 but the Celestron version can be found slightly cheaper. The Celestron version is #93523. ATWB has it listed for $105.

You can also get a 1/10 rpm synchronous motor from Telescope Warehouse or Apogee, but these require AC and a drive corrector which are getting difficult to find.

You could also get a Meade Autostar Controller and motors and turn your drive into a goto. Do a Google search on “Super Polaris Autostar”.

You have several options.

Tybee

October 11, 2003 05:43 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Speaking of The Orion 80mm APO

Posted By Tybee Evans

I agree. A 100mm in that price range would be a tremendous hit but I have to say that I've been amazed at the detail the 80 provides on the planets.