Posts Made By: Alex McConahay

Kurt,

Try again. There has been problems recently. They are working on it. It may be fixed.

Alex

Sorry---but I cannot figure out what you are trying to do here?

Just mount two tubes on the same mount? I've seen that done many ways, very simply with two sets of rings loaded on dual dovetail plates.

Isn't that what you want?

Alex

I heard that with war time rationing, people had to learn to stretch things.

Alex

I'm not getting it.

Alex

The north rim of the Grand Canyon is one of the darkest places in the United States. And it is fairly high. It is therefore a potentially great place for an observing session. It is open from late spring until the snows start. I believe it does get some monsoon weather in July or so, but I am not sure on that. The campground at the North Rim itself is infested with trees. Great camping, poopy observing.

The Grand Canyon Star Party is not an "observing" star party, although you can get some great observing in. It is perhaps the greatest outreach event in the United States, with thousands of people looking through scopes at the celestial wonders. However, the south rim version is in a parking lot with shuttle buses going through till about 11:00 pm, and the north rim has the lights of a hotel (although somewhat muted) shining. In short, it is a great place to outreach, but not so hot for strict private observing.

On the other hand, if you drive off to one of the nearby parking areas on the north rim drive, you could probably set up in peace and quiet, and observe away.

Alex

Go check this out.

http://alexastro.com/Alex%20Home%20Page/Equipment/outhouse/outhouseindex.html

It is a pier sunk in the ground, with a G11 and a C9.25 on top.

Since the website write up, I have added a storage area on the side that opens up as a table where I can set my laptop. There are wires under the ground that go over to the storage area to connect the scope to the laptop. I can be obsering in about five minutes.

Alex

I happened to be on on the island during one of their open houses. The drive is a little long and bumpy over the "saddle road" but there is really no problem on the observatory road itself. And, frankly not much of one on the saddle road to the visitor center.

Most rental contracts say you may not travel the saddle road with a rental car, but one company (starts with an "H"--I'll look it up if it helps) allows it.

Now, as for getting in,and actually doing a tour, I don't know what to tell you. Check out the visitor center website.

Alex

Did I miss the report on the performance opf the new setup. The pictures look good. My problem is that I still think my problem is mirror shift. Has anybody come up with a control for mirror shift in a Celestron?

Alex

I used one a while ago, but never could find guide stars easily enough.

So, I mostly use separate guide scopes. Much easier to use.

Then about a month or so ago, came across a Taurus Tracker. It is much larger and has more adjustments than the earlier OAG's I tried. Makes a big difference in finding guide stars.

The tracking is much better in the three nights I have tried it so far. Really round stars compared to the separate guidescope.

Upcoming will be my first weekend with the OAG and deepsky. I'll report back.

Alex

Hotech makes good collimators. I know the company displayed (at PATS) a collimator specifically made for SCTs. It involves more than the product you have referred to here. This is their 1.25/2 inch collimator, and is great for NEWTS. It does work for SCTs I hear, although I have never tried it.

Unfortunately for you, however, step one in using the Hotech collimator is to collimate your scope (without the collimator). In other words, you have to start with a collimated scope. Then you mark on your collimator's white target area just where your red dot lands. Next time you need to collimate, you simply put the collimator in the same position, and turn it on. Make sure the red dot is on that point you marked and you are collimated.

A couple of collimation hints.

Get somebody who knows how to do it assist you.

Use a display (camera hooked up to scope, showing results on a nearby monitor screen).

Or, get somebody else to turn the knobs while you watch from the eyepiece end.

Any of these things will soon make it pretty easy to get it collimated.

Alex