Posts Made By: Joe Larkin

Some kind of weird macro or reproduction lens, maybe. Check out this link:

http://www.macrolenses.de/ml_detail.php?ObjektiveNr=161


This was the most useful link from a search on google for Zeiss Planitar. There is one hit on google for a german forum where someone asks the same question you did, but there are no answers. Here is the machine translated link:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://forum.astronomie.de/phpapps/ubbthreads/showflat.php%3FCat%3D%26Board%3Doptik%26Number%3D210382%26page%3D2%26view%3Dcollapsed%26sb%3D5%26o%3D%26fpart%3D1&prev=/search%3Fq%3DZeiss%2BPlanitar%2B%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1

I observed with my Mark I eyeball, celestron 9.5x44 ED Binocs, and a f4.5 10" dob using a single 25mm plossl.

The Dob showed the most detail but binocs and naked eye showed different interesting views.

If I had to chose 2 out of 3 (ie. Naked eye plus one optic), it would really be a tossup between the binocs and scope. Overall, the scope wins because I "discovered" gamma aries when scoping around during the middle of the eclipse.

Under good conditions (better than 6 mag skies, I'm sure transparency was good) I've seen Leo I in a 10" scope. I described it as v v faint, but I recall that it wasn't horribly difficult, but harder than Barnard's galaxy (6822 in Sagittarius). Knowing exactly where to look helps. I probably used a 22 panoptic for about 50x. I sketched the field stars to verify the faint glow.

I think Mel Bartels' tri-dob with flex rocker seems like a great design for a low weight scope. I've never seen it in person, but it doesn't seem like it could get much lighter.

The comet pre-impact was very diffuse with an elusive but still visible nucleus in my 16" dob at medium to higher powers on Friday.

That's what it started out as last night. Post impact, the nucleus brightened considerably making the comet much easier even at very low altitude. The nucleus brightened over a few minutes after impact. I didn't estimate the change but someone I was with estimeted 1.5 magnitudes. The nucleus remained bright until I stopped watching when it got low.

I observed the comet under fair seeing, but dark and transparent skies at Vekol Road, an observing site 50 miles southwest of Phoenix Arizona.