Posts Made By: jim chung

After working all winter on an image of Saturn, the skies and equipment came finally came together. I haven't been able to get faithful colors on my Saturn and am awaiting some Custom Scientific RGB filters to shoot through but a friend of mine came over and we got some good color data from his Phillips SPC800NC.

Hi all, just spent a good hour reading past threads involving M210. I'll be receiving mine sometime next week and am very happy to be finally joining the Tak club!

Jim

My new/used M210 was severely out of collimation following shipping from Australia so I was able to collimate it nicely on out focus (?) but it doesn't look nicely collimated on in focus. I suspect that the secondary is not quite centered. How does one accurately center the secondary as there are screws to adjust the spider vanes.


Jim

Not the usual fare for posting but I have this new (to me) AP 400 GTO and the weather in the Toronto area is going to be glorious for the next two nights. But, I haven't received the counterweight shaft yet so rather than wait I tried to rig up my much smaller GPDX shaft to work and in doing so discovered that 3/4" plumbing pipe cut with standard pipe thread fits perfectly and is even the right size for the counterweights. This should therefore also work for the AP600 and Mach1 too since they can all use the same AP shaft. Home Depot sells nice 2 ft long pipe threaded at both ends.

In the same vein, 5lb dumbell weights fit nicely on the the pipe if you need extra ballast.

Jim

Just wondering .... my controller will occasionally lose power momentarily and reset to the start menu. I've checked connections and they are all tight so is this because some onboard battery is low and needs replacing?

Hope everybody can give me some pointers

Haven't used the Traveller for a few months and took it out to do some Ha imaging but when I fine adjust the focus instead of a round star I get an enlongated star even on axis. I can't imagine that the scope has been knocked out of collimation since it lives in a padded hard case in the garage and although its cold in Toronto, its only about -10 C. Any ideas? These are also very short exposures on the order of 1 s so its not a mount drift issue and I'm focusing via the CCD and observing the star shape on my laptop. I initially thought that maybe the CCD wasn't orthogonal to the tube and adjusted the compression ring so it was better centered but no difference.

Managed to capture the Dione transit of Saturn on Friday night with my C8 at f20 using a PGR Flea CCD and taking 1500 frames every 15 minutes from just before midnite until 2 AM. Titan is the big moon on the bottom left. If you watch it with averted vision for several loops you'll make out a white patch crossing the face of Saturn.

My flash animation file is to big to post so you can see it at:


http://jimchung.blog.ca






Jim

I was just curious if anyone knew why this AP Traveler auction is doing so well, poised to break past 5k. Given the current economy I wouldn't have expected these prices.

I just wanted some feedback from fellow Amart users because maybe I'm wrong and if so I need my attitude changed!

My beef is people who charge Paypal fees (which varies from 3-4%) on top of their asking price. I feel this is disingenuous because the asking price is not really the true asking price, like a bait and switch technique at a car dealership where the bare bones car with no options advertised at a bargain basement price is never available but the fully loaded model is.

eBay forbids vendors from charging Paypal fees, store merchants don't charge you extra to cover the credit card company's commission when you use plastic. I don't charge my patients extra when they pay via plastic at my dental office. It's the price of doing business in the 21st century and frankly I'd rather pay the credit card commission rather than spend extra time and money chasing down bogus cheques.

Why can't Amart sellers merely raise their asking price to cover the Paypal fee. Or eat it because again I'd much rather have an instant funds transfer and confirmation of a sale than wait weeks for a cheque to arrive in the mail that may never appear and lose other potential buyers. On expensive astro items I've often asked people to Paypal me a nominal deposit to indicate they really are serious and if they are serious it's never been an issue.

Am I wrong?

Just to let everyone know that Roland as usual was right on. I used the Traveler last night in much milder conditions well above freezing where cool down was much less an issue and the stars looked perfect!