jjohnson3803

On 02/06/2024 at 03:42, Nik271 said:

 I wonder how it will affect the cosmic ladder calculations further up and potentially even the Hubble tension. 

I've been wondering about our "conventional wisdom" re: Cepheids for awhile.  Actually, I've been wondering about Type Ia supernovae as an accurate distance measure at high z too.  Ah well, time will tell...

😄  The last time I took a pair of 10x50s to a B3 / B4 site, there were so many objects visible that I didn't even use the scope I had brought along.  For awhile, I just stood staring up stunned.

Now I do live in a gray zone / suburban-urban transition so my skies at home are not good, but still...

That's a magnificent looking structure.  The closet amateur structure I've seen is a semi-circular concrete block "turret".  No dome on it, but it does a very good job of blocking the wind and stray light.

Good luck with the interview!  If I could move to darker skies, I certainly would.  Unfortunately, that's not in the cards anytime soon, so I count the days until I can get to a dark site for an evening.

.

I have an American-branded 72ED and I like it.  The dew shield retracts so it's only about 12 inches long for travel.  It is a chunky monkey, about 2.8kg, with the stock two-speed focuser.  The positive side of the weight is it's built like a tank.   I would not carry it in a backpack though, only a hardshell case of some kind.

Being an ED, it shows noticeably less CA than my 80mm achro and gives sharp views.

I use it on an carbon fiber tripod with a relatively light alt-az slo-mo mount (ScopeTech Zero).

Good luck and enjoy your trip!
 

Never owned a Telrad, but I did have a Celestron pseudo-Telrad with concentric circles that looked like a Star Trek phaser (don't recall the product name).  It was ok, but it was hard to get the circles dim enough to be useful on anything but the brightest stars in my light-polluted skies.

I don't like doing mental or physical contortions, so I use RACIs without illuminated reticles.  My 6x30s have surprisingly sharp optics.  I also have an 8x50 on my ST102.

Took a quick look with my binos last night, just in case.  

Hmmm...  Maybe a successful launch in December?  🤪

On 21/05/2024 at 13:34, dweller25 said:

It’s just a thin strip of aluminium placed between the dovetail and the puck, the bolts in the puck gouge a hole in the strip instead of the dovetail. I replace it every 10 years or so.

Makes me wonder if a mending plate would do the trick.  I use 3-in long plates taped to my OTAs to hold my magnetic-base Wixey angle gauge.

1 hour ago, Oscar23 said:

I think I've got whatever the opposite of that is called! I like my telescope, but it's a bulky and heavy Dob in the end, I increasingly find myself turning down a clear night because I just can't be bothered hauling it outside.

I've gone from a classic C8 to an ST120 to an ST102ED to an ST102.  My most used scopes now are an ST80 when traveling and a 72ED at home.  Even the ST102 isn't getting much use.  

I can still haul relatively heavy stuff around, but I don't want to.  Since I live in heavy LP, faint fuzzies aren't going to be that great in a bigger scope anyway.

IME, aircraft landing lights can look strange, depending on distance and geometry.  The red and green nav lights are often not visible to the naked eye if the plane is far enough away.  It can be a bit startling if they turn off the landing lights while you're watching them.

I've seen and read about not-quite-so-bright seemingly stationary orange lights fading out over a few seconds.  Those I attribute to space junk or satellites.

For those who observe in daylight, do you use any filters to increase contrast?  I tried a #7 yellow, but it didn't seem to help much.

Thanks!

After dealing with trees, weather, and bad timing, I was able to observe it a couple weeks ago.  "Mag 2.95 and 8.47" seems about right although I didn't do any comparisons.

Somebody somewhere (BAA variable section maybe?) was predicting early November 2025 for it to blow.  At least I think they wrote 2025; I'll have to look for the reference.

Probably best to keep monitoring it though.

That ought to get the conspiracy crowd going.  😃

I had a SW 90mm Mak, but sold it since I wanted wider FOVs for open clusters and such from time to time.  Now (early this morning actually) I mainly use a 72ED refractor.  It's not very heavy, a bit over 2kg, and short with the dew shield retracted for travel since it's an f6.  

But maybe I'll try a Mak again one of these days.

Not the first I read, but the first I bought sometime in the 1960s.  The scent of the ink or paper or binding glue is very distinctive and it still triggers good memories.

On 19/05/2024 at 11:55, paulastro said:

I am using tbe Seestar for various projects such as monitoring faint comets, and capturing dark nebula which I'm particularly interested in.

IF I ever go the S* route,  I was thinking it might be quite handy for monitoring variable stars.  

Oh,  how the mighty (Boeing) have fallen.  Lost many experienced engineers, accountants and marketers took over management, 737s fell out of the sky, have to work now with fixed-price contracts.

Nicely done!  

On 21/04/2024 at 02:26, OK Apricot said:

Has anyone made something out of say PVC piping and black tarpaulin? If so, is it as easy as I envisage? Is it practical? Am I wasting my time building a cube lined with dark material within which to place my rig? 

Sort of, yes, yes, and depends on individual circumstances.

My default lightblock is a pair of black polyester shower curtains on a PVC frame.  I usually only need one but I have used two frames in an L-shape.  I use deck rail torch holders (Torch holders) to hold the vertical stanchions, but I also have PVC table caps screwed to 18-inch round tabletop blanks for use as bases on the ground.  I haven't needed PVC cement to hold the bits together.

One note - these are very portable and light, so they can flap in the wind.  But there are several ways of securing the bottom of the curtains.

On 22/05/2024 at 09:05, PatientObserver said:

My ideal tripod and mount for visual use is the Berlebach UNI 18K70 and Rowan AZ75 with encoders and Nexus II.

With the geared center column [...]

Is there much lateral "wiggle" when you unlock the geared column to raise / lower it?  I have a couple of geared column tripods, but I don't use them very often because they can move a few degrees in azimuth when I loosen the column lock.  Keeping some tension on the column helps, but it's not ideal and I worry about premature wear.  Thanks!

I doubt I've found an ideal combo, but my default and most used is a ScopeTech Zero on an Innorel RT90C carbon fiber tripod.  I've tried several friction mounts and I much prefer mounts with slo-mo.  My other manual mount is an AZ Pronto for my little 50mm converted finder, usually on a small Benro tripod.  That's my ultimate grab-n-go.

I have an AZ-GTi, but haven't used it much at all since I bought it last December except to play around with SynScan a bit.

Quite dated, but "Starlight Nights" by Peltier is a good read.

I'd wager two impediments are storage and transportation for those without an observatory of some kind.