Meade Infinity 102

[Mak the Night]

'Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis Dobsonius'

[Ray of LIght]

1 hour ago, Dave In Vermont said:

I think I saw him in a TV-ad for car insurance or some such pitch.

Egads!

Dave

He fits them well.

[Dave In Vermont]

4 hours ago, Mak the Night said:

'Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis Dobsonius'

That did it! I'm on the floor! You did it, MTN - you killed me!

(what's left of)

Dave

[Ray of LIght]

Hilarious!

[Ray of LIght]

Mak or Dave, is there a way to change my nane from ray1103 to something else? Thanks!

[Mak the Night]

I've looked in account settings Ray, and I can't figure a way to change user names. I'd PM admin if I were you.

[Ray of LIght]

Not sure how to contact them, my first forum and kind of unsure. I must apologize for my stupidity. 

[Ray of LIght]

I just sent a message to the administrators, will see what happens. Thanks again!

[Mak the Night]

They upgraded the forum not so long ago and added lots of new and exciting gremlins features. And I don't know where any of them are or how they work, so you're not on your own Ray. lol

[Ray of LIght]

Lol, yep! I will just wait for an answer from Admin about name change.  It might not be possible but I will let you know what happens. 

[Mak the Night]

I had a look at Saturn with the MightyMak at Transit this morning (01:30), it's higher than Mars but not as bright. Considering it's at least 2.3° lower than this time last year it looks fairly good considering the transparency was not good, in fact, I couldn't find M4 with the RACI or by sweeping the Mak in the vicinity of Antares.

Saturn, Transit: 01:30, 29/5/2016, altitude 17°, 10.028 au distant from Sol, Ophiuchus:

 

Saturn, Transit: 00:42, 29/5/2015, altitude 19.3°, 9.979 au distant from Sol, Libra:

I only took three EP's out with me, the 19mm Panoptic, the 15mm Omni and a 17mm Celestron Plossl. I wanted to evaluate using the Omni and its larger field stop and eye lens with a Barlow element threaded into it to give around 106x.

It seemed to work well, although with the pants transparency the Panoptic was mostly in the diagonal for approximately 53x.

Looking at the 15mm Omni in comparison to a bog-standard 17mm Celestron Plossl, especially as they have identical (and interchangeable) aluminium draw tubes, is pretty indicative that they are both Guan Sheng Optical ultimately in origin.

[Ray of LIght]

Good stuff Mak. My 15mm Omni with my 2.5 Barlow will give me 100x with decent eye relief, I think. So many things to try out. Soon I will be off the anti-viral and the weather will improve. Supposed to rain all night and day, tomorrow, Memorial Day. Great.

[Mak the Night]

It's sunny here at the moment. I may be tempted to go for Jupiter again, unless I'm too knackered later on. I think it's a Bank Holiday tomorrow, I've lost track since the brain damage lol.

Around 22:30 BST the GRS should be visible.

Although it will look like this with the Bazooka. Sometimes, if the pants transparency lets me, I can see other moons.

If I can see Vega I may try to find M92 and see how the Luminos deals with it.

[Ray of LIght]

Let me know Mak. Like I said, lots of rain for next few days. Interested in how the Luminos does.

[Mak the Night]

Yeah, well, it might be sunny at the moment, but it could all turn to pants! lol

[Ray of LIght]

39 minutes ago, Mak the Night said:

Yeah, well, it might be sunny at the moment, but it could all turn to pants! lol

I will pray that does'nt happen! I know I'm screwed! 

[Mak the Night]

18 minutes ago, Ray1103 said:

I will pray that does'nt happen! I know I'm screwed! 

It's still sunny. I'm optimistic. I'm often optimistic though, it could be a bad habit lol.

[Ray of LIght]

 Knackered? Amatite? Not sure what those things are. OMG. We are so ignorant!

[Dave In Vermont]

As to name-changes, I doubt it's a simple task. It would require software that could physically move all your posts, likes, everything into what would essentially be a new account. Not a simple task. A few years ago I would have given you a definitive 'No' to this when I ran a large forum - larger and more sophisticated than this one.

But I may be wrong!

Dave

[Ray of LIght]

I'm sure your right.

[Mak the Night]

3 hours ago, Ray1103 said:

 Knackered? Amatite? Not sure what those things are. OMG. We are so ignorant!

'Knackered' is British slang generally meaning tired or exhausted. Not sure what Amatite is though lol.

Unless you mean Marmite or Anorak?

I didn't search for M92 as I forgot how difficult orienting the Bazooka is, and I had some technical difficulties as I had to re-collimate the RACI with the scope inter alia. The Baader helical worked really well, I don't think I've ever had such sharp and detailed views of Jupiter with the Bazooka. The seeing wasn't great though and I dropped down to 180x with the Luminos. As I waited for Saturn to get a bit higher I thought I'd have a quick look at Mars not really expecting much. After I played with the helical a bit (I really need to practice with it as I keep unscrewing the wrong things lol) I nearly fell off my chair. I saw detail on Mars far better than during the Opposition. I even increased the magnification back to 225x.

Again, I thought I could see some fleeting white at the northern pole, but I definitely saw dark patches in the south east, south west and north eastern regions with some consistent shape and form to them as they tracked across the Luminos' FOV. Saturn was a bit blurry with cloud and atmospheric boiling. I used the Baader Neodymium filter in the T-adaptor for all three targets and I think it made a difference. It definitely made Jupiter's GRS stand out and look quite red.

[Dave In Vermont]

I've actually heard the word 'knackered' a bunch of times over here. Perhaps somethings manage to be adaptable. Archaic versions of the English lexicon can be 'klingons' from the early lexicon. Under studying the usage of a 'mother-tongue' - the version transported overseas generally remain unchanged through the generations, while the language in the original nations' version changes greatly. Learned that through suffering at the hands of Harvard College some decades ago.....

So anywho - we had a long bunch of conversations on eyepieces, with the 30-ish mm being a hot topic. So I just pulled up a 30mm I've had for about 13 years. It was a 'flash-in-the-pan' that appeared, and then vanished. Many stories made the rounds on who was behind it. It was called - mostly - the 1rpd ST80 30. It was a near-unheard of 80° 30mm in a 2" format. And weighs more than any other EP I've laid my paws on that you really needed to clamp it tightly.

At first sight, most people thought it must be junk. It only cost from $30 to $50. Less than even a 32mm store-brand Plossl. And then the reviews began. Which most people assumed were either just plain wrong, or complete lies! People trying these wrote that they truly were almost as sweet as a TeleVue Nagler. And no one would back down from this comparison. When I got one and test-piloted it - I was truly amazed. No vignetting, kidney-beaning, distortions, or anything else - in slow scopes to F/12, and dropping down the F/5. Sharp across the FOV of 80°.

Anyways - enjoy the history lesson -

Dave

 

 

 

In all it's bizarre nature.

[Mak the Night]

knacker  (ˈnækə )  (British) Definitions noun      a person who buys up old horses for slaughter     a person who buys up old buildings and breaks them up for scrap     (usually plural) (slang) another word for testicle     (Irish, slang) a despicable person  verb      (transitive; usually passive) (slang) to exhaust; tire  Word Origin C16: probably from nacker saddler, probably of Scandinavian origin; compare Old Norse hnakkur saddle

That's a nice looking 30mm EP Dave.

[Ray of LIght]

Boy guys, I'm knackered after all that!

[Mak the Night]

I believe due to its elliptical orbit Mars is due to actually make its nearest approach in eleven years to Earth today sometime. I was observing it at around 00:00 to 01:00 this morning and I saw definite detail.

I'm pretty sure these regions are what I observed early this morning. Although I didn't see anywhere near this amount of detail of course.