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Everything posted by Captain Scarlet
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Mewlon 180 for Planetary Imaging?
Captain Scarlet replied to Sunshine's topic in Imaging - Planetary
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At risk of insulting (for which I apologize if so), are you absolutely sure you’re getting closer to focus as you rack in to the minimum? I’ve been fooled by that before. IE actually you can’t get enough out-focus to catch your closer targets. Pull your eyepiece away from the tube at max out to see. My only other thought is that those OO cells do have quite a lot of travel in the mirror “height” (I have two, an 8” and a 12”, I think they’re extremely good). Perhaps push the mirror up as far as you can with the collimation adjusters. Magnus
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What a shame. I’ll miss his input and I had not a few classifieds-related dealings too. My condolences to his family and friends. Magnus
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COMET C/2022/ E3 (ZTF) - UPDATE
Captain Scarlet replied to paulastro's topic in Celestial Events Heads Up
I downloaded the latest Ephemeris from JPL yesterday to overlay onto my sky mapper and it’s saying that after all it won’t get brighter than about 7.8 . Shame -
Interesting scope. Just out of my price range unfortunately. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255919188676?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=-9TN_vsQStu&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=f_JslxjEQga&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
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@Stu That was a very quick (2 minutes to launch!) back-of-envelope calculation assuming a flat earth (no jokes please ). Allowing the earth to be spherical, it turns out that unfortunately the launch at 37,000 feet and 340-odd miles from your location would have been something over one degree below your horizon. To see such a launch above one's horizon one needs to be within 235 miles. Of course if it stays bright and gets higher that might improve. Cheers, Magnus
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Oh no! How annoying. What are you going to do? Live with it? It should be reparable and most likely won’t materially affect stiffness or performance. I have two of his tubes, an 8” and a 12”. And did you get him to drill holes for you or will you do that? I got him to do mine for the 12” but on inspection decided I could do better myself and have done all my own on that and the 8” since. I pilot with a finger-held 1.5mm to start and move up the bit sizes to end up with really nice accurately-placed clean holes. And a hole-cutter run backwards for the focuser-hole. Magnus edit: down Brighton or Lymingyon way there must be some boatbuilders who use carbon who would easily be able to effect a repair. Near Staines in Middlesex I know of Carl Douglas Racing Shells who would be able too (Carl is a good friend of mine and repaired a cracked carbon bike-frame for me a few years ago).
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Upgrade 80ED to Skymax 150?
Captain Scarlet replied to thesaintishere's topic in Discussions - Scopes / Whole setups
The 80ED is in astro terms quite a short focal length, good for wider-field observing, ie starfields clusters and nebulous regions such as the Veil, and in itself not a bad scope at all. The skymax 150 is quite a long focal length, good for high magnification, ie for planets, double stars and planetary nebulae. The latter should not replace the former, rather it should complement it. Have both, if you can! Cheers, Magnus -
I went out to get rid of the cat detritus and saw the Moon covered in a thin layer of cloud, and a distinct Moon-Rainbow, which I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed before with all the colours, normally the ring is shades of brown. Anyway, a poor iPhone shot which just about shows it:
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Courtesy of and many thanks to @CraigT82 , a secondary-mirror-boss small enough to take my new 50mm secondary mirror for my 8”. Magnus
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Graff’s Cluster is a favourite of mine too, half of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, another alternative IMO to the Double Cluster. Great list, I shall be stealing from it Magnus
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Intes Micro M715 dove tail
Captain Scarlet replied to vince 66's topic in Discussions - Scopes / Whole setups
I have an M603 and have had it completely apart to rejuvenate some of its fittings. On that, the dovetail on it is bolted through the tube to internal baffle-rings or nuts inside, so mine certainly is up to the job (it's also too narrow and I've glued flat shims to each side to increase its width). Cheers, Magnus -
I made an attempt this evening at all-planets-in-one-session as soon as twilight allowed. Weather was more or less perfect, clear, but my worry was Mercury at only 12%. A well-founded worry: I didn’t get it. Venus was obvious though heavily CA’d and I knew exactly where Mercury was, but it was not possible. Damn. I had my Skymax 180, first light since being completely flocked including home-made flocked secondary baffle. Jupiter, in twilight, showed the most detail I’ve ever seen, by a distance. Subsidiary belts quite clear. But while changing up magnification to 160x 220x, dew started to intrude and from there it became a race against it. Saturn was not bad but too low for the best view. Uranus, still a distance from near-occultation by Luna was easy to find. Mars was quite extraordinarily orange, more so than I can ever recall. Not my best view of Mars, that was with my then-new OO 300mm two years ago, but not bad nonetheless. But so Orange! Neptune took a while to find. I had a dewed-over Telrad and then straight to 160x 220x. Telrad got me to the right area (three fingers at arm’s length = 5 degrees) and panning around finally got me there! Nearly the full house but no Mercury. Cheers, Magnus
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Zeiss Conquest HD 8x56 off the other end of the scale? I have their 15x56s and they’re great. Or wait for a pair of Zeiss Victory 8x56B T* P* to come up on eBay, they do appear from time to time. I have a pair of those (got from eBay) and they’re also superb. Magnus
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Venus and Mercury conjunction - NOW 29th Dec 2022
Captain Scarlet replied to Stu's topic in Celestial Events Heads Up
It clouded up just as the moment approached from what had been a clear day grrr -
As others have intimated, 3 should suffice for one scope or one session: 1 for very wide field, one for utility and one for extra high power. My shortest focal-length scope is 510mm and it only accepts 1.25" eyepieces, my widest being 24mm giving me a reasonably-often-used 21x and 3.2 degrees FoV. My silly-high-power eyepiece for that scope which I might use for difficult doubles, is a 1.6mm giving me 319x. Just one other eyepiece in between leaves very large gaps. So for that scope alone more than three is useful. My largeish newt, a 12", quite happily accepts very heavy eyepieces, and I love the extremely wide 100 degree field of, say, an Ethos. I have an E13 which is sometimes the only one I'll use all night. But it's far too big for some of my other scopes, especially if I'm taking it somewhere, so I also have a Tak 12.5mm which is small and light. Also, for widest-field in that newt, my 82-degree Nagler 31 fits the bill perfectly. Plus a Paracorr, of course, without which wide-field views through the newt are nasty. I have a Skymax 180, whose focal length is around the 3000mm mark, necessitating a completely different range for the "ideal three". And so on. Such considerations, without even talking about collectoritis or comparisonitis, quickly lead to a fair-sized collection. Cheers, Magnus
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Averted Vision - Corner Of The Eye Phenomena?
Captain Scarlet replied to Ian McCallum's topic in Observing - Discussion
The article itself gives the answer: [in the dark] best eyesight resolution is 15 - 20 degrees off centre* i.e. well away from what might be considered corner of the eye Cheers, Magnus