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Posts Made By: Jake Jacobson

August 30, 2002 01:01 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

M 17

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi Maurice-

Too bad a sattelite went through your fov.

-Jake

September 14, 2002 08:51 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Meade 8" SC-8

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Well, I wouldn't plan on doing any Astrophotography with an LXD-55 mount.

They are way too shaky, and cannot accept autoguiding. If you want a 8" Meade SCT with goto, you are better off with and LX-90 or classic LX-200. They are both much more stable, and have more accurate goto's than the LXD-55 mount, which has the worst published goto accuracy ever. If you watch on Astromart, you can get a used one for $1200.

Don't be misled byPaul LeFevre's nice photographs in the Meade catalog- he used an LXD OTA on a Losmandy G-11 mount to take those pictures.

-Jake

September 16, 2002 08:51 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

8" LX200 GPS UHTC, POINTING PROBLEMS

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi David -

First of all, please TURN YOUR CAPS LOCK OFF!. All caps is the equivalent of 'yelling' on the internet. Thank you!

Have you tried loading the updated software (available at meade's site) for the Autostar II? I would try that first and then try an alignment again.

-Jake

September 17, 2002 01:36 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

LX-200 Vibration

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi John -

No, the LX200 should have no apparent vibration. I use my LX200 at 500x and can see no vibration from motors or otherwise. You may have a problem with your scope.

-Jake

September 20, 2002 08:20 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Moon pics

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi Ron -

They look a bit out of focus. How did you take these pictures, and with what equipment?


September 26, 2002 10:22 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

How is an LX200 better than an LXD55?

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi Mary -

The main advantages of the LX-200 over the LXD-55 are:

-LX-200 has very good pointing accuracy (LXD55 is fairly poor)
-LX200 is much easier to set up due to AZ-ALT config. (LXD55 is GEM)
-LX200 has PEC (LXD55=no PEC)
-LX200 accepts autoguiding commands (LXD55= no autoguiding)
-LX200 has a stable mount (LXD55 is pretty rickety with the 10")
-LX200 has SCT optics - a bit more versatile than the fast Schmidt Newtonian design.
-LX200 OTA weighs less.
-LX200 has GPS functions (a nice plus, but not a necessity.)
-LX200 has microfocuser

The biggest advantage of the LX200 is that it has been around for awhile, and seems to have most of the bugs worked out of it's design. The LXD55 is quite new, and has many 'teething problems' yet to be worked out.

A good place to check for info from LXD55 users is the Yahoo group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LXD55telescopes

There you will find out all the pros and cons of the LXD55 scopes from actual users.

-Jake

November 22, 2002 10:08 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

LXD55 AR5 and 6 questions

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi Paul -

The LXD-55 AR's are sharp for achromats. They are slow enough that false color is minimal, especially on the 5". They certainly won't best your FS102, but they should be sharper than the ETX-125 on planetary details.

The mount works much better on the 5" than on the 6". You WILL need to replace the legs with wooden ones.

Another option if you don't need the goto is the Stellarvue. They are very nicely made, and are well priced.

-Jake

November 30, 2002 12:40 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

sac 8 ccd CAM - Does it work?

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Absolutely! The SAC-8 is really just a commercially made version of the "do-it-yourself" Jon Grove 1004x camera.

It is a very sensitive camera, and several folks have taken nice pictures with it so far.

-Jake

December 8, 2002 12:45 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Stuck on Saturn

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi Tom -

It looks like perhaps your image was overexposed to begin with. Do your original images look this overexposed? If so, you need to turn down your gain and brightness controls in the camera software.

If the single frames do not look overexposed, then you need to make sure you use the 'mean' function in Astrostack when stacking planets. The other functions seem to give the image an overexposed look.

-Jake

December 10, 2002 06:45 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Uniform image blur removal

Posted By Jake Jacobson
Hi Joe -

Astroart will apparently do this quite well. I don't use it personally.....maybe others can comment about how effectively it performs this function.

-Jake

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