Posts Made By: George Golitzin

Thanks for the report Floyd. I guess there's no substitute for a 27 pan at f/5. But would you say the 32 burgess is a better buy than the 25 swan?
George

Thanks guys. Yes Michael, I was fortunate to get some great optics at reasonable cost--I love my Swayze, but if pressed, I'd have to say the greatest mirror I ever looked in was a 14.5 Zambuto on an acquaintance's starmaster--so I'm guessing Floyd's got it pretty good! On the other hand, I really appreciate the extra brightness over the 14" pegasus I had to sell, since I mostly look at galaxies. Floyd, I understand that chair from Linton is a recent acquisition? Nothing beats being able to address the eyepiece from a comfortable, stable position. Makes a huge difference for critical observing I think.
George

Ok we're drooling. Paul, it's nice to have you in the picture. Besides the contented smile, it sets an image scale for the mewlon, whose size I did not previously appreciate. Beautiful scope--have a nice Mars!
George

Hi again Zack--
I logged 6928, 6930 and 6927 on 8/02/03 at Lake Sonoma, LM 6+, with my 16" f/5, 10 mm Speers and 7 mm Nagler. Only 6928 was easily visible in the Speers (I think that EP had inferior contrast), but 6930 was readily seen in the 7mm, a ghostly sliver running north-south. 6927 was glimpsed in averted vision. I found the group very pleasing despite Night Sky Observer's Guide's low rating.

So I think you did really well with your 8" given your conditions, and your observation sounds just about right. As you get more experience with galaxy hunting, you'll feel more confident about what you see versus "just my imagination," and you'll even be able to make out aspect ratio and extension using just AV.

The other thing is that given your light polluted situation, the 17 was too long an eyepiece. Contrast on dim galaxies tends to be optimized around a 2 mm exit pupil, sometimes even higher power, so you need, with your f/6, something in the 10 to 12 mm range for best galaxy viewing. That's why I replaced my speers with an 11mm type 6.
George

Here it is packed up, with its travel cover on top. The dimensions are 14.5" by 14.5" by 16" tall, not counting the tips of the altitude bearings, which add another 5" or so. I was constrained by the need for the scope to fit in the trunk of my van next to our giant camping cooler! (it fits)

**We have been clouded in since September but I did get an evening in early December & found M1, M65, & M66. That's about as deep as I can go.**
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Well I thought I had it bad being rained on for 3 weeks in a row! Two nights ago we had a break in between storms, and as I enjoyed the view of Saturn, I thought about the necessity of accepting what mother nature allows and taking advantage of rare good weather. You must have been out pretty late to be viewing M 65 and 66 in early December! BTW, if you get that 6" refractor to a dark spot you can go a whole lot deeper than the messier galaxies. Best wishes in your new interest--it's the best.
George

Nice scopes David--the rain sure has been steady, although we had some decent seeing two nights ago--did you get out then? Still looking forward to your tak 8.9 vs. celestron 9.25 comparison!
George

Thanks for the post Inge. I've never been too excited about PNs, although I have enjoyed the three bright ones you led off with, and I always come back to the ring and dumbbell. But reading your post, I wonder if I would like them more if I had an OIII filter--I do have a UHC. Do PN images improve in an OIII over a UHC in general?
George

When your forum posts outnumber your ngc lifetime list.

Try the new filter on your 10" Robert, and tell us what you see. The narrowband filters are perhaps more useful in larger scopes than the starblast. Here's an interesting article on filter comparison on several bright nebulae:
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/raycash/filters.htm

George