Posts Made By: Tim Price

Always a pleasure to view your sketches!

Tim

Nothing special for me:

Celestron (Vixen) Plossl
Televu Plossl
UO Ortho
Antares 2x Barlow (performs well)

and a Celestron 7mm Ortho that doesn't get so much use beside the UO 6mm.

At 380x the C8 can get a good image when the seeing cooperates. Contrast could always be better with the ole C8 though!

Tim

When the current skein of cloud-outs comes to an end (currently 1 week) I'll take a close look.

How's that TEC 200 working out? Versus the usual scopes, how do you like it visually and photographically?

I really want one. Even moreso the 250mm version... because I'd like a step up from the C8 in every way possible... but they cost quite a lot. Even just the TEC 200 costs about 5k now.

Tim

You'd hate to see my raws... doubled images, potato chip disks, bent folded and mutilated. I didn't even process last night's batch the raws looked so bad. The jet stream was right on top of me. It does get better at times though... I can get an ok result but nothing to brag about.

I'm 45 deg N. so Mars presents at 20-25 degrees above the horizon. I also have thermals from the roofs to the south and air conditioner exhaust. Somehow I think the next night may be better

Newts optics are easier to work than an SCT set, so the quality will be higher for the equal time spent by the opticians. SCTs also have a corrector to be figured.

That being said, a cooled and well-collimated decent SCT is nothing to sneeze at. I had a wonderful time with a NexStar 11" at a Mars party. The night was remarkably steady and the the views were fantastic-- steady images at 570x even.

I recently pulled my old 50mm Tasco out of its box and piggybacked it on my C8. Using a very cheesy setup with masking tape, I put my 1.25" Ortho on the .965" scope and pointed it towards Mars.

Surprisingly (at least to me) I easily saw the tiny SPC as well as light and dark areas on the disk. I did a quick and very cursory sketch and it roughly correlated to what later I saw in the C8. I need to try this again; maybe bumping up the magnification from 86x (though it won't take a barlow so I can only go up a little).

I got some real satisfaction from what I could see. This is my starter scope from 1968, and I remember the Mars opposition in 1971 and how all I could see at 120x was a featureless orange ball--- there was a global sand storm then. 30+ years in the making but the Tasco finally hit its mark on Mars!

I think it's an okay scope. Tiny, yes, but not a toy like you easily get bit by nowadays.

Cheers.

Tim

Your MK91 is a scope I've been admiring from afar for a while, so your fine sketches have always been a treat.

Any comments on how it compares to other scopes you've peered through at the planets (C8 etc.)?

Any cooldown issues?