Posts Made By: Greg Nowell

If you use the following syntax in google:

astromart site:cloudynights.com

you get a search of cloudynights. Using "astromart" and "amart" I got about 15,000 hits. In short, even in the largest discussion forum, which is trying to launch its own market, you've got 15,000 references to the 'mart. I don't think there's that many references to CN's OWN sales forum.

Searching Yahoo is harder. Most of the groups are closed to google (for reasons that one could discuss separately). I only got 1500 hits using the syntax

astromart site:groups.yahoo.com

BUT, I got about 1100 hits on the Losmandy group using the group's search engine, and since that group is only sort of a "run of the mill large specialized group" we can imagine at least as many on Meade, Nexstar, and so on. So I would not be surprised to see astromart references roughly 2x to 3x what you see on CN.

Searching on the Yahoo answers site, I got several hundred hits from people referring novices to astromart. Here's an example:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090801040155AAwh7a1

Notice how people just work Astromart into the discussion. It is like any other HUGE part of the scene: triple A for car owners, Starbux for coffee, Eastern Mountain Sports for camping equipment, and so on. Astromart is a part of the landscape.

With tens of thousands of posts out there in the tribal zones and obscure provinces, it is no wonder that our fearless leader occasionally comes in for some nasty attacks. I suspect that every major publisher gets some pretty nasty feedback too. NYT, WSJ, whatever.

So I hope Herb does not use google to go dig up the unfortunate references because he will surely find them. But I think that the big picture here is that when you have a prominent position you come in for some hits.

I know, too, that Astromart is 100x more prestigious than membership in a Yahoo group. If I get banned from a Yahoo group (as has happened once or twice) I wouldn't think much of it (although some are very dear to my heart). If I were to get banned from Astromart that would be a tough blow to take. I wouldn't hesitate to grovel or pay $12 to get back in!!!! I have had to ban half a dozen people over the years but have never yet seen them run around to other groups complaining about King Jerk GN. It's not because they like me. It's just that the prestige of the venue is much, much less.

The prestige of the venue is part of what makes people upset when they lose Astromart standing. It stings. That's why they go out and raise a ruckus in the tribal zone. Loss of membership stings because of Astromart's pre-eminence. It is pre-eminent because it is well managed. It is well managed because of the person who runs it.

Anyhow, out there in the Yahoo tribal zone, we moderators picks and chooses our battles; two or three posts of discontent are a minor scuffle; ten posts starts to get looked at real closely, and after that, in most places, there's an intervention. I've seen it happen in more than one place. It's a managed anarchy. But the basic point is that Astromart is huge to the hobby and our fearless leader, our editor in chief, our cop on the beat, our esteemed publisher, should not feel obliged to leave behind a teaming metropolis to ride out to dry Gulch to gun down Willy and the Malcontents. Waste of time, and a lot of folks are already on it. A lot of people trash-talk S&T, too, by the way, but I think the editors don't lose much energy on it.

And I would mention that according to a survey I ran 20% of the people in this hobby spend about 50% of the money. And those are the ones who will be spending here and on Anacortes, not so many of the Zhumell plossl kit types. And of course ALMOST anyone who is anyone on a yahoo group is also a member of the 'mart.

Thanks for your efforts, Herb, and remember that the bottom line is that Astomart is so embedded in the lives of many people that they don't think about it any more than they think about their water heaters. They only remember them when they don't work. When was the last time you sent an appreciative note to your water heater manufacturer???!! Because you're so successful, you're going to get more gripes than compliments. It shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is.

regards
Greg N

There's a complicated error message showing when I try to see the picture of the day. I'm posting a screenshot.

thanks,

Greg N

My mother in law is curious about the potential value of a pair of Lumiere Binoculars stamped "made in France" with the further designation of "Field and Marine." There appear to be no coatings. The glass is reasonably clean but needs an internal disassembly and cleaning. Outer signs of wear, and degradation of original leather box.

There is no marking for magnification or lens size but I would guess about 5x and 30mm.

Optically the field of view seems excessively narrow but usable. I have mild near-sightedness and was unable to reach focus without my glasses on; with the glasses, I reached focus easily.

I did a google search and my guess is that this pair is worth "well south of fifty bucks" but I thought I would put it up for the mavens here. I'll post two other pics for good measure.

thanks
Greg N

(also posted on CN)

Last night I "won the battle of the dew" but just barely; I'm used to vigorous policing of the C14 corrector.

The XW20 had been my "eyepiece of choice" while cruising for galaxies in Cygnus. So it had been out a long time, with little usage.

I used the Pan 24 for a little bit. But most of the time it was in my eyepiece box which was kept closed but unheated (it has a heater).

So, at the end of the night, as we're packing up, we decide to throw my son's Star Blast on to the Perseus Double Cluster. The Pan 24mm fogged up almost instantly when it came out of the box. The XW20 stayed clear, even though it had been exposed to the sky all night!

I have two thoughts about this.

1. The mass of the eyepiece contributes to keeping it thermally stable and therefore bigger heavier eyepieces are less prone to dewing.

2. The *insulation matters.* In other words the design of the XW with no exposed metal and a cup that shields not just light but tends to create an "overhang" over the glass is probably a thermally efficient design.

If this is true, it is a design factor that I had not thought of.

I wonder how a variety of eyepieces would fare in a dew-over contest. I'll probably post this one on Astromart as I'm interested in a variety of comments.

regards
Greg N

Nikon is pulling the wool over our eyes by keeping its eyepieces to itself. Those who are interested in lobbying the company to get these on the market might do what I did.

http://www.nikonusa.com/Homepage.page

You have to jump through a few hoops to write to the company. I registered, then clicked around till I got a contact/tech support page. It demanded a product type so I chose one of the eyepieces from the telescopes branch. You can't send your question till you've given them a product type so that has to be fudged.

The main thing is if we could get a dozen inquiries sent to them in the next few days with NAV-SW in the topic heading, it might register on Nikon's brains that there is interest.

The attached picture is from CN discussions and reportedly came from a Japanese trade show. I have started a similar thread on CN. If you google the NAV-SW series all you're going to find is discussions like this one. But no harm in trying!

regards
Greg N

Anyone know an eyepiece/telescope equipment vendor in Japan who can receive an email and read/answer an inquiry in English?

(Thought I'd write about the NAV-SW).

thanks
Greg N

I recently acquired a 1968 Optical Craftsmen 10" f/6 in its entirety. The cosmetic condition is excellent but the scope sat in one corner of an observatory unused for 40 years.

Anyhow when we threw the foucault tester on it we saw what I would call a "rille" very much akin, in the foucault, to the Valle Marinaris on Mars. It curved round and moved when the mirror was moved.

We star tested it there was an odd effect which I have hand drawn: on the outside of focus (bottom right) you could see the rille in the out of focus star pattern. In-focus you couldn't go very far. It looked like the draw tube was vignetting but actually we determined that the draw tube had nothing to do with it, the effect was at the wrong angle. There was an indentation exactly opposite the rille. Anyhow we determined that this was somehow an asymmetric effect directly opposite the rille.

In focus stars and Jupiter and anything else showed a kind of "teardrop" hanging from one side which we determined corresponded to the position opposite the rille.

The star test was actually excellent in terms of the overall patterns. The view on Jupiter at 200x showed a lot of detail in occasional still moments, so there is potential here.

I'm uploading my hand drawings of the foucault rille and what we saw to give a better idea.

So near as I can tell the next step is to strip the coatings (local club member has done this many times) and see if the rille is still present in the foucault. If the rille disappears I've scored a nice 10" f/6 mirror. If the rille stille shows in the foucault then the mirror will have to be re-ground which I am not keen on doing, I don't want to throw huge bucks at this project and will probably sell the whole scope and mount "as is."

I'm hoping that someone out there has seen a similar effect on a mirror with decades old coatings and that maybe they can say yeah this is probably just the coating. I forgot to label the lower right freehand drawing which is outside focus.

thanks
Greg N

This is the pinhole picture of the 10 inch Optical Craftsmen. What I call the "Valle Marinaris" is clearly visible as a dark line across the top. As you can see, it is practically the only place where the coatings are intact, though the Foucault shows them to be highly textured. The Foucaults pix are next.

I should add that the bottom portion is also as bad but the illumination source didn't fully catch that area.

Greg N

I gather we have a "new administration" but I'm wondering if we know about who/what this is, whether AM was sold and is now not linked to Anacortes, or whether Herb subcontracted the whole operation out, or what.

I searched in this list back for five pages and didn't see much. Perhaps someone could PM me and cue me in?

I sort of rushed to catch up on all this stuff when people's replies to my ads weren't getting through...

thanks
Greg N

When I was working with Berlebach on their eventual Losmandy compatible tripod designs, the prototype they send me had the counterweight positioned BETWEEN two legs, not OVER one leg.

I found this to be very unstable: it doesn't take much of a push to "go over" when you have the center of gravity between two legs.

I noticed this because I see a vendor here advertising the desirability of 360 degree adapter rotation for setup. This is not unique to this person: I know of a few other cases. It seems to me that it is not a good idea at all, and that AP was right to put a stop in the amount of adjustment they give you. If you are "allowed" by the mount to position exactly between two legs with the counterweights, you are at risk for tip over.

I hope the picture here makes this clear. The risk may be minimal with a light mount but if I were setting up and had radically misplaced true N I would rather lift the entire tripod and move it to get closer rather than observe all night with the counterweight and telescope mass perched overhanging the two extended legs. I discovered this truth with the prototype Berlebach and the C14/G11.

Long story short: I always thought it would be nice to have infinite or 360 degree adjustment but when I came face to face with reality I discovered that it wasn't a real good idea. I have another pic of the Berlebach prototype which did not get marketed that way.

I have also seen some folks set up counterweights between-the-tripod-legs, and I consider this a no-no. Regrettably the lower your latitude the greater your temptation to set up this way, and I suspect, the worse the results. In a low latitude with the counterweight over the tripod leg the shaft might actually hit the leg. Put it this way. In a low latitude if I were observing with the counterwegiht *between* two legs I would stake down the rear leg as a failsafe. I've been in too many situations where the wind suddenly kicked up. A tripod is impossible to knock over when force is applied from between two legs against an extended leg. It is EASY to knock over when force is applied from behind one leg toward the empty space between the two other legs.

regards
Greg N