Posts Made By: Tom Lacovik

okay pentax 14mm xl.
what is the diff between that and pentax 14mm smc xl ?

are these 2 things the same thing?

also will it work in my 1.25" focuser? 1200mm focal length f6 xt8 8" dob?

thx

where do you live? I may be able to point you in the right direction. Yes, I agree, the Guan Sheng were better (slightly) than the new Sytna though Orion slaps their XT8 brand on both, though they make neither.

Truely either is fine, but let me know where you live, or write me off the list at: tlakovic_AT_attbi.com

Uh, he said N5 and N8, and those Baader brackets are for the small nexstars, like the n60 and 80 and 114mm models.

You are looking for Ray's Brackets and I think someone else makes something like that too, anyway, the website you need is actually at:

www.buyastrostuff.com

Tom.

p.s. what are you mounting to your n5/8 mount?

If you go to a foam shop (there are such things you know...RV people frequent them I think), you can bring in your tool box or whatever case and/or measure it. They can cut you blocks, say 6" thick and whatever sized (or shape) square you want cut from that 6" sheet. so you could make a bunch like that to fill the bottom half of your box/case but if you trace the profile of your scope (super easy if you have the packing foam that it was originally shipped in, in which case trace that as a template with a marker right on the hard foam the guy just cut). Basically they use a electric knife (a meat knife) and just saw the round scope shape out piece by piece and you make a custom case like that.
Do it. Then take a picture and post it
Tom.

I'm not 100% sure, but let's call it 99% sure (I haven't seen one in person), that if you DO decide to put in a fastar, it is done by REPLACING the secondary mirror with the fastar unit. That means, your scope is no longer a visual scope but more like a camera lens only. If you have some means of looking at the image like a computer screen, then you can see what's going on but plan on having yet another scope with yet another set of similar decisions to go though if you want to do stargazing...while the other scope is imaging.

In my opinion (you asked for it), you can play with imaging with piggy backing a camera on either scope you are considering, or mounting a digital camera up to the eyepiece and play with stacking etc...like the image of the day (8/3/03) in the left hand menu bar today. And have a great visual scope (just put photography to the side for now or get your feet wet with either scope).

You will not do any publishable photography with this set up. For that kind of photography, it's all about the mount...and we're talking about $2000 at least JUST FOR THE MOUNT. Whether Celestron CGE or Losmandy G-11, the scope almost doesn't matter after that just stick a camera by itself and a telephoto lens on a tracking mount like that and you'll be worlds better than fastar on a lower end mount.

So go visual and have fun. For visual use and ease of setup and alignment, of the 2 scopes you mentioned, probably the Nexstar is easier. GEMs are a little complicated to figure out for beginners, nor is it rocket science. However as others have said, the 9.25 will probably be a little shakey on the 'advanced' series mount, wheras it is solid on the Nexstar mount. I think you would save money on the advanced though at first, but if you get picky about vibrations and settling and wind and such, you will start tinkering with it and probably want to upgrade it, making it possibly more expensive than the nexstar in the long run, which you will probably just plain be happy with as is.

Even more 2 cents for you.

Tom.

So why don't we all go over to the "observing" forum? Why do we always "meet" here where that is the only thing to talk about...equipment.

I remember when I started this hobby, it was because I was startled to learn that some of the photos I thought were taken FROM (not just of) deep space....I had no idea how a camera could be so close to a nebula...then later I thought all those photos are taken from Hubble, then later I learned almost all the photos I had seen were from the ground. And that people with telescopes were seeing things like that from their back yard (well, minus the color and all that).

I could hardly believe it and wanted to get some equipment, any equipment just so I could look at some of that stuff. I think that's how the dept. store urge comes in. People want to look at something in space and don't care squat about equipment. Is that so wrong? Well, I learned that dept store scopes DON'T let you see that stuff, and that a 8" dob or qualiity instrument at about the $500 range would open up the skies to you.

I read reviews on equipment. Found cloudy nights and this sight and astrosights and all these friendly folks were so helpful. Then I finally bought an XT8 and had fun!!! in between observing I would keep reading here and as if by osmosis, I learned the difference between good, great and elite optics. Then I started to look at my scope instead of trhough it. Thinking about aberations, coma, and color instead of distance, composition, and how far back in the past I was "traveling" with my $500 time machine. I've got better EPs now and a second scope of higher quality. This should enhance the experience, but I do feel like it needs to stop and I need to join the observing group and not look in here and get out more.

That's me.

Tom.

First of all, thank you for all the input. Last night was a great success, not because of the quality of the views (the city really does suck doesn't it), but because of the quality of the people. We had fun hanging out, having an outdoor party from about 8 to midnight. We saw doubles: albireo (that got wows, people seemed especially interested..nobody knew there WERE double stars...all saw color in them, though at first people see white, then they allow themselves to see the subtlety and then they see the colors if they don't off the bat) and polaris (people liked the challenge of it), constellations: cass, ursa maj. lyra (telling them that vega is the star that Jodi Foster went to in Contact is good for a laugh!), cygnus, saggitarius, nebulae: ring , dumbell, globular: hercules.

We spent a lot of time on this as I explained what happend there, but also how to see it: first i left in a low power EP as everyone took their turn to see other stars in the field to contrast the soft smudgy thing from the stars around it. Two of the 9 people actually said, I can see it's a smoke ring already. That was at 60x and I was amazed as I could see that, but didn't tell them they would see that just wanted everyone to see a nebula...you know that something in this frame was askew, then we would zoom in on that something to see what it is. So then we wen up to 128x at which point you don't really see many other stars just 2 mag 9s or so are in there, so it's hard to know IF you are even focused looking just at the ring. I would tell them see that star in the upper left? is it a pinpoint or a blur? they would say pinpoint when it was focused, and then they'd go, OH WOW! I SEE IT, IT'S LIKE A SMOKE RING...then it would kind of be harder to see, but as they checked that mag 9 star out to see it happen again, they discovered averted vision, "hey, when I look away from it i can see it as a donut." I was as delighted by that as they were.

I showed them M13 and explained that though it looked like a nebula (secretly wishing I had a big dob with me at that point, in which case I wouldn't be making apologies, but rather picking up socks from the neighbor's trees that it was a tightly packed ball of about 800,000 stars...no nebula, just stars like our sun, packed up in a globular ball held together by their mutual gravity. One person saw mottling which I told them was due to all the stars in there, not smooth like a hydrogen cloud would be, that was as good as that was going to get after all. One was really interested in how or why it doesn't collapse to a mother of all black holes?

Hmmmm...continued in next message....

I thought Labor Day meant a day off from Labor, not that you should be out all weekend laboring!

Looks good so far. Tell me, what kind of wallboard and timber is that, that you don't fear rotting by putting it right on the ground?

Keep up the great work!
TomL

That's a great idea. Celestron should pay you

Actually, nobody in their right minds would be bugged by this posting. In fact, for the programme you've set for yourself, you really need to repost this here every 6 months or so...anyone who's seen it can ignore it, but you might get a few new bites. Also post over on the SCT group at Yahoo groups. And on the newsgroup (use google / groups to get there) sci.astro.amateur

You should get 50 bites right away, getting another 50 will probably take another year though. Good Luck.

Tom.

Hi Ricardo. Make no mistake: I don't know have much first hand experience with this mount, but I did ask a lot of questions about it when it first came out, and researched it a lot because I really thought it would revolutionize the low end market. It didn't.

It is a CG5 mounting more or less. Sold by Celestron as cg5 I think (or is it "3"?). And it is made in china, which isn't equal to it being bad, it's just a so-so product a cheap price. The LXD-55 uses that and adds goto. Some say the QA was even worse for the LXD55 run. For example the lubricants they use are reportedly terrible, and the same articles readily found by google for upgrading the CG5 or improving lubes all apply to LXD55. The motors are very loud and the phrase "coffee grinder" often accompanies descriptions of its noise.

Okay, as you know Celestron and Meade basically put out the same product lines in an almost show of bravado head-to-head competiton. So if Meade was going to have cheap EQ-Goto with all manner of OTA options, in addition to their popular fork-mounted SCTs now with GPS, then Celestron was going to have cheap EQ-Goto with all manner of OTA options, in addition to their popular fork-mounted SCTs now with GPS, and vice versa. Sometimes Meade is first, sometimes Celestron, but the other is never far behind.

So guess what? Now there is the Celestron Advanced series. I saw one on the weekend at a star party with a C9.25" SCT on it and it was ROCK solid, with a big beefy STEEL ROUND LEG tripod. The motor was 100% inaudible, but it was just tracking mars, so I never heard it slew, but the owner tells me it is a HUGE improvement over the CG5 upon which it is based (built), so much beefier and can hold the C9.25 no problem, whereas he thought the old CG5 was not quite up to snuff for that tube. Mind you we are talking visual / planetary photography only. If you want DSO photography, forget it without something like a G8/11 but if you are considering an LXD55 there's probably a budget not far behind.

I thwapped the legs at the EP and saw the image jump once then snap back into place solidly without vibrating and wobbling. This was with the regular steel legs with their rubber-ish feet, without any vibration suppression pads or anything, just sitting on concrete.

So, without really comparing the 2, and just a semi informed, but not truly experienced intuition, I myself would not (and decided not to for real) buy an LXD-55 only to start tinkering with it. Rather, I would buy an advanced series in that price/feature range if I still wanted one at all (I don't), OR...and this is a big OR: if you must get an LXD55 I would search for one used as it is likely BETTER than new if the person already did a half dozen things to improve it, you follow?

Hope my opinion is of some kind of help?

TomL