Posts Made By: George Golitzin

January 7, 2005 12:10 AM Forum: Reflectors

help needed with crummy meade focuser

Posted By George Golitzin

HI all--

I've been working on a collection of telescopes at my daughter's middle school--unfortunately two of these scopes are Meade 4.5" f/8 goto reflectors with 2" plastic focusers. This focuser has an adapter for .965" eyepieces which screws onto the drawtube, rather than the traditional setscrew arrangement. The supplied Huygens eyepieces are hideously bad.

Does anyone know if meade made another adapter for 1.25" eyepieces that screws onto the same 2" drawtube? And where might I find one or two? The thing is, the OTAs aren't worth enough to warrant the purchase of a decent focuser, but the scopes would be usable with 1.25" eyepieces.

Thanks for your help,
George

February 11, 2005 09:23 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

some galaxies in UMa

Posted By George Golitzin

HI all--

Finally got a decent night at my home in Petaluma, 39degF, clear and calm, LM 5, seeing decent, maybe 7/10. Looked at a few galaxies near the bowl of the big dipper, new ones for me, in my 16"; eyepieces a 16mmT5 and 11mmT6. I was happy with the detail I could see despite my semi-suburb location.

ngc 2950, 1 deg W of 29upsilon-UMa, small, bright, almost stellar, maybe 1 arcminute wide.

ngc 3079, 8 deg W of beta, very nice! edge-on, extended 135deg about 8 arcminutes, central bulge, hint of dust in AV?, mag 12 or 13 star embedded in NW tip.

ngc 3359, NW of alpha, a 2:1 oval, maybe 7 arcmin long, quite faint. In the 11mm detected a central bar. (I was very happy with that observation. Not knowing the galaxy beforehand,I came in and checked the DSS image--it's a pretty dramatic SB type.)

ngc 4041 and 4036, roughly 5 deg NNW of delta UMa, a lovely pair aligned north/south. about 20 arcmin apart, 4036 is to the south, elongated 80 degrees, 3:1, bright core, about 4 arcmin long. 4041 is of similar brightness but rounder, more diffuse.

ngc 4605, 6 deg NNW of epsilon, magnificent! elongated 120 degrees, 3:1 or maybe 4:1, lens shaped, 7 arcmin long, and definitely fatter at its western end.

ngc 3738 and 3756, a nice pair, arranged nw/se, in line with the mag 6 bowl star sao 28064 (W of gamma). 3756 is larger and dimmer, more elongated, about 2:1 roughly N/S, mottled. 3738 brighter and rounder. A nice chain of 5 mag 9 or 10 (?) stars links them in a graceful arc.

Well then some high clouds blew in from the south, and I finished the night with a good view of Saturn at 360X, the crepe ring very evident, cassini a solid gap all around, and nice shading on the orb itself, little enceladus at western elongation. Overall a great 2 hours of observing.

Best regards
George

August 12, 2005 02:05 AM Forum: Pictures of Me and My Telescope and........

some atm stuff

Posted By George Golitzin

Hi everybody--been awhile since I've posted on astromart--thought I'd show you my atm efforts.

1. Me on my catsperch knock-off mark II. The first one was too heavy, so this one (sorry not very visible) is made of cedar fence boards--very light and cheap

2. orion 4" f/6 on telepod wannabe, made of scrap pieces of birch flooring. works pretty well for low-power sweeping and birding. Note the tupperware/baader solar filter that fits snugly in the dewcap.

3. 8" f/5 discovery mirror (a great plate glass mirror--thanks discovery). some of the ideas came from skyandtel's 8" travelscope, such as the curved spider design; the triple parallel "truss" came from Albert Highe. It was intended to pack up into an airline portable carry-on package, but post 9/11 it's just too weird to carry past security.

4. 16" f/5 swayze. I've added a dew heater made of nichrome wire siliconed to the secondary, and a dew shield of abs with black felt flocking. Also added a-frame cross-bars to stiffen the scope at low altitudes--they seem to help a bit.

anyway, best regards to everyone
George

August 22, 2005 03:40 AM Forum: Eyepieces

27 pan question

Posted By George Golitzin

Hi everybody--
on the televue website the 27 pan is listed as parfocal group "A", while the type 6 naglers and 16 type 5 are in parfocal group "B"--so can anyone tell me how much focus travel there is between these two, specifically, between the 27 pan and either the 16 type 5 or the 11 type 6? Thanks,
George
(considering a helical with limited travel)

September 7, 2005 09:31 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

galaxy hunting over Labor Day

Posted By George Golitzin




Hi all—

I had a great labor day weekend hunting down galaxies mainly in Eridanus, Fornax, and Sculptor. I was inspired by Maurice Clark's recent post of pics from down under, particularly of ngc 55 in Sculptor and ngc 1365, the great barred spiral in Fornax. I've wanted to see these two for some time, but they're pretty far south for my 40 degrees north location. I was up at my cabin in Trinity County, CA, where it is very dark—I can't really tell you the LM given my poor vision, but clouds are black at night and the MW casts a shadow. My 16" was at home, so I observed with a 13" coulter from the community college where I work, which I had just rebuilt into a 3 strut parallel truss tube, nagler 16 and 11mm eyepieces, and a celestron 30mm that gave me an even 1 degree of field for navigating. It was like shooting fish in a barrel—the mag 4 stars collectively labelled tau-eridani were brighter than the big dipper is at home—and so I was never more than a few degrees from a guide star.

I set up my scope to line up a break in the trees with the gap in the hills due south—at –39.3 degrees DEC, ngc 55 was only 10 degrees in altitude at its transit at 2:40 a.m., and I found it just above the trees in the distance. It is a fabulous galaxy, extending nearly 30' ESE, and much brighter at its western end. Another highlight was ngc 134, 40' east of eta-Scl; a pretty edge-on, inclined NE-SW in 4:1 aspect; it points SW at a remarkable asterism of 5 stars arranged in a square with one at the center, in the same 1 degree field, a pretty sight. I also succeeded with 1365 the next morning, waiting for it to emerge from a pine tree at 5:30 a.m., as the twilight was brightening—I'm happy with the conquest, but it'll need a few months before I can get any detail--I only saw a portion of the central bar. I was amazed at the colors in M42, having never viewed it from a really dark site. Below is a list of the galaxies I found for the first time; in addition I found, quite by accident, the extraordinary PN 1360 in Fornax, and viewed a handful of favorites in Triangulum—925, 784, and of course M33, which showed wonderful spiral structure and multiple HII regions.

Sculptor: 7793, 55, 134, 150, 254, 300, 613
Cetus: 578, 779, 864, 908; (also looked at 1042, 1052, and 1022 again)
Eridanus: 1084, 1187, 1232, 1297, 1300, 1319, 1325, 1332, 1395, 1400, 1401, 1407, 1415, 1426
Pisces: 660, 718, 520
Fornax: 1201, 1255, 1302, 1316, 1317, 1326, 1365, 1371, 1385, 1398
Aries 821, 871, 877, 972, 1012
Bootes: 5557, 5660, 5673, 5676, 5689, 5693
Ursa Major: 5631
Ursa Minor: 6217 (very nice and easy to find, BTW)

A nice haul of 50 "new" galaxies or so! Hope you'll forgive the long post.
George

October 26, 2005 10:35 PM Forum: Telescope Making

latest effort-10

Posted By George Golitzin

Here's my latest. 10" f/5.6, built around an older Orion mirror made by Discovery. Weighs 36 lbs total, eyepiece height 54" at zenith. Made everything except the focuser and the optics. Came in well under $400 (thank you astromart). Very happy with it mechanically, but I'm still waiting for first light, though I've been done for a week.

The cutouts on the mirror box were inspired by Ed Taychert's folded dob
(http://www.irony.com/Ed/astro/18inch/), and the circular cutout on the rocker, as well as the courage to use 1/2" ply on the rocker sides, from Albert Highe's designs.(http://pw2.netcom.com/~ahighe/home.html)
The holes on the rocker sides provide a very convenient hand-hold for picking up the whole thing. The cutout mirror box allows me to store the secondary cage within the confines of the mirror box sides for transport (next pic). I was afraid they would weaken the structure, but once the altitude bearings went on the whole thing stiffened up nicely. It's really quite rigid. The pole seats are 1" aluminum square tubing filled with a maple plug, drilled to accept the 3/4" truss tubes. I got away with just 1.5 lbs of counterweight (steel bars at back of mirror box), and it balances nicely with up to a pound of eyepiece. The mirror cover sits on the back of the mirror box, supported by the counterweight, to act as a dew shield when observing. Tom Simmons' suggestion resulted in a 1.25" baffle placed in the drawtube of the focuser, which I'm very happy with. Finally, a friend suggested the idea of recessing the light baffle opposite the focuser--this should prevent shallow reflections from bright targets messing up the contrast.

Next post I'll show it packed up for travel.

George

January 4, 2006 09:15 PM Forum: Eyepieces

tv barlow

Posted By George Golitzin

Hi all--
Could someone give me the overall length of the 1.25" 2X televue barlow? Can't seem to find that datum anywhere. I'm cutting foam for a new eyepiece case and I plan on replacing my venerable parks barlow with the televue sometime soon.
Thanks.
George

January 7, 2006 12:35 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

spider/diagonal holder question

Posted By George Golitzin

Hi all--
I have what looks like an old astrosystems spider with a diagonal holder for a 3.1" secondary. My question is, what holds the secondary in place? I've always built my own spiders and used silicone--this is the first commercial holder I've seen, and it has no obvious retention screw or whatnot. The depth at which the hub sits in the diagonal holder is adjustable over a 3/8" range, but it doesn't look like the hub would bear on the back of the secondary unless the secondary were very thick. What is the usual thing here?
Thanks,
George

January 12, 2006 10:22 PM Forum: Beginning Astronomy?

Re: Deciding on a new telescope

Posted By George Golitzin

Hi Mark--
Three things stand out from your post: a. you have an intes mak, so you're already spoiled by great optics, b. knee surgery, c. a love of deep sky. To me that says "lightweight truss dob with a fine mirror." My 10" truss dob weighs 35 pounds and is easily carried out the door whole--the orion 10" weighs 55 lbs. If you don't want to build your own, shop for the lightest 10" or 12" structure you can find--litebox http://www.litebox-telescopes.com/ and tscopes http://www.tscopes.com/ come to mind. If you go to 12", get some wheelbarrow handles if you can leave it set up in a shed or garage. There is a definite difference between 10 and 12 inches--for example the spiral arms of m51 are easy in a 12"-- but going up from 6" to 10" is already a very nice jump.
George

February 8, 2006 09:46 AM Forum: Solar System Observing

observing hyperion

Posted By George Golitzin

I'm curious. What is the smallest scope in which you've managed to confirm an observation of hyperion? What were the conditions? How were you sure--did you have charts down to mag 14? (For example, tonight there is a mag 13.6 star within 1 arcminute of Hyperion.) For my part, I've only seen it in my 16". And then only in fairly good seeing. Never in my 8" f/5; I have not spent enough time yet with my 10". At mag 14.2, I'm assuming that it's just within the reach of 8" on a good night with a skilled observer.
George