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Posts Made By: Charles Hakes

April 16, 2002 09:05 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Secondary Holder

Posted By Charles Hakes
I am guessing that someone has tried using wire or fishing line to hold a secondary mirror. What is the downside? There must be one, or else it would be done more often. I am sure you would need a relatively long holder so the wires attach away from each other.

Charlie

April 22, 2002 02:00 AM Forum: Off Topic Discussions

roaming cookies?

Posted By Charles Hakes
I often log on from different computers, but I used the same login name. My preferences and the "new" message highlights seem to be tied to the computer and not my account. Is there a way to fix this so it doesn't matter where I log in from?

Thanks,
Charlie

May 6, 2002 03:47 PM Forum: Telescope Making

RA drive

Posted By Charles Hakes
I have what I think is an Edmund 4" refractor on a sturdy GEM. Did anyone ever make a RA drive for that mount? I don't see any easy place to attach a motor. It has a 1" solid shaft that sticks out an inch or more on the side oppisite the telescope. I would be looking for a DC solution and, of course I don't want to spend any "real" money on it. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Charlie

May 15, 2002 03:07 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: Recipe for producing a 102mm semi-apo

Posted By Charles Hakes
What about just starting with a nice f15 lens?

Charlie

May 21, 2002 02:35 PM Forum: Telescope Making

New project - mirror questions

Posted By Charles Hakes
I'm finally starting on a new project with an old mirror. It is a 10" ~f9.6 mirror with a very old coating. It was stored wrapped in a box with a UPS label - maybe it was shipped and the packing material rubbed and messed up the surface. Who knows? There are no obvious scratches, but the coating looks terrible - missing in several spots, sleeked in many others, and a big area in the middle that doesn't look a shiney as it should. Anyway, it has been sitting around for a long time because I wanted to get it re-coated before building. But I also wanted to test it's quality before re-coating. (And procrastination is easier.) So now I'm going to "throw together" a simple box/truss Newtonian to see what the images look like. My mirror questions are... Is this just an old coating or could something have happened to the glass surface that will make it bad upon re-coating? I have a ronchi grating that I will use to test, but are there other simple things I should do either in the garage or under the stars to test it before I send it off somewhere?

Thanks,
Charlie

June 7, 2002 07:07 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

Dark Sky Trade

Posted By Charles Hakes
I'm in the four corners area and having extra clear nights lately. Typically mag ~6.5 sky in the back yard.

However, I'll trade a few of these great nights for a bit of rain here. Our drought condition has been "upgraded" from extreme to exceptional. November to May was the driest 6 months recorded in the last 100 years. The fire danger is off the charts and I'm glad I'm not a farmer.

Come view. Bring rain.

Charlie



June 11, 2002 06:50 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Seibert vs. Panoptic

Posted By Charles Hakes
I was looking at the (lack of) reviews on the 19mm Ultra from Seibert. Does anyone have this eyepiece? How would it compare to a Panoptic in an f9.6 scope?

Thanks,
Charlie

July 30, 2002 09:18 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Panoptic or not?

Posted By Charles Hakes
I guess I want a 19mm Panoptic without the price tag. Has anyone made a direct comparison between that and maybe a 19mm Axiom or 18mm Meade Superwide, and how do these compare with the Seibert lines or with the even cheaper 20mm wide angle eyepieces I saw at Apogee? I have read the reviews on Excelsis, but has anyone gotten all these together at the same time for a review? Two of my scopes are f5, but the main scope this would be for is an f9.6. Would I need as premium an eyepiece with the longer focal length? Do I really want to wait around until I can afford the Panoptic? Would I loose anything looking for something with longer eye relief?

Thanks,
Charlie

July 31, 2002 03:46 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Panoptic or not?

Posted By Charles Hakes
I put this message on the eyepiece forum, but this forum gets more traffic, so here goes again...

I guess I want a 19mm Panoptic without the price tag. Has anyone made a direct comparison between that and maybe a 19mm Axiom or 18mm Meade Superwide, and how do these compare with the Seibert lines or with the even cheaper 20mm wide angle eyepieces I saw at Apogee? I have read the reviews on Excelsis, but has anyone gotten all these together at the same time for a review? Two of my scopes are f5, but the main scope this would be for is an f9.6. Would I need as premium an eyepiece with the longer focal length? Do I really want to wait around until I can afford the Panoptic? Would I loose anything looking for something with longer eye relief?

Thanks,
Charlie

August 10, 2002 10:15 PM Forum: Deep Sky Observing

Last Two Messiers Found

Posted By Charles Hakes
Yesterday morning I found M77 and M74, which were the last two on my list. smile I had started a mini-marathon near the end of March with the idea of getting the last 30 or so that I hadn't seen before, but these two were lost in the glare of sunset by the time I got a clear west horizon view a couple of weeks later. Since then it has been a combination of moon, weather, smoke from the Missionary Ridge fire, vacation, etc. , but I finally got everything together. I found them with my 6" f5 homebuilt dob, which I used on most of the rest of the list.

One of my delays was building a 10" dob that got finished (still needs some work) causing all the overcast skies this last month. I finally got to use it last night to find many of the summer Milky Way favorites. I thought this was a somewhat mediocre mirror (that needs recoating and is f9.6, so it is quite unwieldy) but the views are so much better than the 6" that I may have a big problem - now I want a 12.5". Help! What is the cure for this "fever"?

Charlie

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