Posts Made By: Ivan Gastaldo

Don, that's a keeper! What a beauty!

Floyd, your contributions, as well as the ones from many others here, are all appreciated. After all, this Forum would not be what it is without the people that keep the ideas/opinions flowing.
Of course we will all have our differences, that's what makes us unique, but I'm sure that as adults we can all control our emotions and keep it civil... (for most part)


Clear skies to you and all! 8)

My friend Floyd... here's my simple take in all this...

By buying the best of the best you are to be sure that you'll be getting the best possible views no matter what conditions you have...
The conditions might not allow you to see the best your scope can give, but you know that your optics will never work against you, they'll always be a step forward of anybody else's.

Now, will you be able to tell all this? Well, hard to tell, as we all have different eyesight, different perception, the fault will now be on our eyes & the weather but not on the scope...


You did the right thing, now enjoy it and forget about all this mumbo-jumbo...



Clear skies to you and all! 8)

That's a great first Dan! very nice widefield shot... lots of detail captured on it...


Thanks for sharing! and keep it up!

Floyd, here's my take...

-Altitude, well, even though it would be nice to have that, here in South Florida the highest points are "the dumps", so that's out of the equation.
-Dark skies, definitely, my main concern, as everything else is pretty much an add-on to this one... without dark skies no matter what else you have...
-Horizon, a definite plus. The more you can see around you, the better it is. In my case it allows me to see objects like Omega Centauri & Eta Carinae.
-Accessibility, a major plus. The easier to get there, the better.
-Location, well, what can I say. There's some people that have their homes in places like these, and that is a dream come true. But for most of us, these places are not around the corner, even though I consider an hour or two of driving to reach them quite reasonable...

A friend of mine, Maurizio DiSciullo, and I just visited a place in the middle of The Everglades this past weekend, right off of I-75, and the skies were beautifully dark... the only light that you could see was the one generated by some of the cars driving by, but the views were incredible. (all this just at about 45 minutes drive from home...)
Needless to say, we'll be using that spot very often... 8)

Clear skies, my friends!
Floyd, thanks for bringing in such interesting topics...

HEY PAUL! what are you doing out of your "planetary" boundaries?
Good to see you around here!

I would probably invest in a focal reducer, like an f/6.3 or an f/3.3 so that you can have less magnification/wider fovs. M42 is a very large target, and the cameras that we have use a very small size CCD chip, and you can't fit much in there...


Clear skies!

Tom, good to see you!
Question, anything wrong with the ST4? why not use it for autoguiding, since you already have it? is it too difficult to use?


Clear skies to you, and keep in touch! 8)

Very nice shot Dan!
Stars resolved well into the core of the GC, nice!


Thanks for sharing!

Wonderful shot Jean!
Excellent detail & contrast in this widefield shot!

Thank you for sharing!

John, I'm almost 100% sure that everybody will recommend a good-high quality mirror diagonal for you & your setup, as this is considered the "standard" if you want the best views.

You can look into Televue, William Optics, Lumicon, AP, Stellarvue, and others...


Clear skies!