Posts Made By: James DellaPenna

David, I recently purchased the Lowes aluminum toolcase and I too can vouch for its quality. The best part is the "pluck out" foam so you can custom fit whatever you want to carry. I used one of the full depth dividers to make a narrow space where I carry filters in a folder, flashlight, small tools, and even my slow motion cables. At $19.95 this case is one of the best bargains available for amatuer astonomers!

Dominigue,

I assure you that President Bush does not have the complete backing of American citizens for all his actions. I agree with Jim Lacey that now we are there, we need to finish the job. I have not been in favor of invasion without massive U.N. approval and participation. Personally I think this issue should have been addressed as soon as nations realized Saddam was not going to abide by post Gulf War stipulations. I think President Clinton failed to push it as far as Bush because he realized he would not obtain the international backing needed.

Bush has simply bulled ahead somewhat unmindful of the importance of getting along with our allies and other nations. Unfortunately, this will come back to haunt us for years to come. As for the U.N., I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that this is a world body excellent in its international relief efforts but rather incompetent when it comes to the really hard decisions. Serbia is a prime recent example.

As for the U.S. ongoing response to worldwide terrorism I do not apologize for our forwardness on this subject. Saddam may have been dubiously sucked up into the terrorist support arguement but I don't feel sorry for him. Diplomacy aside, I think a very cynical perspective on our new war against Saddam is that it is something we are finally doing because we can get away with it. Iran & North Korea are not the pushovers that Iraq is.

Verle,

I just bought a 2-year old C9.25 already improved with a heavy duty wooden tripod from alsastro.com which puts the original aluminum tripod to shame. At 20 pounds+ the C9.25 does stretch the limit of of the CG-5 mount but with a wooden tripod it is an excellent set-up for "non go-to" star hopping astronomy. I also added the polar finder (a waste of money) plus dual drives and fomex dew shield.

I agree with another member who said to go with the OTA only and match it to a go-to Losmandy mount if you can afford it, providing these are bells and whistles you really need as opposed to just nice to have.

My strongest eyepiece is a Pentax XL 10.5mm, which at 224x is about the limit on this scope for most Raleigh, NC viewing. If you are in a very rural area with virtually non-existant light pollution I expect you could go much higher in power without loss of definition. I also use Meade 13.8mm & 18mm super wide angle plus Celestron 25mm plossl and a cheap 40mm plossl. With its f/10 feature this scope definitely requires some low power wide field eyepieces if you want to look at large clusters such as the "beehive", the Pleides, the Andromeda galaxy, or large nebular objects. This will require either going to a 2" diagonal mirror & 2" eyepieces --or-- going with a focal reducer --or-- both. A focal reducer from Celestron or Meade will increase your true field of view by 56%.

I was about to make the leap into 2" diagonal, 2" eyepieces, plus a focal reducer but decided for a lot less money to get Orion's 120ST 4.7" refractor to use on my CG-5 mount while waiting for my C9.25 to cool down. I may still do all that later but I think the Orion refractor will give me the wide fields I'm really wanting for the time being and it gives me something to do while the SCT cools down.

Other great advice you have already received is to take it slow at first, join a club, and get feedback from people with years of experience. I too have picked up tons of information just reading Astromart Forums. Unlike most chat rooms the people who participate on Astromart are just like the people you will meet at a club. Everybody has advice to offer and are anxious to help others.

Hugh,

I have both the Meade 2x shorty and Meade #140 2x barlows for my C9.25. My limited experience has confirmed that use of these require exceptional viewing conditions and even then their image quality is marginal at best. A Televue 2.5x Powermate is sort of on my wish list but I'm going to borrow someone else's to see what it's like before actually spending any more money on this type of accessory. I would like to hear from other members who have experience using the 2.5 Powermate on the C9.25. Does the performance come anywhere remotely close to the manfacturer's hype? Specifically, if matched up with a Meade 18mm SW (yielding 325x) are we looking at something useful or are we limited to super rare viewing nights?

Part of my scepticism about barlows may be a result of less than perfect collimation but I would still like feedback on the Powermate 2.5x. Thank you.

John,

I'm fairly new at this also but one thing I know is that it's normal for the star to move out of FOV every time you touch one of those knobs. After each adjustment it is necessary to recenter the star in the FOV.

You should not have a loose screw/knob! Apparently you have turned the knob too far in one direction to the point of completely loosening it. If this is the case then probably all of the knobs (screws) have been turned too far counterclockwise. This is just an assumption.

I expect you will receive much more advice in this forum than I can give you on how to rectify your present situation. At least now you know FOV moves every time you turn a screw.

Jake, I have the same problem but no solution. I also feel my purchase of this polar scope was a waste of money because I can't see the polar circle, let alone the tiny circle for Polaris. This piece of equipment is of little use without some means of illuminating the circles.

Duane,

Are you doing these star parties alone or with help from a local astronomy club? I realize some people do these things alone and think they have to have lots of equipment. I've been to two local star parties at elementary schools recently when they had a science fair. On both occasions 4 club members showed up with their scopes to serve about 100 students and up to 200 parents. We had lines but that was mostly because each of us chose a different subject so everybody wanted to see through every scope.

If you are doing it alone I wouldn't get too concerned about what kind of equipment you have except of course RA drive. Most of these kids are so tickled to death to see through a telescope they don't really care whether it's a 4" refractor, 5" Mak-Cassegrain, or an 8" Newtonion. Even with RA drive you are probably still going to have to keep checking to make sure it is tracking O.K. and DEC will need occasional adjustment.

Nathan,

Check Adorama.com for best price on the Celestron dual drives for the CG5.

Andrew,

I can't resist! Are you following all of this? What do you make of the arguements put forth?

Thanks for the input on this thread. I have gathered that for my purposes the narrowband filter is the way to go for nebulae and star clusters but not to expect any real improvement on galaxies.