Posts Made By: Martin Willes

Comet Lulin last night.

And let me guess, you coat it with your Krylon chrome paint?

Can anyone tell me if they have any experience with this kind of dome? A complete automated dome delivered to the US runs about $7000.

The monsoons have tried to reach Edgewood New Mexico but the rain isn't getting to the ground. Here's a picture from my home at sunset looking east.

I read about the the new sunspot group and had to see what all the ho ha was about. It's a nice small group with mild activity. I noticed small flares between the groups and two filaments joining the main groups. A total of 5 sunspots can be seen. I took a very quick picture with the Canon 20Da and cropped in for this image. The two spots to the left are particles of dust. It's nice to finally see some activity. Martin

Is anyone familiar with the location of the strewn field in the Glorieta Mountains just south of Santa Fe New Mexico. I'd like to explore the area using public land but I can't find any information of a location on the web. Any help would really be appreciated. Thanks, Martin

I'm building a observatory in my back yard and I was wondering if anyone had any experience pouring a concrete pier for a AP 1200? I'm going to to mount a AP 160 or a OMI 12.5" Cassegrain, both weigh the same. I'm using a 12" sonotube and going into the ground 5' and out of the ground 4'. I'll have close to 3/4 cubic yards of concrete in the hole. Will this be good enough or is it under built? Thanks for any help. Martin

I'm looking for help finding a optical shop that will fabricate a secondary mirror for a 12.5" f/10 classic Cassegrain telescope. The secondary was dropped when the mirror was in for a new coating and the optical shop in Iowa City "assumes no responsibility with customers equipment". Any help would be appreciated as this VERY well known optical shop refuses to do the right thing and replace the mirror.

Thanks, Martin

Chris stick around this site if you want to buy used equipment or new stuff from sponsors. Heck every now and then why not support Astromart, it's cheaper than the money you lost on Ebay. Pay close attention to the sellers ratings and use a service like Paypal to pay. As a whole the astronomy community is filled with trustworthy people and always willing to help. The women you dealt with probably don't know which end of the telescope to look through. Best of luck and I'm sorry to hear about your Ebay experience. Martin

A laser is not going to be very helpful with a Classic Cassegrain unless you use Howie Glatters Holographic collimator. A single beam laser will only allow you to align the secondary to the focuser. The Holographic laser produces a grid pattern across the hyperbolic secondary and reflects that pattern back onto the parabolic primary and then back to the secondary and beyond the front of the telescope. If you have a white wall in front of the cassegrain you can easier align the mirrors by lining up the reflected laser patterns and shadows of the mirrors. Howie does provide instructions for using the laser on different mirror systems such as a Newtonian. This laser is not very expensive and will save you a lot of time playing with the mirrors in the dark since you can align during the day. Final tweaking can be done with a star. Another option is a Takahashi collimation scope. I like this collimator most of all and use it to tweak the mirrors after the laser gets me close. I normally don't have to collimate on a star because the Tak collimation scope is that good. Best of luck to you because I know how these closely spaced mirrors can really be a pain in the rear. Martin

http://www.collimator.com/coltext.htm#cassegrain