Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

Well, it arrived this morning by Fedex.
I put it in my NS8GPS and pointed it at a neighbors TV antenna that I use to check FOV and crispness of field during day testing.
I will post first impressions based solely upon this limited use. I will post my real review on first real light when weather permits.

1) The packaging is good with a nice box fully padded with foam. It has a pouch included for placing it in you case I presume. Good fitting caps.
2) The EP looks quite nice being all black, even the barrel. Good fit and finish.
3) The barrel fits loosely in the diagonal. but not so sloppy as to be a problem.
4) Sidewalk test of the coatings shows it to not be as good as the 40mm Orion Optiluxe, 10.5mm Pentax XL or 17mm Nagler. Green in color like the Optiluxe, but it shows more reflection by 50% or more. Not any worse than the Meade UWA EPS.
5) Eye relief is almost identical to the 17mm Nagler T-4 and more than a 20mm Nagler T-2. Eye placement sensitivity is also about the same. It shows the total FOV without having to be as close to the EP as the 17mm Nagler or 20mm Nagler. Works best with the eye cup raised to avoid blackouts from eye placement. With cup down you have to place your eye right or it blacks out, this is just like the 17mm Nagler, no worse or better. I was able to use it without the cup being up without any real difficulty.
6) FOV is great with crisp image edge to edge with a f/10 scope in daytime. No problems in daytime with any off color or rings like the 31mm Nagler. Seems to have a pretty large FOV compared to the 20mm Nagler. It should be the same as a 22mm Nagler in FOV and what I saw seems to confirm this.

Now to get a chance to use it at night.
I would like to point out that though the sidewalk test showed the coatings to be not the best, I have to say the Meade UWA EP are also like this and they perform very well at night. So, I will hope that they do as well as the UWA despite the test. I am not totally convinced the test is that important or indicative of the performance of the EP at night.

The mirror is on the UPS truck out for delivery and I am waiting for them to get here. I am excited for sure! 8) Next comes the ordering of the custom scope for it. We have been waiting for the mirror to arrive before finalizing the deal.

Mike,
I would just buy something that would make you happy and if Burgess comes out with something, then you can just order it.

Well, I can finally state that the new scope for my Zambuto mirror is being built by Michael Zammit at Starstructure Telescopes. We have finalized plans and prices and gotten blessings from Carl Zambuto, so we are set. Now all I have to do is wait for the scope to be completed sometime this summer, possibly July.
I will name this scope ZZ-10 for Zammit-Zambuto 10". It will be a one of a kind scope. The only 10" f/6 built by Michael so far. It will have Sky Commander DSC, Feathertouch focuser and Rigel Finder. This will be a scope for my wife and myself and will be setup for planetary and DSO observing. Should be a kick! I am making a deal on a equatorial platform to use with it for planetary. This should help with the high magnification. It will be a dark metallic gray with white body and black Alt bearing rockers. I will place a picture of it on the forum when it arrives.

All right everyone, I have a question for you about the secondary. I have the choice of secondary for the new scope. Stock mirror would be a Nova (1/10 wave PV) or I can get an Antares certified 1/50 wave PV (RMS 1/300 wave) for about 50% more money. Do you think it would be worth the extra money to buy the Antares? I tend to think that the 1/37 wave PV (1/108 wave RMS) Zambuto would benifit from having a secondary that is rated as good or better. This seems like it would insure that the light would arrive at the eye with the greatest degree of perfection.
So what do you think?
Here is the Interferogram for the Antares.

Well, I got a chance tonight to take out the 14.5" f/4.3 Starmaster and test the 25mm Swan and the 40mm Optiluxe.
I found that the 25mm Swan was a bit soft on the edge with a lot of seagulls. It was better with the Paracorr (f/5), but still had a bit of coma and seagulls in the outer 20%. The EP was not too bad, but I am not going to say that it was great. The FOV was good, the eye relief was not to short but eye placement is important. I need a little more time to check it out to see if it will be OK for a F/6 scope. I am not sure I would call it a great deal at $118 but the performance is good in slower f/10 scopes.
The 40mm Optiluxe was a bit better than the Swan, but still had a soft outer edge (10-15%). It did better with the Paracorr than the Swan however. I did find it to be more pleasant for a wide FOV than the Swan. The performance was not as good as the 31mm Nagler that was for sure, but I thought it was fairly good and would likely work well with the f/6. Overall, it was better than I thought it would be in a fast scope.
It has very long eye relief which is good for glasses. large FOV showing more sky than the 31mm Nagler.
I can say that both these EPs worked well in the f/10 SCT. They both suffered soft edges and seagulls in the outer edges in the fast scope but were much better in the faster scope and did improve with a Paracorr. I would not say that I would recommend them for a f/4-4.8 scope, but for f/6-10 they could be fine.
Next star party I will try to get a chance to put them in other scopes and see how they do.

Well, with all the information I have been given lately I was able to figure system strehl on the new 10" ZZ-10. Looks like the number will be .930 for the system. This is a pretty good figure when you consider it takes the central obstrution, secondary mirror and primary mirror into account. I think this should put it up near the refractor rating as I remember them.
Not too much else to do lately as the weather has be terrible. So it is down to working on projects and projections.

I decided to return the 25mm Swan to Anacortes for store credit. I will likely just buy a 22-24mm Panoptic.
It is not that I thought it was such a bad EP, it just was not good enough to use in all my scopes and I prefer one that works for all.
Before you buy any of the new generation Wide Field EPs, I would suggest you get a chance to try it in your scope. I am finding that many of them are very soft in fast scopes.
I have 30mm GSO SV that I just received for evaluation from a sponsor. They wanted an honest opinion on these EPs, so I agreed to try it and rate it for them. No charge to me of course so I don't mind. I will let you know how it works and try to compare it to the Swan if that is possible.

Hello all,
I did a little experiment a couple of nights ago with primary cooling fans. I used a digital, dual display, inside-outside thermometer for the testing. I tried cooling the mirror with the fan blowing toward and sucking away from the primary. I found that the cooling time was cut in half by blowing onto the back of the mirror. Nothing else was changed, just the direction of flow. I had been wondering abou this for a while.
I think that blowing does introduce more dirt if you are not careful, if opperating in a dusty area. You tend to stir up the dirt with you feet and the fan can pick it up and blow it in the mirror box, but the cooling is definitely better.
Anyone else give this a try?

Well, I now have a full set of everything but a Cat's Eye. I spent some time with the Tectron Tools, Orion combination Cheshire and Sight-tube, Kendrick 2" Laser, Laser Max 1.25"-2" Laser and an Orion 1.25" laser and my Starmaster 14.4" Dob the last few overcast days, looking at the various methods and tools.
The good thing is that they all agree when you have a good collimation. The Kendrick 2" Laser is the fastest and most accurate of the Lasers and it is just as accurate as the Auto-Collimator. The Tectron Tools are very good at setting up a new optical train. The LaserMax is great at setting up a new Secondary and doing a quick optical setup. The Orion 1.25" Laser is quite accurate if it is in a good fitting 1.25" adapter.
The most accurate over all is the Auto Collimator and the Kendrick Laser. If one says it is good, the other agrees. The Auto-Collimator is very precise and easy to use.
I would have to say that either the Tectron or the Kendrick would be my vote for the best. The Kendrick gets my vote for the fastest with great accuracy.
Anyone else do a bit of research on these?