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Posts Made By: Mark Rice

June 20, 2003 09:32 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Andover Nebula Filter

Posted By Mark Rice
Has anyone tried one of these? The tech details look good.

http://www.andcorp.com/Web_store/Astronomy/Nebula.html

December 30, 2003 07:11 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

U2K trouble, Send Help.

Posted By Mark Rice
Hi guys, I've got a problem. My scope (Ultima 2000) is giving me bad (wrong) warp values when I do a two star alignment. With a 10mm guide eyepiece using Polaris and Betelgeuse I'm getting a warp of +30. Capella and Rigel produce a warp of 6.
Adding spice to the mix, the scope will not return to the initial guide star. I can't give the numbers, but it seems to be off by 180 deg in both alt and az. When I try to return to Polaris it points due south and about -32 deg below the horizon. It's reproducible.
Is my computer shot? This started after replacing the batteries. Slew, finder, and center motors are moving in the correct directions. I also noticed that the cord wrap doesn't work anymore. Is there a way to "reboot" the computer? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Mark

December 30, 2003 07:17 PM Forum: Celestron

U2K owners - ever have this happen?

Posted By Mark Rice
Hi guys, I've got a problem. My scope is giving me bad (wrong) warp values when I do a two star alignment. With a 10mm guide eyepiece using Polaris and Betelgeuse I'm getting a warp of +30. Capella and Rigel produce a warp of 6.
Adding spice to the mix, the scope will not goto the initial guide star. I can't give the numbers, but it
seems to be off by 180 deg in both alt and az. When I try to return to Polaris it points due south and about -32 deg below the horizon (I'm in Dallas). It's reproducible.
Is my computer shot? This started after replacing the batteries. Slew, finder, and center motors are moving
in the correct directions. I also noticed that the cord wrap doesn't work anymore. Is there a way to "reboot" the computer?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Mark

March 24, 2004 01:57 PM Forum: Binoviewers

Binoviewers and Cataracts

Posted By Mark Rice
Howdy all - I've got my breath back after reading the last hundred or so posts (whew!) and I've got a question: Have any of you bino-users had cataract surgery? And does the binoviewer really have a dramatic effect on vision? I've got an implant in my right eye that throws some pretty good sparks and flares when viewing bright objects and I'm getting my left eye done next month. Mono-viewing is getting to be a pretty big strain.
Any comments/commiseration would be appreciated.

October 12, 2004 09:25 AM Forum: A Day in the Life of the Administrator

Disappearing posts

Posted By Mark Rice
I've noticed a few forums with contents that are evaporating into the void. Is there an inactivity threshold on the forums? i.e. "Filters Forum" counts over 70 posts but only shows a few. :S

February 22, 2005 01:01 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

New observing perch

Posted By Mark Rice
I just got this musician's seat to use for observing. Tall enough for my 12" dob with height to spare and it won't sink in soft ground.
Steel construction and it'll hold over 250 lbs 8)

February 22, 2005 01:10 PM Forum: Eyepieces

QX eyepieces? Anybody?

Posted By Mark Rice
Any thoughts on or experience with the Meade QX line? I looked a 26mm over and liked the construction and eye relief; coatings looked good. It looked a lot like a GSO Superview (which ain't too bad).
Got a hole in my lineup that one of these (or the Swan) might fill.

March 11, 2005 08:33 AM Forum: Eyepieces

Re: advice needed on 40mm UO mk-70 and/or Axiom

Posted By Mark Rice
Hi Nils,
Floyd had nice things to say about Orion's 41 Optiluxe. Might have to look into one myself.

March 11, 2005 12:40 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Speaking of astigmatism...

Posted By Mark Rice
Something's been puzzling me lately involving astigmatism. As I understand it, astigmatism is the optical distortion that gets described as "seagulls" towards the periphery of the field and coma is radial smearing (like a certain "free" widefield ep wink )

I've been noticing the seagull effect more or less in all my scopes with all my ep's from f4.9 to f10. But more to the point - the distortion moves around the field with eye movement. Is this to be expected or is it possibly an artifact from a lens implant?
It's more noticeable at low powers/f-ratios. I never got to do much observing before cataracts made an appearance so I don't have any benchmark observations and don't really know how bad it is.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

March 11, 2005 04:12 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: Filters

Posted By Mark Rice
Hi Gary,
Try them at night - the OIII filter will make bright stars appear
bluish/greenish/gray, i.e. not much color and pretty dim; the HII will make all but the brighter stars disappear and the ones you can still see will be reddish. The last time I tried an HII all the stars I could still see were red. It was a Lumicon.

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