Freethought & Rationalism Archive

PopeInTheWoods · 04-18-2002, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pangea:
<strong>Pope, I have been thinking of getting a telescope but I don't know anything about them. Could you recommend a simple base model? I want to be able to see all the bodies you mentioned and I would love to be able to take pictures of them also. I would like a good beginner model but I want to be able to see past the moon, ya know? Any thoughts?</strong>

I'll defer to Tim and Asha'man for telescope info. I have a cheap one my wife bought a couple years back, and I only use it a couple of times a year precisely because it's such a pain to aim, and is very touchy to look through. Also, clear nights in Columbus are never guaranteed, although I did see a spectacular Northern Lights display last November.

Last night was mostly cloudy, but I did get a two-minute or so eyeball view of the ISS chasing Atlantis across the sky. Too cool!

Andy

DB_Hunter · 04-18-2002, 11:20 AM

I just built a 10" "Sidewalk Astronomer Special." The mounts are cheap, but the optics are FANTASTIC: 1/10th wave or better primary, and a 1/20th wave secondary. I upgraded a few parts - tossed the "friction focuser" for a nice JMI NGD-2 Crayford-type, and next week I'll add a Novak spder with a custom carbon-fiber secondary holder and a University Optics mirror flotation cell. The Telrad is just a necessity...

Ideally, I want to break it all up and build a truss frame or it instead of the sonotube - I'm driving to Vegas, and I want to be able to stop somewhere dark and just observe for a few hours in really dark skies.

If you do it right, a Dob is a great bargain in terms of dollers-per-inch of mirror. For great used prices on well-maintained equipment, check out <a href="http://www.astromart.com" target="_blank">www.astromart.com</a>'s classified.

DB

outtawork · 04-18-2002, 11:56 AM

I've got a 4.5 Newtonian from Celestron.. Got some good seeing from Jupiter/Saturn/Crescent but missed Mars.. Started to late.

I plan on saving up for a 8 or 10 inch within the next year or so. I'd like to do some CCD, or maybe convert a webcam.

Outtawork

outtawork · 04-18-2002, 11:58 AM

Oh, and another thing..

Thanks for the heavens-above link... what a great resouce... I had been using Celestrons "The Sky" and Stella.. but this is much better since I don't have a laptop and I go up in the Laguna's quite often..

Outtawork

Flynn McKerrow · 04-19-2002, 08:52 AM

I have an old 4" Bausch & Lomb S-C scope, which I haven't actually used since I was in college. While I was in grad school (studying Astronomy, of all things), I got to use the ~2 meter InfraRed Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea to observe SL-9 (prior to and during it's crash into Jupiter), as well as one of the older scopes (about 1 meter) on Kitt Peak -- can't remember its name at the moment. The images from the IRTF were pretty impressive, but I enjoyed working with the one at Kitt Peak much better. The controls and CCD readouts were all inside the dome itself, and the ambiance (not to mention the acoustics! -- I played alot of loud music while I was in there) inside the dome gave me an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.

DB_Hunter · 04-19-2002, 09:14 AM

On my way to Vegas, I'll hit McDonald Obs. in West Texs - got a friend of a friend who'll let me play with one of the smaller scopes for the night. The .9 meter scope was decommisioned, but stilled domed - perfect for me!

DB

crazyfingers · 04-19-2002, 10:43 AM

I've got a Meade 6" reflector on an equatorial mount w/clock drive. Got it a year before all the gotos started to come out.

Regarding a scope for beginners, there is some merit in not getting a Goto scope because with one, the person will never learn to star hop. But OTOH, some beginners will just give up if they have to spend a lot of time finding things.

It depends on the person whether a Goto is the right answer or not.

But I’d tend not to recommend a Dob for a beginner. These light buckets do gather a lot of light for the $ but they aren’t the easiest to use.

DB_Hunter · 04-19-2002, 11:10 AM

I've got a wide assortment of lenses for mine:

2" 35mm Celestron Ultima (85 degree AFOV)
2" Vixen LV 30mm (60 degre AFOV)
2-Vixen LV 24-8mm Zooms
Binoviewers (should be in Monday)
15 & 10mm Vixen LVs
Various Plossls, Orthos, and Kellners.

The Ultima is great for wide-field stuff - on a 10" SCT, I can easily get the phone moon or sun (with solar filter) in the FOV. THe Zooms are for the binos - should be my favorites soon...

DB

PopeInTheWoods · 04-29-2002, 10:15 AM

Woo-hoo! Last Friday night was crystal-clear, and I got wonderful views of all five visible planets. Mercury was much easier to find than I expected, even with the lights of Columbus on the western horizon. It was much brighter than Mars and showed up as a yellowish "quarter" partial disk.

BTW, my telescope is a cheap 3 or 4 inch refractor that can also be used for terrestrial viewing. If I ever do decide to upgrade, I'll definitely consider what was written previously in this thread. Thanks all!

Andy

Jewel · 04-29-2002, 12:56 PM

About a month ago, my husband and I went to Tucson, AZ to celebrate our 7th anniversary.

For 2 nights we stayed at <a href="http://www.communiverse.com/skywatcher/" target="_blank">The Skywatcher's Inn</a> just outside of Tucson. It's very nice. I highly recommend it. They have several scopes there that you can rent. You can even rent an astronomer to show you around the night sky if you are unfamiliar with it and the equipment. The rates are pretty reasonable in my opinion. The sky is breathtakingly beautiful from a dark location.

Also, while we were there, we spent a night up at Kitt Peak Observatory to participate in their <a href="http://www.noao.edu/outreach/nop/advanced/advanced.html" target="_blank">Advanced Observing Program</a>. What a view from there! It was mighty cold up on the mountain, but I think it was worth it. The first part of the evening we participated in the public observing program that they hold every night. Then after that was over, the 16' visitor's center telescope was ours for the using until the sun came up.

We did some CCD Imaging while we were at Kitt Peak. The evening started out with terrible seeing because a storm system was approaching. But amazingly enough the atmosphere calmed down enough for us to get one really good image of <a href="http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/m63.html" target="_blank">M63</a>.

My husband had never looked through a telescope before. I really enjoyed hearing him go 'wow! look at this!'. Over the course of the weekend we got to see the moon (of course), Jupiter and 4 of it's moons, Saturn, Mars, the Orion Nebula, the comet Ikeya-Zhang, the Sun, a couple globular star clusters, and several things I'm having trouble remembering off the top of my head.

I think it was the best vacation I've ever taken.

I also recently purchased a Celestron Nexstar 5, but unfortunately it has been cloudy and rainy more often than not here and especially on the weekends. I don't have good horizons from my apartment complex because of all the buildings and trees, so we need to find a place a bit out of the way I think. I suppose spring and the rain it brings will be gone soon enough and I'll just be fighting off the dew and the mosquitos.

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04-18-2002, 11:20 AM	#12
DB_Hunter Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 755	I just built a 10" "Sidewalk Astronomer Special." The mounts are cheap, but the optics are FANTASTIC: 1/10th wave or better primary, and a 1/20th wave secondary. I upgraded a few parts - tossed the "friction focuser" for a nice JMI NGD-2 Crayford-type, and next week I'll add a Novak spder with a custom carbon-fiber secondary holder and a University Optics mirror flotation cell. The Telrad is just a necessity... Ideally, I want to break it all up and build a truss frame or it instead of the sonotube - I'm driving to Vegas, and I want to be able to stop somewhere dark and just observe for a few hours in really dark skies. If you do it right, a Dob is a great bargain in terms of dollers-per-inch of mirror. For great used prices on well-maintained equipment, check out <a href="http://www.astromart.com" target="_blank">www.astromart.com</a>'s classified. DB

04-18-2002, 11:56 AM	#13
outtawork Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: San Diego, Ca Posts: 97	I've got a 4.5 Newtonian from Celestron.. Got some good seeing from Jupiter/Saturn/Crescent but missed Mars.. Started to late. I plan on saving up for a 8 or 10 inch within the next year or so. I'd like to do some CCD, or maybe convert a webcam. Outtawork

04-18-2002, 11:58 AM	#14
outtawork Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: San Diego, Ca Posts: 97	Oh, and another thing.. Thanks for the heavens-above link... what a great resouce... I had been using Celestrons "The Sky" and Stella.. but this is much better since I don't have a laptop and I go up in the Laguna's quite often.. Outtawork

04-19-2002, 08:52 AM	#15
Flynn McKerrow Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: surrounded by fundies Posts: 768	I have an old 4" Bausch & Lomb S-C scope, which I haven't actually used since I was in college. While I was in grad school (studying Astronomy, of all things), I got to use the ~2 meter InfraRed Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea to observe SL-9 (prior to and during it's crash into Jupiter), as well as one of the older scopes (about 1 meter) on Kitt Peak -- can't remember its name at the moment. The images from the IRTF were pretty impressive, but I enjoyed working with the one at Kitt Peak much better. The controls and CCD readouts were all inside the dome itself, and the ambiance (not to mention the acoustics! -- I played alot of loud music while I was in there) inside the dome gave me an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.

04-19-2002, 09:14 AM	#16
DB_Hunter Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 755	On my way to Vegas, I'll hit McDonald Obs. in West Texs - got a friend of a friend who'll let me play with one of the smaller scopes for the night. The .9 meter scope was decommisioned, but stilled domed - perfect for me! DB

04-19-2002, 10:43 AM	#17
crazyfingers Contributor Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Massachusetts, USA Posts: 13,699	I've got a Meade 6" reflector on an equatorial mount w/clock drive. Got it a year before all the gotos started to come out. Regarding a scope for beginners, there is some merit in not getting a Goto scope because with one, the person will never learn to star hop. But OTOH, some beginners will just give up if they have to spend a lot of time finding things. It depends on the person whether a Goto is the right answer or not. But I’d tend not to recommend a Dob for a beginner. These light buckets do gather a lot of light for the $ but they aren’t the easiest to use.

04-19-2002, 11:10 AM	#18
DB_Hunter Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 755	I've got a wide assortment of lenses for mine: 2" 35mm Celestron Ultima (85 degree AFOV) 2" Vixen LV 30mm (60 degre AFOV) 2-Vixen LV 24-8mm Zooms Binoviewers (should be in Monday) 15 & 10mm Vixen LVs Various Plossls, Orthos, and Kellners. The Ultima is great for wide-field stuff - on a 10" SCT, I can easily get the phone moon or sun (with solar filter) in the FOV. THe Zooms are for the binos - should be my favorites soon... DB

04-29-2002, 10:15 AM	#19
PopeInTheWoods Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Rochester NY USA Posts: 4,318	Woo-hoo! Last Friday night was crystal-clear, and I got wonderful views of all five visible planets. Mercury was much easier to find than I expected, even with the lights of Columbus on the western horizon. It was much brighter than Mars and showed up as a yellowish "quarter" partial disk. BTW, my telescope is a cheap 3 or 4 inch refractor that can also be used for terrestrial viewing. If I ever do decide to upgrade, I'll definitely consider what was written previously in this thread. Thanks all! Andy

04-29-2002, 12:56 PM	#20
Jewel Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Northern Virginia, USA Posts: 1,112	About a month ago, my husband and I went to Tucson, AZ to celebrate our 7th anniversary. For 2 nights we stayed at <a href="http://www.communiverse.com/skywatcher/" target="_blank">The Skywatcher's Inn</a> just outside of Tucson. It's very nice. I highly recommend it. They have several scopes there that you can rent. You can even rent an astronomer to show you around the night sky if you are unfamiliar with it and the equipment. The rates are pretty reasonable in my opinion. The sky is breathtakingly beautiful from a dark location. Also, while we were there, we spent a night up at Kitt Peak Observatory to participate in their <a href="http://www.noao.edu/outreach/nop/advanced/advanced.html" target="_blank">Advanced Observing Program</a>. What a view from there! It was mighty cold up on the mountain, but I think it was worth it. The first part of the evening we participated in the public observing program that they hold every night. Then after that was over, the 16' visitor's center telescope was ours for the using until the sun came up. We did some CCD Imaging while we were at Kitt Peak. The evening started out with terrible seeing because a storm system was approaching. But amazingly enough the atmosphere calmed down enough for us to get one really good image of <a href="http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/m63.html" target="_blank">M63</a>. My husband had never looked through a telescope before. I really enjoyed hearing him go 'wow! look at this!'. Over the course of the weekend we got to see the moon (of course), Jupiter and 4 of it's moons, Saturn, Mars, the Orion Nebula, the comet Ikeya-Zhang, the Sun, a couple globular star clusters, and several things I'm having trouble remembering off the top of my head. I think it was the best vacation I've ever taken. I also recently purchased a Celestron Nexstar 5, but unfortunately it has been cloudy and rainy more often than not here and especially on the weekends. I don't have good horizons from my apartment complex because of all the buildings and trees, so we need to find a place a bit out of the way I think. I suppose spring and the rain it brings will be gone soon enough and I'll just be fighting off the dew and the mosquitos.

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