Posts Made By: Larry Stange

When living in Reno, found a 50 gallon drum full of copy machine lens assemblies. After re-arranging lenses and removing 1/2 of the negative lenses they made a 5" inch aperature short focal length(apprx. 6 inches) refractor with an adjustable f-stop(by rotating part of assy.), that had the flatest field you ever saw edge to edge. Chromatic abberation was indecent....but managed to trade one of these home-built scopes to a student observatory in Reno for new eyepiec I wanted and the rest were sold to bird watchers. You could see the tiny-tiny splinters in a telephone pole 150 feet away. At night EVERYTHING was imaged in red, blue, with color halo's out about 1/2 inch to the eye no matter the distance. The assy's cost me $5.00 each. Wish I had kept one......

I see two very faint dots on the first photograph too. ON th e dark band in the middle right at the upper edge of the band and a little left of Saturn center. It helps to use a small magnifying glass up against the computer screen and move it quickly up and down a short distance vertically over Saturn to help sensitize the eye to slight light changes. Maybe this is the secret to CCD eyes?. :-)

Doesn't need polar axis alignment......it IS the Polar axis. -LarryS

So far I have spent $645 and sold $375(maybe $395) and I still don't have a rating. Tried to rate the ones I bought from a big PLUS but it never seems to work. Maybe it's better Huh?......You are right about "hanging out a little" when you feel a moral commitment exists for someone. I have always set a time limit that they are aware of, to confirm our transaction. I expect the same. I tell them I will email EXACTLY the day & time when money is posted when I commit verbally to a purchase. Same thing on e-Bay. That way they know by the e-Mail, whether I talk, whether I forget, or whether I do. -It IS difficult to be Polite, Sensitive, and Firm at the same time. :-) -Larry

Alan- The specifications I have indicate the 750K is <2 lux, and may or may not be Sony ICX098BQ. The 740K is <1 lux and IS the ICX098BQ. Of the two I would go for the 740 to be sure of what I get..... -Larry

I am a new-be and my previous simple questions on these forums are not always answered by busy people. But I did download both Astrostack and Astrostack 2 yesterday. From preliminary observations using the program focused on an object in a room at home....and after re-reading many sites on the subject, it appears to me that in Video mode(.avi) the collected image over time is treated by Astrostack as ONE image. The preview allows you to view ONLY that total time image...Not parts of it. Then the program divides that into many INMTERNAL scan operations because of file size and stacks(REALLY add's) the entire mess as a single image when you go into "load". You have two oportunities to delete or select images with long term Video .avi, one at preview and the other at save which will default the total image to "results" folder as a complete image which I think could be moved back into the "pictures" folder for further stacking later. Or it can be deleted then or later. Your question suggests to me that a long term image by Video.avi should ONLY be for deep sky ojects....NOT for near space objects like the Planets. For them, I think a shorter period .avi or .bmp shots should be taken....THEN you can "Preview" each one individually before "Loading", "Stacking", "Calculating", and "Saving". In short my observaton says...you cannot preview just parts of a long term Video.avi file and you cannot discard any part of it either. Your freedom to do this is with shorter term shots, either in Video.avi or .bmp format. My answer is DESIGNED to achieve self-correction if I have mis-understood what I observed, in addition to helping you....if any. -Larry -"May we reach understanding in a timely manner from the Pro's". :-)

WOW! I want one of those. :-)

Steve, I have only looked a little at the two chips. My impresson right now is that the BQ has "still image" capability resolution that the AK cannot compete with. If that is the case, it would account for the BIG demand for the PCVC740K webcam and would make deep sky countless times better in detail. Color responses I have noticed, was not compared between the two. I am still waiting for the only chip I that have been able to get....a PCVC675K, which I will modify for controlled shutter.

Michael you might try what I am doing too.... I know very little about imaging and/or telescopes above a smidgen mark.
Read as much on the web as you can WHILE you get a cheap(I did say CHEAP!)webcam like a Logitech QuickCam express & ....connect it up to your computer with its software, and play with it awhile.(much fun). Then download Astrostack2 which is freeware and play with it stacking regular images not necessarily thru a telescope just for fun and experience. Surplus Logitech junk is all over the net(you know e-B-- e.g.,)for $15 or less. When you have read enough articles and played enough with a basic webcam........ .....THEN(T-H-E-N) consider buying a good one that the astronomy web articles recommend because you will be armed with the ASTRONOMY KNOWLEDGE to make a careful selection based on what you project YOUR need will be. Don't get pulled into deals by merchant motivated folks trying to sell you just anything, your reading will help YOU decide what to buy. These prior threads have MANY good links to learning about webcams & telescopes. Go slow, you have your whole life ahead of you....so sayeth the Gods of Lower Egypt.

It is probably a very good thing that the U.S. did manage to get to the moon first though. Had it been a more agressive country that potentially right now,(not Iraq) presents the greatest future threat to world peace...we would likely be brought to another "Nuclear Brink" in the near distant future from ballistic threat. I've always felt that we were basically developing the space technology primarily for this reason and then a second priority would be the search for off-world water,(not mineral resource mining) as the first step to sub-surface colonization and potential mining rights. I am sure relations will be strained many times over just like the off shore limits/air space limits strain things now. Incidently, I too was "TAKEN"....but they threw me back.