Posts Made By: Paul Gruener

Mark,
I have the TV 32mm Plossl EP. I am impressed with the performance. I find its images to be very sharp and crisp. I use it often.
I have not used the other EP mentioned in your post.
Paul G.

David,

For not a lot of money you can send it to Texas Nautical Repair, the Takahashi distributor, and they will do it for you. They will clean everything and send it back to you in perfect alignment. It will look like new. I highly recommend it.

If you make a mistake and get too much cleaning fluid between the two elements, the repair gets very expensive very quickly.

I have cleaned all of my other scopes, but I elected to send my FS102 to TNR for a good cleaning. I was glad I did.

Cheers,
Paul

Hi,
I have owned a few 4” apos and I know what you mean about the image quality. It is just great.

For wide fields, double stars, and the planets I think they work well. Where I got frustrated with mine was on deep sky objects. I did not find much detail in even the brighter M objects. I ended up selling mine and moving to a high quality 7” Maksutov to see more detail in deep sky objects.

Every once in a while I get a chance to look though a high quality 5” APO. The amount of detail that I see in objects like M13, M92, and the pair of galaxies M81 & M82 is significantly more then I recall seeing in my 4 inch scopes. So, to answer your, “if I had to do it over again question,” I would go with a 5” APO.

Best of luck with your decision,
Paul G.

Re: New Moderator
OK, I will bite.

This weekend the weather was not bad for my part of the world and I was anxious to get out and take another look at Saturn. Knowing the Moon glow and high humidity would wipe out most every deep sky object, I packed up my digital SLR so I could take a few shots of the moon in between squinting at the ringed gas giant. I am not an astro photographer, but primarily a visual observer.

This night I used my FS-128 (2.7” focuser), Camera Angle Adjuster, Tak Wide Angle Camera Adapter, and Nikon D200. I shot images in Raw and processed them in Nikon Capture Sunday morning. The exposure was made at prime focus, f8. The shutter speed was 1/60th of a second. I thought results were pretty interesting.

As a side note, about a month ago we had another humid but very steady night. I was out again with the refractor. The view of Saturn with my 5mm Tak LE (208x) was bright, crisp, and colorful. I dropped in my Tak 3.6mm LE (288x) and much to my surprise, the image was still crisp and steady, but a bit less bright then the 5mm. Now, I swear I was not drinking any of the fine malted beverages that are a staple of our fair city, but I think I may have seen the Encke Gap in moments of exceptional seeing. I did not have anyone on hand to confirm the sighting, but I think the chances are pretty good that I did see it. Have others observed this feature with the current ring tilt or did my imagination get the better of me?

Clear skies,
Paul

P.S. James, it is partly your fault that I have an M250. I read your on line reviews…

Takonites,
James asked me to post some more of my astro photos a few weeks ago after I showed a shot of the moon I took with my refractor. At the time I wrote that I am not into astrophotography, but that I do like to take a few photos of the Moon from time to time.

Well, I went and did it. I pointed the Mewlon 250 at M11 and M13 last night (this morning) and took a few images with my Nikon D200. These were made at prime focus, the mount was drift aligned, there was no guiding, stacking or any of that other “fancy” stuff I am sure a real astrophotographer would do. The shot of M13 was exposed for 60 seconds, the one of M11 25 seconds. So, just for fun, you can take a look at some fine clusters.

I plan to attend an astro imaging conference in July...

Clear skies,
Paul

Tak Masters,
I am interested in trying a little casual astro photography with my 250 Mewlon. So far I have mounted my Nikon D200 on the back of the scope and taken a few unguided shots of the Moon and a few clusters. You can see the cluster posts below. Surprisingly, I got some stars to show up! My exposures were between a minute and two minutes for the clusters.

I have a Losmandy GM-100 that will carry 75 lbs. I have a custom drilled Losmandy DUP plate mounted directly on the bottom of my M250 (standard version). I am wondering if you think I could use the Losmandy side by side by side saddle system (DSBS) to hold my M250 on one side and my Meade ETX-125 OTA on the other side to use as a guide scope? I would plan to manually guide exposures lasting just a minute or two by hand because I am not sure I want to invest in a field laptop, a bigger power supply, and guiding camera at this time.

Would the M250 fit on the DSBS side by side with the Meade 5” Maksutov?
Do you think this would be a good “get started” solution?
Would the reducer / corrector for the Mewlon be a good investment for use on a Nikon DX sized camera sensor?

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Sincerely,
Paul

Hi,
I am trying to see if I can fit an FS-152 into my car’s small trunk. I have done some research and I have come across a few different lengths listed for the standard (non NSV) FS-152 OTA.

If you have, or have owned, this scope could you please tell me the shortest possible length of the OTA from the lens cap to the back end with everything removed after the focuser?

I am looking for the shortest possible dimension that is practical for transport to a remote site. Please also indicate if yours has the 2.7 or 4 inch focuser. Finally, please also let me know if your measurement is for the original or late model NSV version.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Paul

Takonites,
I am not a serious astrophotographer, but I like to take a few snapshots through my scopes from time to time. The photo below was made just before the clouds zipped in and finished things off for the rest of the morning. I really enjoyed the eclipse, it was a very beautiful and peaceful time along the shore of Lake Michigan.

Sincerely,
Paul

Tech Notes:I used a Nikon D200, shot RAW files, and processed them in Nikon Capture NX 1.2. The camera was mounted at prime focus.

Hi,

I am thinking of getting the four inch version of the Takahashi Camera Angle Adjuster (CAA) for my scope. I wanted to check the thickness of the 4” version to see what changes I may need to make to my set of extension tubes for visual use and for imaging. If you have the 4” CAA, could you please measure the part’s thickness for me?

Clear skies,
Paul

Hi,

I am having trouble setting up my mount for auto guiding.

I have a Losmandy GM-100 mount and the original electronic drive system. I have not upgraded to the current Losmandy digital drive board like you see on a G-11, I have the old stuff with a simple hand controller with its 4 push button switches for RA and DEC. The hand controller connects to the drive electronics box with an RJ-12 cable. The RJ-12 port on the drive electronics box is marked HC \ CCD.

I purchased the GPUSB, RJ-12 cable, splitter, and extender cable from Shoestring Astronomy. I connect my GPUSB to my Windows XP SP2 laptop, the GPUSB connects to the SA cable that plugs right into the GM-100 drive electronics box. When I turn everything on the RA motors runs like it should for sidereal tracking and the DEC motor runs as if am pressing the guiding adjustment button on the hand controller. If I launch the Shoestring Astronomy GPUSB test utility, it finds the GPUSB, I can turn the LEDs on and off, but when it try and test the RA and DEC controls they do not work and the mount keeps running in DEC.

I did some research on the SA web site and they suggest testing the voltages on the GPUSB with everything connected. I did this and had some interesting results. Pin 2 is supposed to be ground with pins 3, 4, 5, and 6, for signals. When I use pin 2 as a ground I did not get a low voltage signal on pin 5, it read zero VDC. When I measured signals assuming that 5 MIGHT be the ground, I was able to see the proper high and low signals on lines 2, 3, 4, and 6.

According to the SA site, only 5 of the 6 RJ-12 pins are used. It looks to me as if pin 1, which is normally unused, is used to light an LED on my hand controller.

I think my drive’s electronic controller is not wired to the ST4 standard. This is not surprising, because the mount is quite old, from the early 90s I believe. If this is correct, then I think I need a custom cable to connect the GSUB to the mount. I have the all the gear to make a custom cable, but I am not sure how to proceed.

The other possibility is that the GPUSB is faulty, or if I am really unlucky, the GPUSB is bad and my wiring is not standard.

Has anyone connected an ST-4 autoguider to the old GM-100 drive system? If so, can you provide some help?

If you do not have experience with this specific system, can you provide me with some direction on how to figure out how to wire a custom cable?

Thanks in advance,
Paul