Posts Made By: Maurice Clark

Hi Joseph,

What do you have against ants?!! :-)

Maurice

Actually, MC is still here!!!!! :-)

Maurice Clark

Hi Bill,

If you are trying to catch meteors, then use the standard lens, not the 85mm. Meteors are hard enough to catch without cutting down your field!

How long you expose for will depend on just how dark your skies are. If you are in mag 6 or better, you can easily do 30 - 45 minutes. If you have much light pollution, then 15 - 20 minutes will be your limit. In any case, if you see any meteor that passes through the feld of the camera, stop the photo straight away.

If you are shooting piggyback, then you can use your main scope for tracking. However, if you are looking through the scope, you will not see any meteors!!! What I would suggest is that you set you camera going with the 50mm lens, and then every minute or so, check the tracking in the main scope. When you finish each exposure ajust the polar axis a little to make the tracking a little better.

Be aware that meteor photography can be a very frustrating business. They always seem to know just where your camera is aimed and manage to pass just outside. Also, with 400ASA, you will be limited to meteors brighter than about mag 1.

You can see a few of my meteor photos at: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mclark/meteors.htm

These are the better ones. There have been many many rolls with not a single meteor! :-(((

Hope this helps,

Maurice

Hi Jim,

I should have known. Trying to give people a laugh does not work on this forum. If you had listened to the program, you would have known that they made just as many jokes about Kerry and the Democrats as they did about Bu$h and the Republicans.

Others have pointed out your error regarding the funding of NPR, so I will not bother. I would however, point out 2 things.

The only radio I have found to be biased, (as far as left-wing/right-wing is concerned) is the extreme right-wing such as Drudge, Borts (sp?) Savage, etc. These people could not be honest if their life depended upon it. Yet they call anyone who does not agree with them "communist", "anti-American", "biased", "partisan", etc. Most of the rest of the media is biased only in its portrayal of the US as "America the perfect" "America the superb" etc. Just a couple of examples; Why do the stations only play US music? Why do the sports stations only discuss US sports?

The other thing I would point out is my curiosity regarding the ferocious opposition to a federal funded media. Having lived most of my life in Australia, and having lived in several other countries as well, I can say how refreshing it is to be able to listen to a radio station that as its reason for existance, something other than to rake in profits. No ads, no baises in news, no bowing down to governments or large corporations. These days I get most of my news from either reading the BBC website or by listening to the ABC over the internet. The commercial US news media is just pathetic and very one-sided.

Regards,

Maurice

Flame suit on!!!! :^)

Here's my effort. Sorry about the poor quality of the photo.

A C-14 on a Titan mount with Gemini GOTO, and a Jagers 5" f/5 refractor on a GM-8 with a Meade 3" refractor as a guidescope.

The other piers are for Meade 8" LX200's that the students use for their night labs. I also use 3 of them for CCD imaging. So when the skies ever clear, I have 4 scopes doing CCD imaging, 1 for film photography, and upstairs there is a 10" Clark refractor for visual use. Now you know why central PA has so few clear nights!!! :-(((

Cheers,

Maurice

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the MegaStar user's group information. I will join up.

Would you believe it. After trying for several hours to get the RealSky to display yesterday, I go home this evening, turn on the computer and MegaStar, and it displays RealSky no problem! I did not change anything from yesterday. Just turned everything!

#$%$*&(&^##@#$@#!%^ computers!!!!!!!!

Now if only the sky would co-operate!!!

Cheers,

Maurice

WOW!!!!!!

Maurice

Hi Mauricio,

"Guiding" means controling the motion of the mount, either visually or by CCD autoguiding, to ensure that the scope tracks the sky perfectly.

"Unguided" means just letting the mount drive the scope without checking how well it tracks.

No drive system will track the sky perfectly. There are always some errors due to slight imperfections in the drive gears, inaccuracies in the polar alignment, mount axies not at right angles to each other, just to name a few.

For this reason, most people use some form of guiding when taking long exposures through a telescope.

Hope this helps,

Maurice

LOL!!!!!

Now that is my kind of humour!!!!

Maurice

Hi Mark,

I do not know about Japan, but when I was living in Australia, I always used international money orders for purchasing telescope equipment from the USA. There was never any problem. Either with individuals or companies.

I would suspect that your bank does not know how to handle it.

Cheers,

Maurice