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My new 4SE arrived yesterday and it's so much better than the 114GT in every way. the focuser is steady, the mount is solid, the optics are better, and what I can see is so much better. I got to see the cloud bands on Jupiter last night for the first time. With the 114GT Jupiter was just a tiny, blurry white disc. And right now Jupiter is in the eastern sky which was well lit by the city of Boston. In January I'll be able to see Jupiter almost straight overhead at a reasonable time of night so I'm really looking forward to that. I also saw the Andromeda Galaxy for the first time last night, and even though it was barely a smudge it was not visible at all with the old scope. Next clear night I'm going to try out the wedge and try to get some interesting longish exposure photos.
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Nov 21, 2014 15:44
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The optics on the little 4" Synta maksutovs (used on the NexStar 4 and the little Orion and SkyWatcher Maksutovs) are actually really impressive. I got to play around with the Orion version recently and was gobsmacked by how well it star tested and how nice the images were. Congrats on the CPC11. That is definitely a beast to manage, but you'll get fantastic views. You'll love it.
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Nov 21, 2014 17:09
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Coxswain Balls posted:oh god what have we done  Yes, I am in enabler. Bravo, I still haven't committed to anything at this point myself. Both are still on Kijiji here too. What is yours exactly? e: Nevermind, just read ^^ slidebite fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 21:43
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Coxswain Balls posted:It's a beast to carry Can I ask how much it weighs?
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Nov 23, 2014 05:23
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The OTA+fork is 65lbs, and the tripod is 30lbs. The fork has a cabinet handle on the right side, and another handle molded into the base of the left side, which forces you to carry it properly. All of the reviews I've read about the CPC1100 talk about how its ergonomics make it really easy to set up compared to other telescopes of the same size, which is a huge plus for us since we do a fair bit of outreach. If the CPC1100 is supposed to be the easy one to transport and set up, I can see why experienced astronomers might dissuade people from getting huge aperture telescopes unless they absolutely know that they're into astronomy for the long haul.
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Nov 23, 2014 14:41
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This is just too loving cool not to share with the rest of you nerds. On Wednesday, Phil Plait posted the following on Twitter:  The rod had been found in a drawer and had been left in his house by the prior occupant. After people had been guessing for a couple of hours, I actually managed to correctly identify the object as a miniature pool cue from a desktop billiards set and track down the exact set it came from. As a reward, the Bad Astronomer himself sent me a prize in the mail.  A METEORITE!!!!  A letter also accompanied the meteorite, explaining its history (it's a Sikhote-Alin fragment). That man sure has a way with words! Thumbnailed so it doesn't break tables, but very much worth reading.  And a close-up of the piece itself:  Phil Plait has been one of my heroes since long before the Bad Astronomy blog was ever a thing, back when he wrote pseudoscience-tackling articles in Astronomy Magazine in the late nineties. To say I'll treasure this is a gigantic loving understatement! AstroZamboni fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 17:19
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Oh man, I'm super jealous. Phil Plait is my role model. That's awesome! I want a meteorite someday. 
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Nov 23, 2014 18:08
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That's pretty awesome! We've got a whole bunch of meteorite hunters/collectors in the local RASC, and since they love to make donations for prizes, raffles and the like, we're seemingly swimming in them. The astronomy students flip out over them when they're brought into the classroom, and they make nice gifts for the ones who are really excited about astronomy. One dude has a massive chunk of the Campo del Cielo meteorite that he trucks around to events and the like; it's about the size of a watermelon and has to weigh at least a hundred pounds.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:15
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That's a pretty sweet prize. I've got a small meteorite collection, but the geologist in me is kind of bored by nickel-iron meteorites. I've got 5 meteorites from separate falls, my prize piece being a polished thumbnail-sized slice of pallasite. I've got another cut piece about the size of a fist, with veins of melted material and little chondrites scattered all over. I managed to get it for only $50. What I'm saying is meteorites are awesome.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:31
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Indeed, they are.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:35
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AstroZamboni posted:The rod had been found in a drawer and had been left in his house by the prior occupant. After people had been guessing for a couple of hours, I actually managed to correctly identify the object as a miniature pool cue from a desktop billiards set and track down the exact set it came from. As a reward, the Bad Astronomer himself sent me a prize in the mail. That's really cool and sweet and nice
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Nov 23, 2014 20:43
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Bloke at work approached me in the lab and said "youre interested in telescopes right?" I'm now the proud owner of a Skywatcher Explorer 130 with EQ2 mount "And accessories and box" for the princely sum of $100AUD. He moved house into a valley and his kids lost interest. What a nice surprise for a monday. Edit: poo poo, its not a 130P. Its something else with Explorer on the side. Looks old too. Still in good condition. :/ it's a Sky-Watcher N 114/1000 Negative Entropy fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 24, 2014 01:52
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Martytoof posted:Man I've been all sorts of interested in radio astronomy lately and I can't really explain why. I'm probably not going to do anything serious, but it looks like there are lots of things you can do to have some fun observing the sun and satellites and things like that. Part of me wants to build a stationary rig but there's no chance I'm waiting ten years to compile an image. I built a radio telescope in high school! It was very cheap and easy (could be done in an afternoon), although I don't remember what gain we achieved. Like 10 years ago, we found an online calculator for the helix wire geometry. That was pretty Old Internet though- it looks like it's fallen off the first page of google.
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Nov 27, 2014 03:04
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in the most nerdy way possible.
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Had my first encounter with a working telescope today ( given that I have done astronomy-focused bachelor degree in physics).  Now I need to figure out what tools I can use on my home computer to export colour image (raw) of M82 my group made today in MaxIm DL 6 Pro into some computer/phone friendly format.
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Nov 28, 2014 20:59
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Someone I met at NEAF made a ghetto radio telescope with a TV satellite dish and some electronics to shift the signal to an audible tone. Could pick up the sun and a few geostationary sats. Burnt through 9 volts, though 
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Nov 29, 2014 01:26
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The skies cleared up and I assembled my new scope. Again, its not what i thought. It definately is a SkyWatcher SkyHawk 114/1000 but it also seems to have an EQ2 mount, or similar. It has the parts to be motorised.  Can anyone identify this mount? Its a bit flimsy with the aluminium legs, and i need to balance it with the counterweight, the manuals ive found for it dont quite explain how to operate a german equatorial mount, just how to assemble it. Trying to aim it i kept bumping the scope into the RA dial. Anyway, the optics are pretty clean, heres an afocal of the moon using the 25mm lens. 
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Nov 29, 2014 12:31
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So I dug out my old 10" dob for the first time in years. I've kept it wrapped in plastic in its shipping box, but i noticed when I took the covers off and looked it over, there appears to be some water marks on the secondary mirror. Must be from observing in cool nights years ago. Luckily, the primary seems fine. How should I clean the secondary? Obviously I'll want to tilt it full forward so nothing goes down to the tube to the primary, but I am more than a little leery of doing it.  I tried to take a photo of the spots but it didn't turn out, so here is a crappy photo of the scope instead. 
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Dec 1, 2014 03:28
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slidebite posted:How should I clean the secondary? Obviously I'll want to tilt it full forward so nothing goes down to the tube to the primary, but I am more than a little leery of doing it. You should be fine cleaning it with a little bit of distilled water and a microfiber cloth.
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Dec 1, 2014 03:31
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Venusian Weasel posted:You should be fine cleaning it with a little bit of distilled water and a microfiber cloth. OK, can do but would something like Zeiss eyeglass cleaner (that stuff in a small spray bottle) be permissible instead of distilled water?
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Dec 1, 2014 03:46
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Eyeglass cleaner is typically safe for AR coatings, but I'm not sure how it would behave on an aluminized surface. I use distilled water with a little bit of isopropyl alcohol, myself. Also, the safest way to clean the secondary is to remove the spider from the tube. Just be sure to make sure the secondary support is properly centered and the spider vanes are equalized when reinstalling.
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Dec 1, 2014 04:04
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So I was able to get it clean with distilled water and the microfiber cloth thank you very much. I did however notice a single small spot on the primary mirror but I have no way to easily get at it. Any recommendations on how to get down there?
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Dec 1, 2014 04:19
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Undo the screws at the bottom of the tube and remove the mirror in its cell.
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Dec 1, 2014 04:21
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Something to note with telescope mirrors is that in general it's best to clean them as rarely as you can. A fine coating of dust won't hurt your seeing too badly, so I wouldn't worry about it. Remember that a primary mirror is a precision instrument, and cleaning it carelessly can do more harm than good. The general rule of thumb is "when in doubt, leave it alone". If you absolutely need to clean your mirror, Google for some good guides online. S&T had an article several months ago about cleaning optics too, but I can't seem to find that particular issue right now.
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Dec 1, 2014 04:33
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My next door neighbor is a astronomy professor at the local college, from time to time run into him looking at stuff during the night/day. Today we checked out some solar flares, snagged this picture with a new mount he got for smart phones.
TooLShack fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 04:47
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As a newb to Newtonian reflectors, should I try collimating my primary mirror myself, or take it to an expert? http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/how-to-align-your-newtonian-reflector-telescope/ (assuming it needs it)
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Dec 1, 2014 05:35
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Collimation is easy to do yourself, and with enough practice it becomes a 5-minute affair.
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Dec 1, 2014 05:42
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Collimating is a piece of piss if you have the right tools. I recommend practicing a couple of times in daylight (and getting into the habit of doing it at the start of each session, before the sun goes down). It's also a job that needs to be done often enough that it's not really practical to take it to an expert every time.
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Dec 1, 2014 05:43
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I did some skywatching a couple nights ago to get some more practice with alignment. Grabbed a shot of the moon while I was at it via eyepiece-projection to my Canon T3i: It seems a little blurry. I definitely underexposed it at the time (brightened it up afterwards to what you see there) but I still think it was out of focus, even though I thought it was perfect when taking the shot. Any tips on focusing a camera more accurately?
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Dec 5, 2014 17:59
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Focus ahead of time using a bright star as a reference and with a Bhatinov mask mounted on the front of the scope.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:49
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AstroZamboni posted:Bhatinov mask I had never even heard of this before. They seem to be exactly what I'm looking for, though. Thanks!
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Dec 5, 2014 19:10
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For what its worth I did do a very cautious cleaning of my primary with a microfibre cloth and it seems to be fine. Didn't notice any scratches or anything after the fact. I also collminated it. Have yet to take it out since to see how much of a difference it made. Did notice one thing that I wasn't positive about, there were 6 knobs on the bottom of the primary, 3 were larger than the others with "springs" around their threads. I assume those are the ones a person should use for adjusting? In other news, a guy locally is selling a brand new, still in box Meade LS 8 ACF for about 1/3 price of retail.. not sure if it "fell off the back of a truck" or what. What's the thoughts on those scopes? While it's not as big as the 10", the portability of it appeals to me a bit and from what I've read the mount is actually usable for some astrophotography. Thoughts?
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Dec 6, 2014 19:58
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The spring loaded screws were indeed the adjustment screws. The other three are the lock screws. As for astrophotography with the LS8, I would only recommend it for webcam based planetary imaging with video frame stacking software like Registax or Autostakkert. The mount just isn't robust enough for any kind of Long exposure work. I would inspect the scope before buying to make sure it's in working order, but apart from that the LS8 is very decent as a portable goto SCT.
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Dec 6, 2014 22:34
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Thanks for the reply. I sent the seller an email and waiting to hear back from him. e: Got a reply, obvious scam. Oh well. slidebite fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 23:39
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Sigh...
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Dec 7, 2014 01:34
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slidebite posted:Thanks for the reply. I'm curious, what's the scam?
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Dec 7, 2014 02:11
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First time caller, long time listener. I captured Jupiter and three of its moons (visible anyway) with a DSLR and I got pretty excited about that! It was pretty cloudy so I didn't have a lot of time to capture stuff and perfect the focus.  http://i.imgur.com/KkNunzO.jpg uncropped. Canon EOS 1100D, ISO 1600, f/5,6, 250mm lens, 0,5 sec exposure, basic and flimsy alu tripod. Now I'm really hankering for a ~400mm lens, but at the same time wondering if a decent telescope with motorized mount and camera mount wouldn't be better for my needs. I guess what I'm asking is what you guys would recommend if I am mostly interested in astronomy photography. I'm not looking to spend a whole lot of money, so some options would be cool!
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Dec 7, 2014 02:18
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mng posted:I guess what I'm asking is what you guys would recommend if I am mostly interested in astronomy photography. I'm not looking to spend a whole lot of money, so some options would be cool! Nice! The short answer is: depends on what you want to take pictures of. If you just want to take pictures of star-fields and nebulae, you'd be much better off either building your own barn-door tracking mount or, if you want you want to spend some money for more precision, something like iOptron's SkyTracker mount. They'll let you get decent pictures of stars, comets, and large nebulae just using your current gear. I'd say that's probably your cheapest option. On the other hand, if you wanted to spring for a little more, I'd recommend finding a decent motorized telescope and a t-mount adapter for your camera. Then, over time, you can upgrade to more specialized equipment if you like using your telescope for photography. If not, you can always just sit back and enjoy the views through the eyepiece. I haven't seriously looked at telescopes in years, so I'll leave it to someone else to make recommendations if you're leaning towards a telescope.
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Dec 7, 2014 02:41
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What do you all use as a power supply for your setups? I'm already DIYing the dew shield, heater controller and heater bands for the new telescope, so why the heck not. There's lots of plans like this out there, but using cigarette lighter ports seem kind of janky to me. Are XLR cords/connectors a good idea for a field battery, or is there a different connector standard I should be looking at for that? This 72Ah AGM battery is probably what I'm going to go with for a battery. With all the dew heaters at full, including the mount it should draw around 5 amps. I don't think it's gonna be running at full power, but this is our first powered telescope, so I'm not sure what kind of power demands we should be bracing ourselves for. Something that would last a long weekend star party would be ideal; I'd be thankful to hear anyone's experience with that.
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Dec 7, 2014 03:36
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GutBomb posted:I'm curious, what's the scam? Sure scammer posted:deal, but unfortunately i will be 3 months in Quebec,i have the item here with me and would like to close the transaction through a convenience store(nowprepay).
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Dec 7, 2014 04:50
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Yup. Freeze dried bullshit.
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Dec 7, 2014 05:58
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