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Posts Made By: David Simons

February 5, 2005 09:12 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

2420 and "Companion"

Posted By David Simons
Hi Milton,

We have cloudy skies here in N. California, so I thought I would pull up your description on Desktop Universe. Wow, it should be a very nice sight for wide field scopes. I think the little Eskimo will need some power though to bring out any kind of detail. There are lots of wonderful open clusters a bit lower, just to the left of the bottom of Orion. The Milky way spills through the area.

February 11, 2005 10:00 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Change Secondary Size on a Meade SN?

Posted By David Simons
Hi Bill,

The obstruction on the 8" is huge, and I was starting to see the center blackout if I went too low in power. Here is a shot of the front of the 10" which is also pretty big to give you a rough idea of the mirror size. The 10" did not show the blackout like the 8" did. If you can figure out a way to reduce the 8" obstruction, I'd be very interested, as otherwise the optics on these scopes seem very good.

February 12, 2005 09:28 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Does anyone re-coat lenses?

Posted By David Simons
Hi Bill,

I can't vouch for these folks, but their prices seem very reasonable.

http://www.thinfilmcoating.com/default.htm

Oddly enough, I work at a place with about 20 large coating chambers, (they even coated the Hubble mirror) and I can't get a single mirror or lens coated !!

I had always heard Sirius was an amateur friendly shop. Maybe no-more.

February 12, 2005 09:37 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Your top 3 picks

Posted By David Simons
Chas,

Very nice setup !

I'd be happy with any of the ones you mention, but I would have to have an AP900 mount for the 6" Starfire for sure !

Did you ever have any scopes that you thought should have performed better, but didn't ?


February 12, 2005 09:42 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Just Got Bluetooth Going on my EM200

Posted By David Simons
Randy,

Great idea ! Except my pocket PC does not have bluetooth ! But I will keep it in mind for the next round.


February 18, 2005 03:41 PM Forum: Reflectors

Weighing short & fat vs tall & skinny

Posted By David Simons
Hi Paul,

Have you thought about other mountings for these two scope ? Do you travel much with them ?

I would lean towards the 16", but then again, if you sell both, you can get most of the way towards a really nice 14" that would serve both purposes. I agree about the floaters, and aperture is the only way to cure that for now.

PS. I now look out the "back" of my 10" f6 Newtonian, but that's another story ...


April 6, 2005 11:58 PM Forum: Eyepieces

2" Zoom

Posted By David Simons
John,

I like the idea. Another thought might be to get some kind of a zoom parfocal barlow, that goes from about 1.2X to 2.5X. So with a 2" zoom barlow you can preserve the high end wide field performance of an existing ep, but get an adjustable power range as well.

Denkmeir has a power switching diagonal also.

Orion used to sell a 1.25" adustable barlow, but I have never seen one used.

April 12, 2005 06:08 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Jupiter April 10, 2005

Posted By David Simons
Hi Jim,

I did a little 3-D imaging with your pictures, and for what it's worth the white equatorial band appears to be floating on top of everything else, and the red spot looks slightly sunken in. The images are just slightly too far rotated with respect to each other for my eyes though. If you have some other pictures that have less incremental rotation, it might show the effect better.


Insiring shots !

Jim Phillips said:

Hello,
This is a composite of images made with my TMB 8" F/9 April 10th. FYI.

Jim Phillips

May 13, 2005 05:52 PM Forum: After Dark

Burion 100F6

Posted By David Simons
Jon,

Amazing, frustrated minds must think a like !

Although my story went a little differently ...

>> Viola and the Burion 100F6 was born... <<

I have had a Takahashi 128mm fluorite lens sans tube for a number of years (long story), and the specs for the Tak lens and the BO1278 were so close, I thought they would be a good match. I ordered the BO scope, but when I finally got the scope, I found the lens was so good I could not bear to part it out. So I obtained a second BO1278 and with a very small amount of machining work, was able to transfer the Tak lens into the BO OTA. Now this setup is really sweet. A lightweight 5" APO in an unassuming BO tube.

I suppose this might be a Burtak ? Or TakaBO smile

The picture is the Tak lens under cross polarized light. I was told the C-shaped shadows are apparantly a common effect, and the wavery cloth-like appearance is actually the variation in refractive index through the fluorite.

May 17, 2005 09:05 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

May DSO List

Posted By David Simons
Dave Mitsky said:

...
Dave Mitsky

One hundred and sixty-five deep-sky objects for May: ...

I was wondering what I would do with my 12" LX200 when the sky clears up here.

Awesome list Dave, but I'll second the motion to see a grouping for aperture, maybe 8" targets, then 12+" ?


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