Posts Made By: Evan Reed

Are these really worth the investment? Do they work well for taking away building vibrations? Is one brand better than another? Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

Evan

I somehow managed to bag the best on-campus job for a student with my hobby. My official title: observatory assistant. This involves helping out the astro classes, and helping run the observatory, and having my own open observatory sessions. Its one of these sessions that I'm talking about here. I was getting the college's 16" Cassegrain ready to go last Sunday night, part of which involves slewing the scope down to get the front cover off, when it happened. I heard a loud crash. I immediately looked at the noise and saw the new (less than a yr old, and costing much more than I could afford) CCD camera laying on the tile floor. It dropped from the back of the scope from about 5 ft up with nothing to break its fall. The set screws that mount it to the flip mirror must have wiggled loose over time. Fearing the worst, and with little time before people started showing up to view, I set it aside and continued setting up...the show must go on. We tested the equipment the following night, and it worked flawlessly, as if nothing had happened. Chalk one up to SBIG for making a beefy camera!

Evan

I remember reading in Sky and Telescope about different altitude bearing materials, and one material that came up was I believe called PDF. I was wondering if anyone has used this material on their own scopes (as opposed to just testing it as in the article "in the lab"). What do you think about this stuff, and does anyone have that article where they can give me the web site of the company that makes it? Thanks!

Evan

I must mention that my girlfriend fell for it and bought me a star a couple of years back. Although I still don't have the heart to tell her, I do think it was a great gift and very thoughtful on her part. Unfortunatly, people will continue to buy such things just because they don't know any better.

ER

So after tossing around the idea of making an GEM from my LX-10 mount (all credit for that idea goes to Keith Lawson - see his posts about his active cooled C9 in the 'pics of me + my scope' forum), I have finally begun construction on it. My only concern was about making the Dec axis strong enough to support the equipment I needed it to. In comes the old LX-3 mount. I figure if its strong enough to hold a 10" Schmidt Newt on forks, mount and all, it should be strong enough to handle this. I took the RA axis of the mount and am currently in the process of turning it into the Dec axis of this new mount. Well, so far, it is working like a charm, the only problem is that I am having trouble figuring how to create a counterweight setup for it, since the shaft is only long enough to reach from the scope to the drive gear--I can't just slide the weights onto it - and I can't couple onto the end because there isn't enough thread. I understand that this is probably very hard to understand without seeing, so as soon as I can borrow a digital camera (something on my list I didn't get ) I will show everyone what I am talking about. I have a few far fetched ideas that might work, but I'm not sure yet. Thanks for listening!

ER

Hello all! I'm looking for ideas on making myself a wedge for a Meade LX setup that will cost me (much) less than the $200+ for a used one that I would need to adapt for my base anyway. (run-on sentence, but you get the drift) Any ideas involving scrap metal, wood, etc would be great...pics of what people have come up with would be very helpful for me as well. Thanks!

ER

PS - If you're interested in the crazy setup im making, look about a week or two back in this forum..."when you cross...")

Hey, if it works, go for it! Good thinking - no need to find the screwdriver.

ER

Just sharing a friendly (scary) scope story...I have the most wonderful and playful dog in the world (IMHO), and she has a an old stuffed animal she loves to play with...its a softball sized hedgehog (affectionatly known as Hedgehog), and she just love to throw it across the room and chase after it. We had guests over for the holidays, and I was showing them my mostly completed 8" truss tube dob project. I set it up in the living room, and gave them the run down on how it works. It was like it happened in slow motion. As I was talking with them, the slobbery Hedgehog came flying towards the scope. An inch in either direction, it would have hit one of the truss poles. Another fraction of a second longer, and I could have deflected its flight path away. But it landed right on the primary mirror. 8O For some reason the guests could not understand the shock and horror I was going through. Now my primary has dried dog slobber all over it. It looks like the next thing I need to design for the project is a mirror box lid. Oh well, life goes on, right? :S

ER

I'm just sharing a little story. My job at my school is officially called 'observatory assistant' but I do lots of things from running open houses to helping out with astro classes. The other night I had an unusual offer. The paraprof (a graduate who is employed for a year after graduation to help out) came up to me and told me that she was going to an elementary school to show a class one of the scopes and to see if we could see anything. I was very excited! We brought along the LX-200 8" and getting there we found 2 things to be true: 1-there was no place to plug in (so much for GPS aligned error-corrected tracking ) and 2-all of our 'observers' were too short to reach the ep anyway, so we placed the base on a sturdy bench. Well this worked well enough because all the kids (most aged 5 or 6) were amazed at the view as were their parents. I found it interesting however how, while focused on Saturn, one of the children claimed that they could see Saturn and the moon at the same time! 8O Another claims that all he saw was Polaris...I'm not sure how he accomplished this though...must be a far better observer than I! 8) Anyway, I'm very glad to say that the minds of several young children were opened a little that night, and a good time was had by all! Keep looking up (and showing others!)

ER

I'm looking into starting to make my own primary mirrors in the upcoming summer. Are there any recomendations out there on kits for mirrors and perhaps a good place to purchase these (besides the lovely Astromart!) Thanks!

ER