Posts Made By: Alex McConahay

Casey,

Forgive this if you already know---but just to be sure:

A "2 inch" or a "1.25 inch" eyepiece refers to the size of the barrel that fits your telescope. Do not compare these to 9mm, or 25 mm, or whatever you see listed as the focal length of the eyepiece. They are two completely different measurements. If you have a 1.25 inch focuser, you have to use 1.25 inch eyepeices. If you have a 2 incher, you can use either 2 inch eyepieces, or 1.25 with adapter.

And yes, the shorter the focal length of the eyepiece, the more maxnification you will get. Therefore a 9 mm eyepiece will give you magnification than a 25 mm. This is good to get magnification on small, bright objects, like the planets, but the 25 mm will be preferred on larger objects.

Alex

Casey, your 6 inch Dob will see much deeper than mag 6.

And as for Messier, you have a higher quality scope, and one with about four times the light gathering ability than Messier and Mechain had. So, you will be able to see and even study all of the Messier Objects.

Alex

"* Lest you think I'm being snobbish, let me explain the "library."

Well, I was pretty impressed you had carpeting, too. You got it all. Nobody can say you don't deserve some snobnicity!

Alex

Casey,
First off, the easiest thing to do in the long run is to simply star hop--just find patterns in the sky that show markers to your objects of interest. For instance, M4 is between Antares (which is easy to find) and another star nearer the pinchers (real obvious on the map. So, you put your telescope there, and plop it just a very slight plop to the south. And then you look with your finder scope and/or longest (widest field) eyepiece and look for something that isn't a pinpoint of light. Move your scope a bit (smoothly, slowly) till you find it--it has to be there.

But your question was-- how do you tell how far in degrees you are seeing with your dob. There are various ways to calculate (using formulae with the known focal length of telescopes and eyepieces). Or you can time how long a star takes to get across the field of view, and apply some formula. (I could look up either of these two methods, but I'm sure others will chime in.) The way I do it is to find something in my eyepiece that I can find easily on the charts. For instance, Antares and that star right next to it. Do they fit in your finder scope, edge to edge? How far apart are they on the map? How do they look in your finder scope? Can you see the two stars in Lyra next to M57? Can you get them both in the finder scope? at the edges, or how far in from the edges? How far away are they on your map? That is, to my mind the most useful way of figuring the "scale" of your scope and your map.

Alex

Park on the South side of the big loop if you want northern objects, and north side if you want southern. Not mandatory, but helpful.

Go up to the top part (north of the northern half of the loop) if you want to be away from others. (Most of the people up there are astro-people. The people around the loop are not necessarily.)

Don't advertize your club. One of the rangers gets all nasty about "all the star people" who come up here and take the place over. (Really, just what is this place for? Anyway? (And it is just one of them....)

Don't bother with the weather reports. It will be whatever it wants to be. And it will change in an hour. It don't ask permission.

Have scope covers ready. And beware of placing your scope on a water way. It can really rain up there. But it gets over it.

Don't walk around with a white lantern.

Take extra batteries.

Be sure you have plenty of gas before you leave. It is only what--16 miles from town-- but it is all uphill.

Take your mountain bike. From the Schulman Grove Visitor Center to the river (sixteen-eighteen miles away) there is one uphill stretch of about 200 yards where you will probably have to walk. Otherwise it is downhill at 35 miles per hour. Oh, and bring your helmet and a friend with a truck to bring you and your bike back up.

When you are on the winding road, the narrowest, skinniest one you have ever been on, take a moment to savor the implications of the little sign on the side that says "Road Narrows Ahead." Go slow.


Alex

No, it works on the "monitor" input on the tv. Just plug the rca cord into the monitor input, and sure the tv is set to "Monitor" or "Line." Then you have to play with the gain for a while. Before putting it in your scope, just connect it to the television and turn it on. You should get hazy bright/dark areas.Make sure you are getting something before trying to attach it to your scope (skip thefocusing issues at first)....Then use the lowest power telescope (or camera lens) you can find to start.

Alex

I think the answer would depend a lot on what you plan to do with it. For transporting from home to observing site, it looks pretty good. It is probably better than most of us use (the seat of a car has been mentioned). It would keep the thing clean, and give you an easy to hold handle. I would not want to ship with that arrangement, though.

Of course, we have to remember that the G-11 is a beautiful piece of work, and is probably tougher than any case you will find for it. It can pretty much hold its own. It may get a knick or scratch, but would still run fine no matter how you shipped it.

I would suspect that considering the weight of the head, and the elasticity of the foam that usually comes with these things, I doubt that the foam you have is doing much. In short, when you pick up the case with the head inside, the head simply crushes the foam and is sitting against the side of the case. Same for any potential impacts. The head would just continue moving inside the box, and not be slowed by the foam.

Also, I would cut the foam up in such a way that it would also hold your electronic box, hand controller, cords, and such. You notice there is a gap where that stuff would fit. It would be nice to have it all together.

I would look for something a bit larger, and then put some very dense foam around the very edges (maybe that insulating styrofoam you can buy sheets of down at Home Depot), then a relatively thin layer of the foam you have just inside of the styrofoam and against the head itself.

Is it deep enough to handle the motors when they stick out like that?

Lastly, My experience with cases like that (and I may be wrong--hard to tell from the picture) is that they are a bit flexible. This will show up in the handle area--which would actually be bowed by the weight of the G-11. Also, the relatively thin plastic does not help much against side impacts.

But, for just going back and forth to the observing site--I would go for it. It is better than nothing.

Alex

Gary,

Post the feedback, but keep it factual.

If we cannot post accurate feedback for fear of retaliation, then why have the system.

If he does "retaliate" then, so be it. If anybody is interested in reading feedback, then let them read it, and evaluate it for what it is worth. If you have one negative in a series of wonderfuls, it should not be a disqualification.

ALex

How do you see it flexing? Or--How do you know the flex is in the ring and not the spider?

Alex

Why not use huge tanks of water? At least you will have something useful.

ALex