Posts Made By: Doug Peterson

Despite being a mostly continuous supporter, its been years since I've seen any shirts or mugs. They now a one time deal or each time you renew?

I parted out my Z12 GSO 12" dob.

The leftovers consisted of the dob base wood only, which I was going to toss.

Instead I relocated the bottom disk ground board to the top of the side panels and
4 wood screws later have an unattractive but very functional utility table!

12 to the Moon (1961) has one redeeming feature: nine years before Apollo 11 its tale of the first landing on the moon was courtesy of spaceship Lunar Eagle!

Other than that this is mostly so bad its good: wooden acting, embarrassing dialogue, pointless plot elements, possibly the worst science to grace the silver, er, flat screen.

The acceleration couches are actually lawn chairs!

When our two heroes find themselves in a lunar cave and suspect there might be air, they take their helmets off simultaneously! Then they start smooching at absolute zero.

We learn that the god like aliens love kitty cats for no reason explicated.

When the alien gods "freeze" the spaceship in vacuum it becomes covered in ice, then later thaws.

After the alien gods freeze the earth's atmosphere solid, world leaders meet in emergency sesson but later are said to have been in suspended animation. Huh?

The captain is a muscleman who has the mentality of the dead football players on Beetlejuice.

Leadership consists of struting around showing off his bulges, calling all hands meetings to repeat what he had just told them over the radio, and holding his head in his hands complaining how bad the situation is.

Ya gotta love these old flicks for at least having a sense of wonder lacking these days.

What are you favs?

I am now pretty sure that my messages responding to others' ads are not getting thru to them.

I think I am receiving other's responses to my ads ok.

How can I fix this?

“1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua.”

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/first-known-interstellar-visitor-is-a-bizarre-cigar-shaped-asteroid/

I use an Aries Chromacor which transforms my 8" F12 D&G from a very impressive to an utterly astounding planetary instrument. I think many achromat owners would be suprised how much detail is lost due to chromatic abberation.

It is hard to put into words how an unubstructed color-corrected scope can punch thru ordinary seeing. In theory a larger reflector (larger by the diameter of its secondary) can equal the contrast function, however that larger diameter is much more affected by seeing conditions. I believe this is the primary reason refractors can outperform reflectors.

I have also owned a 6" F20 D&G objective, folded, which was a superior lens as well (pre-Chromacor).

Thanks for that comparison--one I've always wondered about. If only the Russians could match the Questar in terms of mechanical and cosmetic coolness. I love my STF 180 Mak, but of course the Questar 7 is one of those unobtainium dream scopes. Also, Questar should reduce the secondary obstructions on the scopes back to the 28% of the originals. To claim the highest performance the obstruction should be minimized and your review shows that clearly.

My 1973 Cave catalog price list shows the Meade and Mayflower 3" F16 complete equatorial scopes available as "beginner" instruments. It is possible the guidescopes were from the same sources.

I've wondered the same thing. Some of the products, the 7" F7 ED triplet and the almost 9" F12.5 achromat remind me of some of the stuff Burgess has been talking about. If this is indeed Chinese-sourced, perhaps it should be called SINOscope?

From Predator:

Arnold: You're bleeding.

Jesse Ventura: I don't have time to bleed.