Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

I keep hearing this rumor that I have too many EPs. Now I wish to end the stories of me having so many EPs they are coming out of my ears right now. :S

I found these tables at Target for under $30. Very well made and packs up small. It is a nice stable table of good size. Thought others might be interested so I am posting pictures.

Well, today I packed my Zambuto 10", Feathertouch focuser and secondary mirror for shipping. It is not time to ship yet, but I wanted to get it done. I deserve a masters degree in packing for the Herculean effort! 8) I boxed it so well that even a UPS Gorilla would have problems ruining it.
I used the Zambuto shipping box that is custom fitted with 2" closed cell foam. Then I took an 18"x18"x18" box and lined all sides with 2" Styrofoam sheet. Then the box was placed inside the shell and covered with a 4th sheet of 2" Styrofoam. Then I put my focuser and secondary on that sheet and fitted 2" foam all around them so they were solidly packed and custom fitted another 2" foam sheet to cover them, then one more 2" sheet for spacing and finally I put another 2" cap sheet on top of the whole thing. That is 10" on the top in case they put some thing on top of it. I took pictures at every step to show the way it was packed in case of any accident along the way. I will not seal it completely until it is shipped so that it can be inspected before it is sealed so the shipper can not say it was not done correctly. Yeah, it was overkill for sure, but after this last horror story, I am taking no chances with this excellent mirror that I can not replace.

I just filled up the Motor home with fuel and propane and washed the beast. Checked fluids and made sure everything was working. Of course the sky just clouded up completely today, but I did this in advance hoping that it would cloud up now and clear out by Friday! Might work? Of course when I put the scope into the RV it will start to rain immediately. :S

I broke down and ordered one of the 2" Autocollimators from Jim Fry that I keep hear about. Hope to see it next week and see whether it is worth all the talk. I will let everyone know when I get a chance to try it.

Well, the clouds are still here but they are calling for partly cloudy for Friday and Saturday. So I still plan on taking the motor home over to the site. Hopefully we will have a break in the clouds long enough to do some viewing.

Well to make this short, there were not that many observations. I spent the weekend at a local site, hoping for a good night between storms. Friday was a disaster with clouds and rain. Saturday it cleared and the viewing was pretty good for about 2 hours before the DEW hit hard and heavy. IT covered everything including both the mirrors and all equipment and force me to put things away.
On the bright side, the planetary was excellent. Jupiter was gorgeous! The details in the bands was spectacular at times. Moments of clarity were 50% of the time and when it was clear it was crisp. 8O There was a very large group of light blue festoons that extended for maybe 15% of the diameter of the planet. This was the most memorable of the features I could see. The rest of the features were not as striking but great anyway. There were 4 moons spotted. Wish I had a camera.
Saturn was high enough to give good clean images. The bands on the planet were very defined and the rings were alive with contrast. We spotted 6 moons as best we could tell.
We looked at Leo's Triplet, M81-82, M51, M104 and many other objects. Cruised around the Virgo Cluster and looked a few dozen galaxies there. Even chased a couple of satellites trying to see details. But just as things got really dark and pretty, the DEW was upon us and we called it a night.
Scope used was a 14.5" Starmaster on an EQ Platform with Skymaster DSC.

Here in Southern California I saw a bird that looked a like a Meadowlark, except that it had a bright Red-orange head. The other markings were almost the same as the Meadowlark that chased it away. No dark stripes behind the eyes though, but the wings were dark striped like the Meadowlark. They were the same sized bird. I did not see another one or that one again that weekend.

Hello everybody,
I just got in my 2" Infinity Autocollimator today. I was working with the Starmaster anyway so I decided to give it a try and see how it worked and how well it worked day and night.
Ok, first off this is a really nice piece of equipment. The workmanship is fantastic. It is able to be disassembled for cleaning and it comes with the Allen wrench and an extra set screw for this purpose. It fits the focuser barrel perfectly and does not need to be held in position with a set screw. In fact you are told not to use one unless it is needed to keep the unit in place.
The multiple images that you see when the collimation is off are very easy to see. You can see them in daylight or in darkness with a red light. The red light shows extremely well with the triangle that he makes for center spotting you mirror. The Starmaster came with one of this triangles so I did not have to install one. The 10" Zambuto I have is not marked so I got one of the triangles for it.
The sensitivity is remarkable. You can see the slightest amount of loss of collimation even in the focuser during it's travel. The smallest change in the collimation screws are detected in the unit. I check the collimation with the laser, site-tube and Cheshire and they were all in agreement after the autocollimator was used.
Fit and finish is top notch. Ease of use is excellent. Delivery was very quick and packaged quite well in a shipping tube. It was shipped Priority Mail and arrived in four days including a weekend.
I have not had a chance to observe after the collimation, but I can tell that it is going to be dead on the money. This is a great tool for only $80!
Used with the Lasermax laser to set up the secondary to primary it collimates quickly and easily in a couple of minutes.
I give it a full thumbs up.

I had a 1963-1/2 with a 260 V8 and a 4 speed. I loved that car. Did a bit of work on it until it ran well. Had a lot of fun cruizing and street racing it.