Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

Today I went down to a local counter top fabricator that I get stuff from occasionally. I was looking for some Ebony Star or pebbled Formica to do a little work. He had about a half sheet of Ebony Star and some of a light colored similar pebble surface. He sold me the material for $5, which is very cheap, but this guy is always very helpful and friendly.
He went on to tell me that this was the last of it because he is unable to find any more anywhere! He said the lighter color had been discontinued a while back and that it started getting scarce just before they announced it was discontinued. He said that he could not get confirmation that it was indeed discontinued, but they have begun a new style of pebbled Formica and he is sure it is just going to take it's place. The problem is, the new stuff is $5 a square foot! 8O
So, if you use Ebony Star, you might want to stock up on it while you can. It just may be impossible to get shortly.
I did use a piece of the lighter colored stuff to make a sheet for the AZ bearing on the 10" Orion XTI. It worked really well and improved the movement to a great degree! I mean, now I would consider it to be "Just Right", where before it was just a bit too stiff for my liking. Now it is nice at zenith and anywhere else in the sky. Great thing to do to one of the GSO or other scopes being sold without Ebony Star and just using the material used to cover the particle board.

Anyone here have any experience with D&G Optical as far as their secondary mirrors are concerned. It is my understanding that they were the state of the art 12-15 years ago, but unsure of what kind of quality they really were.

Well, last night we had a good night out at a local site. One of the first things I wanted to do was to try out the Meade 32mm SP.
I collimated well and let the Orion 10" f/4.7 cool completely before observing.
The first thing that I noticed was the amount of seagulls visible on the FOV. The edge was pretty bad actually, but they also seemed to be present over a lot of the FOV, with even the On-Axis not a crisp as I would like.
I figured it did not like the f/4.7 so I put it in another f/5 10" next to me. The same thing was observed in this scope. It seemed worse on the bright stars.
I waited until late in the night to try it again. I used M-46 as a test area. The on-axis was better, but the off-axis was still not sharp.
Then I moved to Saturn and noted that the planet had a large flare that would not go away. I drifted the planet to the edges and saw a great deal of coma on every edge. Staring at about 80% it got completely unusable. :S
This seems to be contrary to what other have said in their reviews, so I will try it on the 10" f/6 at my next chance.
Let me say that I checked the scope with other EPs, such as the 31mm Nagler and the problem was not in the scope. It also showed the same results in another scope so I am sure it is in the EP. This might be a isolated case or maybe focal ratio, I just don't know.
I am not stating that it is a bad EP, just not an exceptional EP. It is not nearly as good as reported by others in my opinion. The fit and finish was nice, but all the grease in the insta-adjust eye cup was not good. It took a while to remove it all. It got on your hands easily when it was raised. Very poor idea using that much grease! >
Overall, I would rate it at this time as no better than a GSO or other Chinese EPs that I have tested.

I just got an old JMI NGF-1 with Moto-focus and restored it. This is the 1st generation of the model with the body being polished aluminum and the barrel being black anodized. The Moto-focus runs on an O-ring that runs on a groove in the focus knob. Really I neat piece of work. The Moto-focus works very well, with quite a lot of adjustment in speed settings. I have polished the aluminum back to mirror finish and it looks like new. A real classic as far as focusers go. Not sure where it will be used yet, but it will be a nice addition to the scope. I will post a picture later if anyone is interested.

David,
In only a few words, "The guy is a flake!". I don't believe a thing about it. Have you posted his profile with an appropriate rating?
I would tell Herb about it and see if he can get the guys attention, I know he does not get into transctions, but he does keep on top of problem people.
Honestly, there is little you can do about this. If he sent it low priority, did he insure it? Did he show you proof of this?
I would also say that it is possible the item may show on your door one day. I have seen things take a very long time to get from Canada.
I have had 3 transactions with guys in Canada. All have been good and one was for a lot of money too. But I am still leary of buying out of the country.

David,
I have no sympathy for him and I would have done the same as you.
I just wish that there was a way for a person to get his money back under these circumstances, but, a money order once cashed is gone. I like PayPal for this reason, but even it is not a sure thing. Credit cards help too, but there is no cure for this I am afraid.
I am glad that you feel the way you do about it though. That is very mature. Maybe the next time things will go right. I have yet to be burned here, not everything went perfect, but never a burn. I guess I am just lucky?

Well, tonight we had good skies and I got the chance to take a long look at Saturn. I saw 7 moons, Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas, Dione, Rhea, Titan and Hyperion. 8O This is more moons than I can remember ever seeing at one time on Saturn.
I was using my Astro Sky 10" F/6 Zambuto mirror Dob and the Meade 4000 UWA 8.8mm (173x) for the spotting of the moons. This EP was the best for the night. When I went above this the viewing would begin to lose sharpness, so this was the limit. There was a bit of high winds and it was playing with the image slightly.
The Cassini was quite visible as were many bands on Saturn itself. Very nice image, but I wish the night could have taken a little more power. Oh well, that is ok, the viewing was great.
I also checked out the trapezium and got 7 stars there, A,B,C,D,E,F and H were visible with direct vision, but I could not find G.
I should have taken out the 14.5" but this was the one I wanted for the night.

Well, tonight we had good skies and I got the chance to take a long look at Saturn. I saw 7 moons, Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas, Dione, Rhea, Titan and Hyperion. 8O This is more moons than I can remember ever seeing at one time on Saturn.
I was using my Astro Sky 10" F/6 Zambuto mirror Dob and the Meade 4000 UWA 8.8mm (173x) for the spotting of the moons. This EP was the best for the night. When I went above this the viewing would begin to lose sharpness, so this was the limit. There was a bit of high winds and it was playing with the image slightly.
The Cassini was quite visible as were many bands on Saturn itself. Very nice image, but I wish the night could have taken a little more power. Oh well, that is ok, the viewing was great.
I also checked out the trapezium and got 7 stars there, A,B,C,D,E,F and H were visible with direct vision, but I could not find G.
I should have taken out the 14.5" but this was the one I wanted for the night.

I got a sheet of deep red plastic from a plastic supply store here for about $12 as I remember. It ws cut to size for me. It works very well. They do seel remnant pieces of anything so some time you can find that too.

Well, I got the chance to use the WO Bino on the 10" f/6 Astro Sky with a ZOC mirror last night.
I have to admit the views of M42 were most impressive. It showed more of the nebula without a filter than I have ever seen with a filter. It was spectacular to say the least and my friend and I were both impressed. He said the contrast was the best he had ever seen.
Also the views of Saturn were also very good with great contrast and detail. Open clusters were nice but not as the other objects, but still a nice look.
I can not wait for the chance to see Globular Clusters.