Posts Made By: Floyd Blue

There have been so many things done under the pretenses of God and religion. Great wars, the Dark Ages, Holy Wars and times of revelation. Many other times good and bad.

The one thing that seems to get lost along the way is the planet Earth. This wonderful gift from God or accident is a reality that we can see and feel. Yet we have plundered and wasted it until it is begining to loose all the things that made it special.

I ask you, is the Earth an oyster for us to consume or a pearl for us to treasure and admire?

We all love to look up at the stars and wonder about other life and planets like ours, but I can tell you that they are a long way away and we are likely to never step foot on one of them or meet these other creatures. The distances are just to big and the demands too great for our meager resources. This is our one chance! Our only place to exist, perhaps in the whole galaxy or universe! We must take it upon our selves to be guardians of this planet and not its destroyers.

This is the basis for my beliefs in religion and God. Not some idea of us being special creatures made in the image of God, but stewards of this ball of creation.
Floyd

Man it never ceases to amaze me how people will bid more than full new retail on items on the E-stayaway site. Each time I see something that I might be interested in I watch as the price goes beyond what I can buy it for new and completely warrantied!
I should sell some old junk there I guess and make a bit of extra money to spend on Astromart. ;^)
Floyd

I am trying to get everything done so that I can go to bed.

Tomorrow is a long day ending with a school star party starting at 7pm. Our club puts on a lot of these at local schools and as president I do go to most of them.

Stayed up late last night observing at Mt. Pinos. Seeing was fair, but high cirrus clouds made some of the sky "soft" for observing. Didn't get to bed until late and sleep was not exactly sound, so tonight I will try to make up for that.

For all you night owls, I hope your week goes well. I am going to be busy with our clubs business. That combined with my own business will keep me hopping for sure.

I hope to see a few of you guys at Mt. Pinos next saturday for new moon. Maybe the weather will be a bit better then.

Time to try and get the old mind to shut down for the evening.

Good night Herb and all you other dwellers of the night.
Floyd

My scope is a Truss DOB. I did not build the scope so some things about it are unknown as to parts used in construction or mirror manufacture (Diag).
I am having a problem with astigmatism. This problem varies with each night. Last night it was very apparent using a 8.8 UWA Meade EP when attempting to split a double.
When focused in and out of focus the astigmatism was constant and pretty bad.
I tried rotating the primary mirror as well as the EP and there seemed to be no effect on the angle of the spikes when moving in and out of focus. This seems to point to the secondary mirror as the cause. It seems to be worse when the scope gets fairly cold.
The secondary is attached to the holder plate with some sort of material sandwiched between the metal plate and the mirror. I am not sure what the material is or what glue was used to attach the mirror. I am considering removing the mirror from the plate and reattaching it with RTV and nylon washer spacers.
I am not sure whether there could be another cause for the astigmatism in the diag other than poor glass, improper attachment, or possibly surface error that is made worse by temperature changes (annealing?).
Some times the view is very good, especially at temperatures around 80 degrees f. Then is seems to get softer and has introduced astigmatism when the temp goes under 55-60 f.
Do you think it would be best to remove the diag mirror and try reinstalling it? Would there be any possiblity of another idea to try besides reinstallion?
I am not just wanting to tear into this without some plan.
Any help with this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Floyd

Never under any circumstance use EPOXY to attach the diag mirror to the holder! It will cause severe astigmatism when the mirror cools.
I just found out that was how mine was attached and I have been working on finding the problem with the optics on this scope for a couple of months or so. Once removed (which was a job in itself) and remounted with RTV it works wonderfully.
I started having problems when the nights started getting cold, man,it sure screwed the views up.
Floyd

Can someone explain why the unobstructed aperture of a refractor of say 6" would be better than the Aperture Masked Reflecor with a 6" hole. Both being 6" of unobstructed aperture, is the refractor just better at light gathering or better at passing the light through the glass than a reflector is at reflecting the light?
I have always wondered what the explanation for this is and never really understood. It seems to me they ought to be very similar!
Floyd

I was asked by someone to take a picture of the counter balance set-up that I use on the NS8GPS. They wanted to know how where to put the sliding weight to balance the scope with a particular EP without releasing the clutch and checking balance.
I did the weight and balance for each EPs with the clutch released then marked the slide. After I found the range of movement for each I found that several EPs weights were about the same and I was able to just have a stop for a certain range of EPs. Note that the arrows point to the position for the front of the slide. In the case of this picture it is set for the 12-17mm Nagler EPs.
I hope that some may find this useful. It saves me a lot of time and I know the scope is balance when I put the EP in place.
Floyd

The Magellan SporTrak is a nice unit that is very accurate.
Floyd

Well another good deal on Astromart and I now found the 14mm UWA in new condition to complete my UWA set. I really like these Meade EPs. I love the Naglers too, but the UWAs are hard to beat for the money.
This should break my EP budget for a while. ;^)
So don't post any more good deals for a while, OK? :^)
Floyd

Well, thanks all for your input on the GPS question.
I just ordered a Garmin GPSMAP 76S and am waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully this week. ;^) Maybe next week!
I will let everyone know how I like it when I get a chance to try it out.
The skies are clearing up here and it is suppose to be a good weekend. If it is I am thinking about trying out a new observation site I have been looking into lately. Not too high, but dessert country and at least I won't freeze my butt off! ;^)
The Mt Pinos site is getting mighty cold now days and the Lockwood Valley is about to close from rain. So it is time to come up with a new winter site. I have been looking for a couple for my club to use. It is getting harder to find dark skies all the time. :^(
Floyd