Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

If this were my forum, there would be a lot of posts deleted, but that is someone else's worry I guess. However, I just do not understand why anyone is allowed to call someone names. :S This forum serves no purpose to Astronomy and little more than a place where people vent on one another. Seriously, I think it needs to be policed a bit better.

I can not do anything about it that is certain, but I guess I can just stop participating and reading any of the silly posts. I do have better things to do with my day. Thank you for letting me rant a little. Later

OK, I received the Micro Touch and was able to setup the system on the TV NP101 and the WO 80mm f/6 in a short time. It works just fine on either scope and I only need the one motor to use for both. They gave me a thumb screw for tightening the clamp that holds the motor to the focuser, so no tools are required to change it over. Also was sent an extra pinion gear for the WO 80mm.

The WO required me to make a shim for the pinion. Even though it came with a pinion shim that fit the shaft quite well, the shim did not fit the pinion well enough. So I used aluminum tape and wrapped the shaft with 2 wraps of .004" aluminum and this made the pinion fit snugly and the set screw held it tightly. The pinion did have to be installed upside down compared to the NP101 with the Feathertouch focuser, but that was a minor change. I also added two wraps of the aluminum tape around the focuser where the motor clamped. The motor would clamp without the tape, but I made it the same diameter as the Feathertouch so the motor clamped the same on both scopes.

This system is quite nice. It is compact and uses USB2 to hook to the laptop. Autofocus is done with FocusMax or you can use other software. There is a Micro Touch program too which allows you to tune the setup and establish presets for the rough focus on each scope. This makes it pretty easy to just put the motor on with the focuser racked in and then tell it to go to the set point for that scope. Then true focus can be done with FocusMax.

I have not used it in the field yet, but will hopefully do that this month.

The motor is small and nicely packaged and it uses RJ11 cable to go from the motor to the hand pad. They will supply you with a 6' cord and any other length that you might require. My second cord was 12'. The quality of the system is nice, clean and easy to use. Well made with a professional finish, that looks great.

I will post again when I get a chance to put it through its paces and see how it goes in real time.

Well, went to Hole in the Wall, but only got one night out of three where I got an image. Had some power problems that kept me from getting a complete image. Then the weather got bad on Wednesday and we came home. Lots of high winds, even blew a trailer and one motorcycle off the road!
When I got home I think I found and fixed the power issue and hope to go to LAAS site for tonight and tomorrow. Maybe I can get another object or two?

Here is a couple of pics of Hole in the Wall campground in Mojave National Preserve, for those that might be interested in what the place looks like.
1st one is showing what a camp site and the layout is of the area.

Hi all,
Well, you have seen this one before, but after a few people gave me some constructive criticism, I decided to reprocess the data.
http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/2975
Please click on the photo to see a higher resolution. Unfortunately it is automatically resized from the 2 meg file to a smaller res, but it is still higher than I can post here.
I also post this smaller version of the same for those that do not wish to click on the link.
I appreciate the input from those who wrote with their ideas and thoughts. The color is improved and the small stars are more pinpoint. I think this is what I should have done to begin with, but sometimes you need a little help from your friends.

After a few suggestions about the color being too heavy, I decided to give it a new look with less color and more definition.
What do you think is this better? I think it agrees more with what I have seen pros post.
This link has full resolution if you click on the picture.
http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/2975

Hi, I started an M13 the other night, but did not get to finish it. So all I got was a bunch of luminance.
Here is what I got so far, what do you think, worth finishing? It has been done so many times, but maybe it would be worth getting the color data.

I am making a deal on a Vixen VC200L today, so maybe I will be able to do some images with a little higher resolution. Should make imaging galaxies a bit better with a nice close frame.

Hi all,
Pretty exciting for me, getting a larger imaging scope. 8)

My VC200L arrived yesterday and I unpacked it to inspect everything. Another good deal found on Astromart of course!
A few spots on the mirror, but not a lot so I will probably leave it for now and
clean it later. The rest of it was great.

So, I modified the 24" Losmandy Dovetail Plate so that I could put the Parallax
rings on it with the scope centered on the 24" plate. Now the dovetail can slide
further forward to bring the center of gravity forward. The other owner had used
the long dovetail with the scope mounted to the rear and a 6 lb or so counter
weight was mounted on the nose of the plate to bring the balance forward. I
decided to try to use the scope's own weight as well as the guide scope's weight
to achieve the balance and then add weight if needed. This way I will have as
little load on the mount as possible.

I also got the GSO 10-1 reduction drive adapted to the focuser and then adapted
the Starizona MicroTouch Autofocuser drive motor to the reduction drive, so now
it is ready to go.

Then I made a nice 30" x 16" x 13" case for the scope using a Footlocker and
custom cut 3" foam cradles and padding. Came out rather nice and it will protect
the scope.

I bought the Footlocker at K-Mart. It was $39.95 plus tax, so $43. The 3" and 2"
foam I bought from an Upholstery supply, where you go to buy fabric and foam to
do car seats or chairs. The foam cost me $12. Then I bought two larger folding
locker handles, one for each end of the footlocker as it only had a suitcase
type handle and I wanted to have two big heavy handles to carry it. These cost
me $14 with fender washers and 1/4" screws and nuts. SO total cost was $69 for
every thing. It is really nice and I will post pictures I promise. Much better than the $350 they want for cases. :^)

Now I am working on the focal reducer. I got the adapter that will let me mount
it to the camera. However, when the scope arrived, the reducer was missing the
M60 adapter that is now included with all reducers from Vixen for the VC200L.
But it seems that they used to sell it separately. So I am having Woodland Hills
Telescope see if they can get me one of these without having to buy a reducer to
get it. I will also call Vixen Monday and ask for their help if Woodland Hills
does not have any luck.

Next I will make an upper plate for the Parallax rings, lighter in weight than
the Losmandy that was used and longer too. This will give me the ability to move
the guide scope forward to the front of the plate and that will again place
weight forward. After this is finished I can mount everything on the G-11 and
see how the balance works out. If needed I will then place a counter weight on
the nose of the Dovetail Plate.

Today, I learned how to Collimate this beast! Man, it was not as easy as a Newt
and the instructions were not that great, though they did eventually show me
what was happening. But I started from scratch and removed the secondary and
aligned the focuser so that it was perpendicular to the secondary mount. I used
a LaserMax laser to shoot the hole where the screws that holds the secondary in
place and then used the holographic projection to be sure it was perfectly
centered on the secondary ring and hole.

Then I had to adjust the Primary and Secondary mirror, first one and then the
other, until I got them aligned again. Then I used a tiny hole in my garage door
that I made to be a artificial star to check the collimation and it looked very
good! I do have to say that it was a bit of a chore to do this the first time.
Next time will not be so bad and most likely it will just need a tweak now to
get it back.

So, I have accomplished a great deal this weekend I feel. Hope to get the rest
of it all together this coming week and be ready for New Moon!

Lots of work but all went pretty smooth. I will post pictures later to show
what I have done, but for now I am just going to sit down and relax for a while.

Hopefully the next new Moon I will get a chance to try it out and get an
image of something!
8) 8)

Hi,
I promised pics so here is the VC200L all set for imaging.