Posts Made By: Tom Hole

Nate,

I'm gonna guess M31, Andromeda Galaxy. Was it long with a bright core?

Tom

I think it is because of the quality of glass inside the binoviewer. I'm just guessing here, but maybe my meandering will stir up a bit more on the subject.

Binoculars are different beasts than binoviewers. Never heard of a pair of 400x binoculars, yet that is how I operate my binoviewers on a regular basis. I also operate my binoviewers down to 17x with a 3 deg TFOV in my ST80. That is one huge dynamic range. Most of the binoculars I've met are fixed magnification. There are a few that are not. Bill Burgess sells a pair of 25x100 binoculars that I think take regular ep's. Not sure if anyone's tried them at 400x.

Anyway, the glass inside a binoviewer is expensive (2 prisms and a light pipe I think), the machining to make it all fit in a little, itty bitty housing is not cheap. The ep holders are proprietary. On top of all that, there are probably less than 1,000 or so sold each year.

Standing by for signals,

Tom

But my girlfriend sure does

Maybe his wife can register...

Well, seeing didn't improve even as Jupiter rose to 35 degrees or so. But, I did get a few moments of steady seeing which allowed me to see the GRS. I spent an hour on Jupiter and at times could not even see the two equatorial bands. Now that's bad seeing.

I also got reacquainted with how sensitive Jupiter and its low contrast details are to the proper magnification. With the binoviewers, I go from 24mm to 12.5mm (105x to 202x). 105x had great contrast but the image was too small. 202x, the image size was good but I lost too much contrast in the poor seeing. I needed something around 160x. Maybe a pair of 16mm Nagler type 5's?

I gave up on Jupiter after the GRS was disappearing (I never did spy the great black spot, is it still there?) and stole another peak at Saturn. It was closer to zenith so the seeing, on average, was a little better. It looked very nice at 202x. I could see all three of the rings, numerous bands, some color and the shadow of the planet on the rings. Much easier target tonight than Jupiter.

So, now it's time to go back to bed. My wife wants me to paint the porch today but I think it's going to be too cold for that

Clear skies,

TOm

Daryl,

I have used military night vision goggles on many nights and seen many brighter objects in them. M42 is very obvious and M31 looks like a galaxy. This is all at 1x. I estimated the limiting magnitude at zenith on them at 11 ish. I never took a star chart up with me, so I was relying on sketches. The green output from the image intensifiers will kill your night vision, so be careful with that.

Do you know what generation the intensifiers are? There is a big difference in performance (and price) between gen 1 and gen 3 night vision scopes. The stuff we use in the military is gen 3+ or gen 4 depending on who's pair your looking through. If it's a gen 1, then it might be disappointing, but at 4x, you may be able to see some structure in M42.

Clear skies,

Tom

Vladimir,

I haven't gotten enough Naglers to do a comparison. I did have a 13mm Nagler type 1 knockoff in the 14mm Meade UWA. That was one fine ocular. It was my first premium ep and I kept it until I went to binoviewing. The large ep's just don't work well for that. I am looking for a pair of 13mm Nagler type 6's for the binoviewers so maybe I will take a moment and use it in one eyed viewing to compare. I think it would be hard to beat that enormous hunk of glass, though. I hated to part with it (and my Pentax XL).

So, if binoviewing is something that one might consider in the realm of possibility, then the large ep's might be a show stopper. The 82 deg AFOV in one eye is amazing, but with two eyes it becomes mesmerizing. It's a lot easier to take in the entire AFOV.

Clear skies,

Tom

Mark,

I'm not an expert, but the slow, unorganized looking ones are the tube currents. Before I switch on my fans, I put an ep in and defocus so I can see the currents and then switch the fans on and watch the slow ones turn into fast ones and then disappear. Maybe it's my military background, but I like the feeling of crushing the tube currents into submition. I often imagine I can hear the lamentations of their women as I vanquish them to thermodynamic haydes.

Sorry, lost control for a moment

Clear skies,

Tom

Here ya go:

http://www.astromart.com/viewad.asp?cid=227456

Tom

When I talked to Bill yesterday he said the 150's are in production and on the way soon. Okee dokee. Not sure what that means when translated from Billspeak to English, but there should be one sometime in the next decade.

The race is on between the chromacor III and Bill's APO cell for the 1278. Whichever get's here first will get my $$$. Valerie said he should have the CIII out by mid next year or so. Bill has no estimate on the APO cell. I'll let you know who wins.

Tom