Posts Made By: Roland Christen

Beautiful shot. But .. could you post a larger version of this?

Rolando

Lucky guy, in so many ways (been cloudy here for months). Nice job on all those images.

Rolando

Great stuff!

Rolando

And a full res crop of M82, upsized to 1.33x to better show the core details.

Rolando

M82 at full resolution (don't know why the previous versions were so dark on my monitor.)

Rolando

Thank you all for your comments. I was hoping to shoot more images of this pair, but it looks like we are in for a week of rain and clouds. And more cold weather :C

Rolando

I like this image a lot!

Rolando

Thanks Paul.
Bruce was a gentle man and a gentleman. Besides astronomy he also produced jewelry - ground and polished precious stones. He also loved to drive his Cobra, and we talked about our cars when I was there the last time. He was no speed freak, just loved the feel and power of American muscle.

Rolando

Joe Ramacciotti said:

All,

I've been searching for Baader Optical Wonder, and can't seem to find any in the US. Not sure, but it appears it's not allowed in the US.... anyone know why/if this is true? Also, seeing it's time to clean one of my refractors I'd like to find a good cleaner, and would like some suggestions.

The lens in question has a few small silver spots and some general pollen build up.

Thanks for your help!

Joe

Since it has flammable alcohol as one of the components, it cannot be shipped by air and therefore it is not available for us in the US. You can make your own. Simply add 25% to 40% distilled water to isopropyl alcohol. It will clean off most pollen, but will not remove silver spots. These can be removed by rubbing in circular fashion with your fingertip wetted with your saliva, followed immediately with an alcohol wetted tissue. Do not wait, do not let it dry before the alcohol wipe!!

You can also try Purosol brand optical lens cleaner. It uses a mild soap based liquid to clean off organic materials. Stubborn spots won't come off with this stuff either, but there is always saliva (followed immediately with Purosol!!).

Why does saliva work on the most stubborn spots? It's a well known trick among opticians. Saliva has powerful enzymes that break down the most stubborn of organic compounds (and that's the basis of life). And don't worry, it won't eat the coatings since those are made of inert oxides. And fingertips will not scratch the surface, in fact every optician knows that fingers are nature's most gentle polishing pads. I use mine for final figuring on lenses.

Rolando

And here is the full frame image at half size.

Rolando