Posts Made By: Russ Durkee

I did a side by side on these two scopes last fall. We compared views of Mars and other objects. There are more similarities than differences in these scopes,and the differences were tiny. There was a little better sharpness in my 160 and a tiny bit more contrast in the 155. The owner of the 155 saw the difference in sharpness as well, but he thought the contrast was the same. The other two experienced observers in our group did not see any difference between the two. The performance of these scopes is very, very similar.

Russ

DHL did a nice job in busting up the primary in my C14 a few years ago. Fortunately they honored the insurance. They paid eventually, but it took 2 plus months, a third party inspection of the packing materials, and daily phone calls that generated documentation an inch thick. The good thing is I got a new optics set and a factory fresh, refurbished C14. I sent it to celestron double boxed inside it's damaged trunk. To their credit, Celestron was very good about the repair. I had to pay for the repair out of pocket and DHL reimbursed me for the shipment to Celestron and the repair. But if I recall correctly, Celestron sent it back to me UPS ground single boxed in the same trunk that DHL crushed!!! Luckily it arrived ok that time. I could not believe it.

Pack the scope to survive a 10 foot drop. Use the original shipping container with the foam padding inside its box and place that inside a large box ( with at least a few inches clearance ) filled with packing peanuts. Insure it the best you can and send it by air..2 day or overnight and find a way to insure it to its full replacement value. It might be expensive, but it will save you a lot of headache and time.

Russ

Hi Dale,
I think I may have identified your object. Looks like you caught a 19.2 mag asteroid 6798 P-L. At 9UT on the 8th, it is near the center of the location you specified and is moving at about 48 arcsec/hr roughly E to W. Here is the info from the Sky 6 via the MPORB.dat database.

Russ


Object name: 6798 P-L
Magnitude: 19.2
Equatorial: RA: 05h 20m 48s Dec: +34°47'40"(current)
Equatorial 2000: RA: 05h 20m 05s Dec: +34°47'00"
Horizon: Azim: 128°04'25" Alt: +56°24'13"
Transit time: 01:17 Always above horizon.
Sun distance (au): 2.17
Hour angle: -02h 08m 08s
Air mass: 1.20
Screen x,y: 684.00, 380.00
RA rate (arcsecs/sec): -0.0134
Dec rate (arcsecs/sec): 0.0004
Minor planet epoch month: 12.0000
Minor planet epoch day: 8.9621
Minor planet epoch year: 2009.0000
Minor planet mean anomoly: 50.9915
Minor planet eccentricity: 0.2062
Minor planet semi-major axis: 2.4095
Minor planet inclination: 6.9954
Heliocentric: l: 01°23'13"b: 00°06'42"r: 2.1713
Heliocentric longitude: 01°23'13"
Heliocentric latitude: 00°06'42"
Sidereal time: 03:13
Click distance: 1.0000
Celestial type: 39
Index: 356997
Text record start: 0
Angular separation: 54°09'30"