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Posts Made By: Ed Moran

March 6, 2004 03:16 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Visual back adapter question

Posted By Ed Moran
See this post:

http://www.astromart.com/messages.asp?message_id=168412&page=3

May 31, 2004 06:01 PM Forum: Solar System Observing

Alpine Valley Rille at last & question

Posted By Ed Moran
Congratulations, Ron! I know you've been hunting the rille for some time, and at last your patience & diligence have paid off. Now that you've had a good look at it I'll wager that it will be easier in the future.

The Alpine Valley Rille has been, under good seeing conditions, not too difficult for my 11" SCT but my "Holy Grail" has been the search to see more than 5 craterlets in Plato. So far, success eludes me. Sigh....

June 15, 2004 12:18 AM Forum: Politics

Limbaugh divorce

Posted By Ed Moran
He confirmed that he is getting divorced. No reasons given. To clear up an inaccuracy in the initial news reports (per his wife's request), he said that he asked her for the divorce. Says it will be an amicable divorce.

June 15, 2004 07:12 PM Forum: Politics

Safe Harbor???

Posted By Ed Moran
I find it most amusing when some folks (not anyone on this forum, of course!!) become concerned about an issue that has, for decades, been ignored by the media and taken advantage of by the Left.

I remember all sorts of "churches" hammering Ronaldus Magnus about his involvement with anti-Communist forces in Central America during the 80's, and wringing their pious hands over the deployment of Pershing II's and cruise missiles in Europe. No one (except us troglodytes) seemed too upset about THAT church involvement in politics.

No one seemed concerned about the REVEREND Jesse Jackson abusing his tax exempt foundations to promote HIS political agenda and promote Democrat candidates.

Now, however, when there seems to be some possibility of (GASP!!) a Republican candidate receiving an endorsement from a church, the excrement seems to have hit the impeller.

I think we'll survive this exercise of First Amendment rights by religious organizations...

March 10, 2005 08:08 PM Forum: A Day in the Life of the Administrator

Proper posting and reponses

Posted By Ed Moran
My practice has been as follows:

The first person to respond (determined by time stamp on e-mail) with "I'll take it" gets it.

Additional inquiries by others are answered with "There is already a buyer, but if the deal falls through I'll let you know". Again, their time stamp determines who gets responded to first.

It is probably not unreasonable to put a "First person to commit to a deal gets the item" disclaimer in the ad. I think I will from now on. Seems only fair...

Of course, this is all theoretical (for me, at least) since my most recent ads have generated little or no response!!

The "Invisible Hand" of the free market has apparently dope-slapped me up the back of the head...

Ed

April 1, 2005 04:02 PM Forum: Eyepieces

LX 200 12 eyepiece help

Posted By Ed Moran
The 41 Pan worked very well in my 11" SCT, it is a good choice. A 35mm Pan is a bit more affordable with "almost" as much fov.

You already have a 27mm Pan so I won't recommend the 22mm T4, although it delivers the same true field of view as the 27 Pan but with more mag. Really nice on mid-sized nebulae like the Swan and Lagoon. Hmm, I guess I just recommended it, didn't I?.

The 12mm T4 would give you a bit more true field of view than your 18mm Ultima, with just about the same magnification as your 12.5 Ultima and could do double duty for planetary work AND globular clusters and planetary nebulae with the bonus of more eyerelief than either one.

Instead of the Powermate I might consider a 10mm or 8mm Radian at this point. I am, after all, spending your money in this exercise smile

April 12, 2005 07:33 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Discovery 12.5" PDHQ

Posted By Ed Moran
Thanks everyone, for the comments and suggestions!

The 2" barrel extension from TV for the 12mm T4 is something I'm considering. I see that the Moonlite focuser people sell a focuser tube extension that might work also. I haven't, as Floyd suggested, tried to use 1.25" part of the 12mm but that might work too, so I'll try that tonight when I see if I've cleared up the astigmatism. I'd like to keep the 12mm if I can.

As for modifications, well, isn't that one of the reasons to own a dob like this one smile? I just took delivery of a few square yards of ProtoStar flocked paper today and I'll probably add U-shaped panel to the front of the rocker box to stiffen it up a bit. To be fair to Discovery, it doesn't really need it despite the high side panels. The rocker box is very stiff considering how light it is (lighter than the heavy particle board box for my Orion XT8!).

A set of wheelbarrow handles and wheels are in the works, too. That will make setting up at home much easier.

Ed


April 13, 2005 07:02 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Discovery 12.5" PDHQ

Posted By Ed Moran
Reducing the pressure on the secondary mirror seemed to do the trick. The perceived astigmatism at high magnifications was eliminated. Yet I still see "something" at low power. I now wonder if what I perceive as astigmatism is something else? For instance, at high power during collimation (350x and 450x) there is no trace of astigmatism at all. Nice round defocused star images on either side of focus, with no flopping oval shape evident.

At low power however, with my 31mm T5, I detect what looks like astigmatic stars. Is this coma instead?

At any rate, Saturn looked great at 350x, with more detail and contrast than ever before. Much better seeing than Saturday night. I even tried 450x (7mm T6 w/Barlow) and it was almost do-able. A bit hard to track though...

The 12mm WILL focus when the 1.25" barrel is used so I guess I'll keep it.

Thanks,

Ed

April 26, 2005 09:45 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

Help with planning a night of observation

Posted By Ed Moran
Here's a link to some lists that I use....

http://edmoran.cnc.net/obs_list.htm

I'm sure you'll get a lot of other suggestions too.

Ed

May 2, 2005 03:27 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Discovery PDHQ Rocker Box Stiffener

Posted By Ed Moran
Thanks, Floyd & Warren!

To answer Warren's question, I put a 18" wide x 6" tall x .75" thick piece of birch plywood behind the original front panel and the new stiffener to tie the two pieces together.

I could imagine the new stiffener moving slightly from side to side as the sidewalls flexed or twisted. Tying it to the existing front panel should reduce that.

I used #6 & #8 brass woodscrews and a little glue to put it all together. I'll probably replace the existing black screws with brass hardware too just for appearances...


I've also moved the altitude bearings a little closer together since I took this pic to reduce the effort required to move the tube up and down.

I'll post a pic of the inside tonight when I get home from work.

Ed

P.S. Here's the pic of the inside piece

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