Posts Made By: Judson Mitchell

I will check our local Ace Hardware which has about 80' X 4' of drawers with screws bolts etc. Tis where I get all my nuts and bolts, metric/socket cap. Usually for my cycling needs, but commonly also for astronomy.

Greg
Here is a picture of a metric socket-head screw with a .8mm (10 threads for 8mm)thread pitch approximately 1cm long. It is 4mm wide. Somehow methinks your screw needs to be narrower. If this is what you want, send me your address and it will arrive. No charge. It would cost more to repay the postage than it is worth. If you need narrower, let me know.

Steve
I have to agree with you. The knobs are a joke! It is not possible for me to turn the knobs and see what is happening at the same time. Now, maybe it is because of my sinister nature (left handed). But, still, whine does it have to be so difficult. Tomorrow I will start on a quest to fix the problem. No, wait, I will start now!!!!

Since I have only owned three, the choice is easy. The 12" GSO dob is nice, the 50mm refractor was clearly out of the running (even judged by a fledgling teenager), so the winner is my RV6. Great views of the martian ice cap and GRS. Once you learned where to set the object to allow for the lag in the clutch, it tracked indefinitely.

With very limited FOV, finding things was difficult since the only thing available was Olcott and Putnam or star charts posted in S&T. Back in the 50s and 60s we had no stinking computers. I yearned for more power, being limited to 200X, but barlows were reputed to be junk. Never remember a bad night even from the roof of our garage where I built a platform complete with round runged ladder for access and railings.

I think that Appalachian State should be given a crack, or better yet let Andy Rooney choose.

Check their rating ratio. If they are remiss in giving ratings it will show on their ratio. You can base your decision to give ratings and expectations to receive ratings on this ratio.

When buying you have every right to expect to be rated first since you have completed your part of the transaction first. In that case I have replied that upon receipt of (positive) rating I will respond in kind.

There are some who just don't; and you must move on.

There is no redeeming value to the grooves for me. In fact the EP is less functional in my situation. My feeling is that they just look good like the wrinkles on the sie of a car. Someone could probably make a mint replacing them, at least those that do not house barlows or other.

Makers of EPs, hear me now! Give use the option! We(a lot of us) don't want no stinkin grooves.

Eyepiece makers, give us the option and see which ones sell the best! Seems the barrels would even be a little cheaper to make? Why is this taking so long, it isn't like it ain't been brought up before.

Al, you are the leader, give us a better product.

Right now our technology makes manned space travel way too expensive and risky. The efforts seem to be more focussed on how to put man out there than what information can be gathered. We have already proven that data can be collected remotely without the cost of sending humans there. The majority of our efforts would be focussed on them instead of the information.

My feelings are that actual space travel should remain robotic until we have better defined how we can transport and maintain humans in space in a more cost effective manner. The long term goal may be intergalactic travel in order to maintain the human species. Chances are we will disappear from other causes way before the technology catches up to our dreams.

Call me fuddy duddy, but our infrastructure here on earth is too tenuous to maintain our current population, so there are bigger fish to fry here on earth. We are so interdependent that should some parts of our infrastructure fail, 10s of millions would be at risk. Just check out the sophisticated civilizations throughout Central and South America that no longer exist and you should get the message. If you don't, then go on and build your manned space mission to Mars, and happy oblivion.

putting a man on Mars makes more emotional and political sense than common sense. The logistics complicate missions well beyond what would be cost effective with robotics. Until other issues are solved such as time in space, the need to return, the ability to go into sleep mode, etc., efforts would be better spent improving the logistics of manned travel and continuing with robotic missions. Too much effort would be spent maintaining the astronauts well beyond the value.

We have demonstrated the difficulties of maintaining life in severe locaitons on earth without traveling to Mars to make the same point. Arguing at this point that we need to learn how to maintain life in space and relocate to save mankind is weak when we are nowhere near finding the means to make the trip. We have the cart before the horse. Star Trek has ruined our ability to think straight. I am not against space travel reseach, my concern is for reasonable priorities and proper sequencing research.