Posts Made By: Jay Emirzian

Matt,
Its nice to see an audiophile in the astonomoy world. I bet if you sealed up the OTA. installed an Epicenter, and wraped it with dynamat you could get at least 3db......).

Now to be serious.....I think your compairing apples to oranges with DB/brightness to the eye. I'm not saying I'm r1ght about this but here is my best guess. SPL is mesured as a given pressure in a cabin, so not only do you hear it but you feel it aswell. When you hear a frequency of 100hz or lower, it is vibrating your tympanic membrane. Which in tern vibrates the auditory ossicles of the inner ear which vibrate the cochlea of the inner ear. These vibrations are then picked up by the vestibular nerves and sent to the brain. So when you increse the SPL by 3 DB it in a sense doubles your "power" because of the increse in vibration or SPL. Your eye has no vibrating organs to pick up waves except for the iris which opens and closes when exposed to diffrent levels of light. With that said, at night your eye will be dialated to allow as much light as possible though the lens. Your eye is sealed and filled with a viscus liquid that refracts the light onto the retna. When the light increses your iris contracts to relieve the stress on the retna from to much light. When looking at a faint DSO the more aprature you have, the more light will pass to your retna. If you double your aprature, does it increse your sence of sight 10 fold? I don't think so. If you looked at a terestral object though your scope with a doubled aprture, you would see a huge diffrence, possibly even go blind. Its just too bad we didn't retain the evolutionary trate of the eskomos. They are said to have a reflective coating on the macula lutea of the inner eye which allows them to pick up more light!! Guess thats because the nights are longer during the winter the further north you travel.

E mail me if you have any more questions.
[email protected]

Thats my best guess,

Jay
)

PS and people told me that I would never realate my learnings in college with real life issues.....boy were they wrong (hee hee)

Darrell,
I have just purchased a Stellarvue Nighthawk and love it. Images are tack sharp. When the reviews say its "King of Short Tubes" they weren’t kidding. It is very reasonably priced considering the caliber of scope. If you keep your eye open in the classifieds you can pick one up in the $300 - $325 range with some great accessories. As for guide scope rings, I plan on piggybacking my scope. Losmandy makes a great dovetail system and Stellarvue just came out with a system as well. I like the Stellarvue system because of its rubber tiped pins. This way the OTA of the scope dosn't get marked, not to mention its $85 cheaper.

Clear skies,
Jay
)

Frank,
Is the tube powder coated or painted? If painted is their a clear coat?

I believe Kendrick makes a large heater specifically for laptops. The only draw back is I would think it draws a lot of current because of its size. I bet if you asked John from Dew-Not he might be able to make you a laptop heater that will draw less current. Just a thought.....sorry to hear about your LCD screen

I'm sure everyone will keep their eyes and ears open if anything should turn up, here on astromart or other classifieds. I'm very sorry to hear about what happened. I wish some people would honestly earn what they want instead of stealing it.

Best of luck finding your equipment,
Jay

PS. Could you make a more detailed list of things that were stolen, it would make it easier to red flag someone selling your equipment? You might also want to check local pawn shops in that area.....if any. Keep us posted, I and I'm sure everyone else wants to help in any way we can.

It sounds like we all need a seat on Santas lap this year for Christmas.

8)

Hey everyone........Thanks so much for the input. I have somewhere to start now.

Howard,
I have the deluxe color laminated version of the Tirion Sky Atlas and love it. As a visual observer I took the liberty of drawing in the constellation lines with an ultra fine point marker. I went on-line and purchased an art portfolio, to protect my atlas when it wasn't in use, for $15. The best part about this version of the sky atlas is its size for one and its durability during those dew soaked nights. In my opinion it's a great atlas and would recommend it to anyone!!

Clear Skies,
Jay

I can put in my 2 cents here as well. I own a SV AT1010 Nighthawk and love it. If, in the future, I upgrade to another refractor it will definitely be a Stellarvue. Vic is very willing to talk to his customers. Put that in picture with a good quality fit and finish and you have yourself one hell of a company. Keep up the good work Vic!!!!

John,
I would try and find a laser with an alternate power source then batteries. They can get expensive and not last as long. I'm sure they make a laser with a 12V or 120V power cord. Try calling Z-Bolt. The owner John is very willing to help.

Good luck,
Jay