Meade Lightbridge Observing report as of 29.5.2009

[Doc]

Sounds good. How are you going to power your laptop. Do you have a big 12v battery.

[JohnC]

Yes i have a couple of 110 Ah in the van + invertor.

The lappy is a small 9" screen one and the onboard batts last quite a few hours. I run the LX200 remotely from the van in winter with a camera attached. But i am far more interested these days in purely visual, hence the LB16

[Doc]

I will have to invest in a 110 ah battery I think.

[JohnC]

You wont go far wrong. A good leisure battery will last years.

Invertors are also very cheap from Maplins.

[calibos]

Big heavy Buggers though! I'm thinking of ditching the 17in Dell Vostro lappy (Powerful beautiful but huge and heavy) and going for a Netbook lappy. Just waiting for them to appear with the Dual Core Atom processors and decent Mobile Graphics to run SNP+ smoothly.

Then we're talking about 5 or 6 hours internal battery life and with a Spare battery that would be long anough for a Winter dusk till dawn session (not that I do many of those)

Saves lugging around a huge 110ah which is what you'd need if you wanted to run a laptop off an invertor as well as all the other gear for the night. Laptops devour power. With a Netbook and a spare netbook battery you can then get away with something like a 26ah to run motors and a multitude of dewstrips.....and lights for the whole night.

As for the servocat. Yum Yum!! Would love one of those beauties. 1800 euros for the servocat and SC/argo was a bit rich for me though. Decided to settle on my Orion Intelliscope DSC and a simple JMI TNT motor system for 'Push-to then track'

Imagine if I had a servocat on Knightrider Mick, and if Imaginova added Voice recognition to their Starry Night Pro Planetarium software and I added an applet to play a Kitt sample everytime the voice recognition software was activated.

I'd say, "Goto M57". Lappy says in Kitts Voice..."Are you sure about that Michael?" Then SNP tells servocat to goto M57 and the big black beauty starts slewing on its own to the target. How smegging cool would that be!!

[Doc]

You make me chuckle Calibos, what a shame you live so far away would love to have a gander at Kitt. Voice recognition whatever next.

But on a serious note my lappy needs 6.3Amph to run. So in theory a 7 hour observing session I would only need a battery of 45 amps.

Or am I missing something.

[albedo0.39]

JohnC - just noticed your cut down LB - very interested that you went down that route, whearas I added strengthening ! How does it perform ?

Interestingly, I still don't have the AZ movement I'd like / expect from my LB so looking at your mod, you must have removed those 3 X Teflon pads and now have to rely soley on the sandwich bearing for the movement. My only concern about doing that was the stability when the scope is pointing low in the sky (overhung loads on the bearing.)

I'm thinking of changing that cheapo bearing from something much more sustantial - e.g. industrial tapered roller bearings (which i have access to)

Anyhows - how did this mod affect the smoothness of the AZ in practise ?

PS - if you are thinking of a dark-sky jaunt, then I'd be interested to join you subject to timing. We could then do a monster back to back session looking at issues of set up / eyepiece etc..

Cheers

[cass1]

The mod was carried out by the previous owner not myself.

I find the motions are really smooth, i think that Mick is correct when he says that balance is very important.

I have only had a very quick play with the scope at this time, but could not detect any flexture.

The bearings are sandard at this time, but i have plans of changing them along the lines of the Obsession dobs.

john

[JohnC]

The mod was carried out by the previous owner not myself.

I find the motions are really smooth, i think that Mick is correct when he says that balance is very important.

I have only had a very quick play with the scope at this time, but could not detect any flexture.

The bearings are sandard at this time, but i have plans of changing them along the lines of the Obsession dobs.

john

[Doc]

Steve I would be interested to find out more about the industrial tapered roller bearings you mentioned. Any pics of them.

The Lightbridge "Lasy Susan" bearings are not what I would call robust and if you are adding more weight to your scope and base then upgrading them could be a wise move.

[albedo0.39]

Update on the subject of improving the AZ movement on the scope. 6 x very special - but very well priced - bearing units on their way to me tomorrow.

I will be fitting this weekend and posting a report. In effect, I will be junking that Lazy Susan in favour of something made to last with an incredibly smooth movement.

More to follow (I'd better get off this thread - I don't want to hijack it further !)

[mdstuart]

Great report again. I also did the blinking neb in cygnus last night. It blinks when you look and look away...with my OIII it just stays bright looking at it and then away..

I have managed 4244 with my 10 inch. I gave it a 1/5 rating for brightness which means just with direct vision but better with averted.

So when the moon is not out and the nights are darker give it another go. I have a note I viewed it in March and it was a faint spindle shape.

I bagged NGC 4291 and NGC 3516 just last night rating 0.5/5! so only with high power and averted vision! I then went for an old favorite NGC 6503 in Draco and it was so bright and big compared to the faint galaxies I am now logging.

I also like you looked again at M81/2 and in M82 coudl see bright and dark patches, really awesome, even NGC 3077 nearby looked big compared to a lot of the small fuzzies.

One thing I struggle with is nebula. Try as I can in Cygnus I cannot see that N America thing or the two thin cloud things...even with the OIII...

Anyway good report again doc.

Mark

[calibos]

I haven't spotted the N. American myself either Mark. I think I heard however that because it is so large and faint, you can be right on it but because it fills the FOV, you have no contrast difference with black space around it and thus don't realise you are actually looking at it. Apparently 'Mexico' and 'Florida' are easier to see because you have the darker patch of sky of the 'Gulf of Mexico' to provide the contrast difference to make the aforementioned pop into view. Did I also hear that it can be better seen with a 2" UHC held up to the eye or a Bino Objective. Will certainly be giving this one a try when the scope is finished and I receive the 80mm Stellarvue finder. I can pop the filter onto a Long focal length EP and pop this into the Finderscope for a nice 4º+ FOV

By the two thin cloud things, I presume you mean The Veil. Remember these are huge objects too, so use your lowest power EP with your OIII. Once you find one half, you'll have to pan the scope to follow the crescent. One half is much easier than the other. Can't remember if its the East or West half though. Anyway, once I found one half it wasn't too hard to find the other when you picture the veil as a pair of brackets ( ) When you get a feel for the orientation of one 'bracket' then pan the scope in the direction of where you would imagine the opposite bracket to be.

[Doc]

Steve look forward to that report. How much was the bearings btw?

Mark will be getting an O111 filter soon so will let you know if it works on North American and the Veil.