Posts Made By: Alan French

Wes Bolin said:

Too many clouds and too much time on my hands. When collimating a refractor with a
Cheshire (or a TAK Collimator), will I get a different set of doughnuts to align in
an airspaced triplet compared to an oil spaced triplet objective? Seems like the
center element in the oil trilet will not reflect back? Should both look the same
in collimation with concentric lined-up doughnuts? I've never collimated an oil
spaced scope.
Thanks,
Wes

Wes,

You only get two reflections from an oiled triplet, and it is just a matter of making them appear concentric.

Clear skies, Alan

Joe Bergeron said:

I've added a bit to my world-renowned A-P web page if anyone is interested:

http://homepage.mac.com/joebergeron/a-p.html

Very nice, and nicely written, as usual. Thanks for the announcement.

Clear skies, Alan

David Kernberger said:

To all,

I have never before monitored this forum so forgive me if it appears I am just bringing up a very old subject yet another time. The Edmund RKE eypieces have been on the market for very many years but I have never seen one in person, nor have I ever used one. I see them for sale from time to time on Astromart. Does this mean they are still considered good instruments???? I would appreciate anybody's comments about where they fit into the broad spectrum of currently available eyepieces. Some kind of evaluation please, even if it is just personal opinion. Give them a rating, like from 1 to 10, if you feel like it. I just want to get a basic idea of how good or bad they are generally considered to be.

TIA,
David Kernberger

David,

They are nice eyepieces, especially if you have a "slow" telescope. They are essentially a Kellner, and do not work as well as more expensive eyepieces on fast instruments. I certainly wouldn't recommend using one on a f/4 or f/5 instrument. We have several with the club's 6" f/8 loaner Newtonian and they work well on it.

Clear skies, Alan

Floyd Blue said:

Again, the mentioning of the names and trade marks that I have [COLOR="Red"]banned[/COLOR] in the forum. [COLOR="Red"]PLEASE[/COLOR] everyone read my posts and stop using them!
I do not like to keep deleting posts, but I will as long as my ban is ignored.

Flloyd,

But TMB stands for Third Millenium Bible, although that might be a bit off-topic.

Clear skies, Alan

Jeffrey Kurtz said:

Was surprised he's not at NEAF...maybe his legal machinations preclude traveling OR he has nothing new to exhibit.

I don't think I'd regard the NEAF Vendor listings as the final word yet on who will be there and who won't. Time will tell...

Clear skies, Alan

We definitedly have quite a few eyepieces, perhaps a few more than we need. We both do amateur astronomy, we've been doing it for a combined total of 70 years, and we have a number of telescopes.

We both had almost complete sets of the original TV Plossls when we got married, and these are now our binoviewer collection. The binoviewer gets used in an 8" f/11.45, and the 17 and 13mm TV Plossls usually get the nod. Longer focal lengths are also used, but the 10.4 and 7.4s rarely get used, and spend most of their time in the case.

The case for my little 90mm f/5 includes 35 and 27mm Pans, an 11mm Nagler, either a 7mm Nagler or a 7mm Pentax XW, and a 5.2mm Pentax XL. The 27 Pan and one of the 7mms are used often, but the 11mm rarely gets out under the sky. I also have a 3mm Radian that I use for high power with the 90mm.

We have a few Radians. They get used in my 10" f/9.5, and on cold nights when their greater eye relief helps prevent dewing from the eye's moisture.

Aside from the shorter TV Plossls, we seem to use most of our collection. Fortunately, we don't seem to be lusting after new eyepieces.

Clear skies, Alan

With the addition of a proper solar filter over the front of your telescope, a binoviewer is a wonderful way to enjoy solar observing. Using two eyes at night is an improvement. Using both eyes during the day is a huge improvement. It is much harder to "ignore" the non-observing eye during the light of day, and the binoviewer provides a nice solution to this problem.

Clear skies, Alan

Ashok,

That seems very odd. I have the 12x36 IS IIs here, and my father-in-law has the 10x30s. I haven't noticed any grease on either. Also, mine focus by moving the objective lenses, and I am fairly sure it is the same with all the versions, including the 10x30. Because of this I don't see any need for any sort of grease near the eyepieces.

In cleaning optics I've sometimes found that the choice of solvent is important. Some things come off with lens cleaner, some with isopropyl alcohol, and some with a mild, diluted detergent. A little saliva on a fingertip can get some things that don't respond to other methods.

I don't know what to recommend if it really is grease, and you should probably get it off the glass and out from under the rubber eyecups. Perhaps others will know of a good degreaser.

Clear skies, Alan

Note that this was a Press Release from Meade Instruments, not a real news story about the decisions.

Clear skies, Alan

Hi Folks,

A somewhat belated thanks for all the advice! The cases I did see were the Storm Cases. Now I'll take a look at my options and see what to get.

Thanks again!

Clear skies, Alan