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15" Astrosystems first light...

jetstream

By jetstream
in Observing - Reports

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jetstream

jetstream

Posted
Posted

Ok maybe the 3rd or 4th :smiley:

Last fall (2014) I talked to Terry Ostahowski about a mirror and if he could make me a very smooth mirror (contrast) of high spec and fortunately he was able to, in a few months. The 15" Supramax primary is 1.75" thick and f4.8, 22lbs - a very nice size for me. Also included was his excellent 3.1" diag. We decided on a thickish mirror for weight in the dob, resistance to potato chipping and because it gives a stable platform to work with. He also makes very thin mirrors to the highest spec, but I didn't want this.

The 15" structure is very well made, very strong and just glides around the the sky, Randy Cunningham of Astrosystems did a fantastic job on this telescope. Perfect balance, VG mirror cell, great craftmanship with finger joints holding everything tight. It assembles fast, is easy to collimate (holds collimation too) and has many contrast enhancing features,

So....between these 2 guys I have a very well performing scope! :grin:

Tonight the sky came and went, but there were long moments of excellent sky. M42 showed more again, unfiltered- there was a new patch of nebulosity just off top of it and next to the comma. There is a very dark lane in there that stretches out into faint spikes.... and believe this one or not there was a faint pinkish color under the wing, in that huge mass of nebulosity! :smiley:

The Horse Head : This telescope makes the HH easy. IC434 stands right out with a Hb OR UHC... which means so will the HH. Eyepieces that worked tonight were the 30ES/UHC-poorly,21E/UHC- very good, the 25TV plossl/Hb-excellent. They all saw the HH. :grin:

The Flame neb was easily seen no filter, but this filter slide is so handy...the UHC actually enhanced seeing it a bit, but some faint detail was lost.

Bottom line- if you know what your doing with filters try the UHC

M81/M82 were really nice to see again and how nice they looked! I'm very happy with this scope and hope to get some more reports in.

There must be some ice being made on some small lakes nearby...... there was the haunting, strange noise of ice expanding and pinging- hearing these sounds are worth an observation in itself!

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scarp15

scarp15

Posted
Posted

You paint a very enticing scenario Gerry. Good to learn that the TV Plossl came out tops on the HH. There are rocks in Scotland 3 billion years old that were once part of Canada, so next time I head towards the frontier hills, I can take with me a sense of pristine dark skies, wild expanse of landscape and yes clinking / pinging ice.

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Mike73

Mike73

Posted
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spot on gerry and so glad you love your new scope, quite tempted myself, but maybe 18 - 20"

I've been looking at AstroSystems as well Mike. Its weird but there's loads of UC dob makers in Europe but I wouldn't want a UC for a sub f/4 18" or 20" scope.

A Telekit still works out cheaper than a Lukehurst and they do look a lot better IMO.

Looking forward to seeing some pics of your scope Gerry, unless I've missed that post somewhere?

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