January 2012 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

New SN
by Patrick Wiggins 28 Jan '12

28 Jan '12

Supernova discovered a few days ago in UGC09396. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/2012JAN28UGC09396.JPG Just a speck but it's there at the end of the arrow. C-14 @ f/5.5 ST-10XME binned 3x3 and cooled to -10, 30s exposure. FOV is about 18x26 arc minutes. Image taken 2012 JAN 28 at 1124 UT. patrick

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Random Question Marks
by D P Pierce 27 Jan '12

27 Jan '12

P?a?t?r?i?c?k, W?h?a?t a?r?e y?o?u t?a?lk?i?n?g a?b o?ut? D?el?oy

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Joan's question marks (was: Eyepiece Selection)
by Chuck Hards 27 Jan '12

27 Jan '12

I suspect a browser incompatibility problem. You could try changing your email to plain text, or opening it in a different browser. On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 1:29 PM, <jcarman6(a)q.com> wrote: > Thanks for everyone responding about NOT seeing question marks in my > posts. I am soooooo confused now. I look at my posts and there are random > question marks throughout every single one of them. It must be something > at my end. I will do a disk clean up and a defrag (do it regularly anyway) > and see if it helps. I'm just glad no one else is seeing them. > _______________________________________________ >

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Eyepiece selection
by jcarman6＠q.com 27 Jan '12

27 Jan '12

Good "conversation" on eye pieces here. Chuck, you're comments are very informative and helpful (to everyone). This is the real value of this board - the exchange of information and knowledge (about astronomy). As Siegfried well knows :) I have a 6" Brandt doublet refractor, fl 16.3. Incredibly long (the tube alone is 8 feet in length -yikes, ugh, n ah, very light weight actually - it's just the climbing up the ladder steps with it and lifiting it over the head to seat it in the cradle (but worth it :)) ) MANY years ago, at Siegfried's suggestion, encouragement, recommendation ... two Clave eyepieces were purchased and they are still the best eyepieces to use in that refractor. Also, many years ago, the Clave's were put into a dobsonian and the views, while good were easily beat by other eyepieces. Chuck's comments explain why. Still, I would NEVER give or sell those clave s . Eyepieces are like telescopes, a good scope or (eyepiece) will not "wear out" or lose it's abillity to provide mind numbing views. Well, you might get aperturitis , but it's a disease only the ardent astronomer can appreciate. The best eye piece for a scope depends on the scope. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, it just had to work with your optical system.

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Eyepiece Selection
by jcarman6＠q.com 27 Jan '12

27 Jan '12

Thanks for everyone responding about NOT seeing question marks in my posts. I am soooooo confused now. I look at my posts and there are random question marks throughout every single one of them. It must be something at my end. I will do a disk clean up and a defrag (do it regularly anyway) and see if it helps. I'm just glad no one else is seeing them.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Eyepiece selection (Branched from: Utah astro swap shop)
by Chuck Hards 26 Jan '12

26 Jan '12

I'm assuming Joan has a modern, relatively short-focus refractor...? Ziggy, how do the Radians perform with a long-focus, traditional doublet? On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 9:35 PM, Siegfried Jachmann <siegfried(a)jachmann.org>wrote: > Joan, you may also like TV radians. A 14mm would be a good eyepiece for the > 6" refractor. > >

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Utah astro swap shop
by jcarman6＠q.com 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Sorry Chuck, I may be switching to plossls and beyond, but I'm not surrendering my orthos - yet. Depends on the object I'm viewing, but they still provide good views. I always like to compare, just looking for the most detail any time any where.

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Eyepiece selection (Branched from: Utah astro swap shop)
by Chuck Hards 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

It's important to remember also that eyepieces are not "stand alone" hardware. The performance they deliver is very much dependant on the telescope they are used in. "Classic" designs, such as orthos and Kellners, work best in long focal-length instruments. The extremely short F.L. lightbuckets of today require more advanced designs to achieve full field correction across a wide FOV. Coma is inherent in fast f-ratio objectives and if you don't use a coma corrector, the eyepiece alone has to be able to deal with it. Much of my observing these days is with long f-ratio, small refractors and my trusty f/8 six-inch Newtonian and f/10 C-6. Orthos and older design eyepieces work very well with f/8 and slower objectives. The smaller apertures I typically use for backyard observing sessions (f/12 to f/20...for reasons I can explain if anyone is interested) also mean that eyepiece throughput makes a big difference. A multi-coated ortho or Kellner will pass more light than a modern eyepiece with 6-to-9 elements, even if it is multi-coated. More glass means more absorbtion and less throughput. Read: dimmer images and lower contrast with smallish objectives. A huge mirror will shrug-off the few percent of throughput loss with a modern, wide-field, multi-element eyepiece. A small refractor can't afford the loss, and the wide apparent FOV is rarely needed. It's a personal aesthetic issue much of the time. I've made and used a lot of eyepieces. There's more to it, but that's the gist of it. We can get into what is needed for a larger FOV in classic designs, if anyone is interested in making your own eyepieces.

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Prodigal's quick return
by Joe Bauman 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Dear Friends, and I hope all do still consider me a friend -- I spent one day off UA and was horribly sad and lonely. Also repentant. I am coming back, and I am sorry for any stress I caused. I hope to be much more temperate in the future. Also, I want you all the know that the reason I quit my blog (at least for now) wasn't because of the dust-up we had on UA. It was because I've about reached the bottom of my well of thoughts and feelings about astronomy and I do not want to repeat myself. As an old newspaperman I have seen it happen frequently to columnists, who say everything they know in a year or two and then just repeat the same ideas in one form or another. I care too much about my writing to let that happen. And I care too much about our little astronomical community to behave like a jerk anymore. So thank you, I'm back. Best wishes to everyone, Joe

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Telescope vote
by Chuck Hards 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

With the sunspotters out of the way, I've got a dewcap and couple of parallelograms to make for friends, but no telescopes on the workbench for myself. Actually I have to retro-fit a curved spider and 2" wyorock focuser to my 6" f/8 Newtonian, but that's relatively minor. Help me decide which telescope project to start with next. These are the projects lined-up for which I have all the components and/or raw materials already on-hand: Various 50mm short-focus "finders", except with 1.25" r&p focusers. (Jaegers objectives) 50mm f/15 doublet refractor with 1.25" focuser (Jaegers objective) 80mm f/7 doublet refractor with 2" focuser (Vixen "research-grade" doublet) 5" f/5 rich-field refractor with 2" focuser (Jaegers objective) 8" f/5 Dob (plate-glass mirror) 10" f/6 Newtonian OTA (Full-thickness pyrex mirror) 12.5" f/5 Hybrid truss (short trusses combined with round tube sections, full thickness Pyrex mirror) Note that I'm leaning toward the smaller sizes in order to get them done and cross them off my list quickly. Plus I can work on them in the basement in winter. I also like small refractors! The larger sizes must be done in the garage, and it's still too cold to spend much time in there. This is probably going to be a popularity contest for telescope type, lets see what happens.

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