Suiter's book on star testing

[Piero]

I am considering buying this book: Star Testing Astronomical Telescopes: A Manual for Optical Evaluation and Adjustment by H. R. Suiter. I have only read positive reviews about it so far. 

Are the contained formulas necessary to go through the book or not? Said in other words, is it a book for mathematicians / physicists working in the field of optics or is it accessible to amateur astronomers with some knowledge in maths? Star testing is interesting. Just trying to understand how much technical this book is. 

Any comment is appreciated.

Thanks,

Piero

p.s. Not sure whether this is the right topic. If not, mods feel free to move it.

[Putaendo Patrick]

Harold Suiter is a keen amateur astronomer in addition to being a physicist who works in optical research for the US Navy, and the book is written essentially for the serious amateur. At over 380 pages, it's not for the light-hearted but it is pretty definitive! Some parts are highly technical (at least for me!) but are well introduced and you shouldn't need any previous knowledge contained outside the book.

[ChrisLX200]

It's a very good book which contains a lot of technical information but in addition a wealth of practical and simple to understand diagrams. It is those visual aids which make the book stand out for me.

ChrisH

[Martin Meredith]

I have this book and I'd agree with Patrick's comment. There is one essential thing to understand, I would say, and that is the concept of the modulation transfer function (essentially, the way an aberration affects different spatial frequencies in the image differently, if I have that right ;-). Once you have that, most of the specific aberrations he talks about become easier to follow. There is a nice analogy in the intro with sound processing that helps to motivate the main concept.

Even without a full understanding of all the details, the way he presents the 'wobbly stack' of things that can degrade the image is really useful; the later sections to me serve as a way to prioritise things to worry about and things not to fret so much over.

Martin

[Stu]

It's definitely a hefty read, but very interesting and worthwhile to increase your knowledge of how scopes work and how to assess them. Recommended.

 

[Piero]

Thanks Gentlemen for your comments!

A copy was ordered!

 

By the way, I found this program on the Internet. It seems quite interesting and relates to the concepts explained in the book:

Aberrator v3.0  http://aberrator.astronomy.net/  

[jetstream]

Congrats Piero!

Excellent book, thanks for the recommendation Stu!

Suiters filtering concept, which he illustrates with MTF has been, and is very enlightening.

[Piero]

Book arrived!! 

Good! This makes a good reading during cloudy evenings! 

[Stu]

21 minutes ago, Piero said:

Book arrived!! 

Good! This makes a good reading during cloudy evenings! 

Enjoy!! Get somewhere quiet so you can concentrate  

[Piero]

It seems a very clear book! It should be a pleasure to read. Looking forward to star testing my 60mm and 8" dob!  

[Piero]

I played a bit with inside and outside focus on Polaris at 144x (Vixen SLV 5mm + Baader VIP 2x; 0.4mm exit pupil) with my TV60. The seeing was not great but I could still see distinct diffraction rings at this power. I need to test this better though by placing the VIP before the diagonal so that the focuser is stabler. Anyway, inside and outside focus are essentially comparable. The outside focus just reflects more the seeing conditions, but in those moments when the seeing was steady, the image was like the inside focus. Something like Figure 2.1, quadrant (1,2), (1,3), and (1,4). When in focus, the separation between the rings and the disc was smaller than the one shown in quadrant (1.3). To me, the brighter ring was also thinner than in the Picture. I will check again.