Astromart

September 8, 2004 02:01 AM Forum: Politics

The Budget Deficit:422 billion and counting

How does the Iraq war figure into this, is it already included?

September 14, 2004 05:21 PM Forum: Politics

Handicap This Race Now

Bush has the momentum right now. He would win if the election were held today.

The debates may change this of course, but I don't see that happening.

You're right about Kerry needing something other than "I'm not Bush".

I don't know if anyone else saw it but on 'The Daily Show' during the DNC they did a little background thing on Kerry and the gist of it was he was the Democratic candidate least like Bush and that's why he won the nomination.

March 28, 2005 06:52 PM Forum: Celestron

Did it again (Cooled C-11)

Posted By Matt Brown

Congratulations Keith, I agree about the improvement with active cooling. Your solution looks very nice and elegant.

I went the brute force method and put a couple cpu fans ahead of the primary and an exhaust hole on the other side but it does make a difference.

It seems to allow about 50x higher with fans running than without. And the heat plume is gone in the defocused image.

Do you get any vibration that you can see? I keep turning the fans off and on trying to detect vibration, but it seems like the effect is minimal at best.

matt

March 9, 2006 06:58 PM Forum: Ask rating questions here

What sort of rating should this be?

Posted By Matt Brown

thanks to all for the replies.

Third person persepective is helpful for deciding on a fair rating for the other person.

thanks again,
matt

March 13, 2006 06:14 PM Forum: Ask rating questions here

What sort of rating should this be?

Posted By Matt Brown

Just wanted to give an update.

The seller is giving me a refund. I should be getting a check this week.

Of course this was after I had relubed and cleaned the mount. I guess I'll consider it good experience for the next G11.

thanks for all the replies on this.

matt

April 11, 2006 11:53 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

celestron c6

Posted By Matt Brown

Hi Don,

I just received a C6S-GT Friday and used it Saturday nite. It was excellent optically. Saturn was very sharp at 300X and I was splitting stars at the same magnification. Alnitak (left hand star in Orion's belt, is actually triple) split into all three components at 150X.

The mount is very solid too, and the gotos were right on. I was able to put objects in the field of view of a plossl at 150X with a meridian flip.

I originally bought it for the mount and was going to sell the OTA, but I'm having second thoughts about that now.

I agree about it being a sleeper scope. GOTO, 6" aperture, great optics, solid mount, good ergonomics all make for quite a package.

Remember however that this is after only one session, and I didn't have to deal with cooldown due to the mild weather and the seeing was pretty good on Saturday.

The real kicker though is that all this was with the stock diagonal. Maybe they're starting to make them to a quality spec.

matt

August 6, 2006 12:05 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

6 inch CATs, satisfied?

Posted By Matt Brown

Hi Ron,

I had a C6 for a little while and thought it was very good optically. It gave very good planetary images and I really liked it.

I sold it, however, because it wasn't as good on planets as my 8" SCT which isn't as good as (but very close to) my 8" certified dob.

To me the 8" vs. 6" are so close in size that unless there is something really driving towards the 6" I would go 8".

That said, I think the C6 did everything a 6" scope should do on the planets and moon (and anything else), I really liked it but couldn't justify keeping it in addition to an 8" SCT.

matt

September 27, 2007 05:06 PM Forum: Equipment Talk