"Telescope Provincialism" on CN

 

havasman

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Posted Today, 03:57 PM

My TV 2x is invisible to me except for the magnification increase. I like it just fine and think it's very good. It is for use with Tak Abbe Orthos, probably the highest fidelity eyepieces I have. Morpheus are excellent eyepieces. Barlows are specialist tools that have, by way of being included in beginner kits I think, become thought of as required in a kit. I think the important Barlow Q is do I need one and why do I want one. Mine is for taking the focal length of a TAO below the point where eye relief practically approaches zero. A Barlowed eyepiece retains its original ER.

 

When I read the amateur reviews that say one fine Barlow stands head and shoulders above another I look at the associated gear and consider the objects used to judge. Usually neither much mirrors my choices so I discount the value of the review as it relates to my observing tools. Somebody using a ~large world class APO refractor to look at the moon and planets is really playing a different game than I and using different tools too. So their well drawn and clearly expressed opinions are maybe not particularly applicable to my needs.

Edited by havasman, Today, 03:59 PM.

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One of the things I see on CN is that people are often trying to find someone in their EXACT same circumstance so they feel they can have a "real" conversation about some topic.  But finding someone who essentially shares the same equipment and views is like finding your long-lost twin.

You're basically trying to find someone who has your same exact thoughts and feelings.  Why even try to find that perfect "someone" if that person is staring right back at you in the mirror? 

This weird desire also speaks to an inability to see connections and extrapolate results from different systems and different people.  

When your psychology is dominated by this 'doppleganger-desire'-feedback loop, I suspect you've entered an early stage of dementia where the interesting mysteries of the world have become threatening and confusing.

Venus Study from 9/24

 

This is my best effort after about 7-8 tired mornings shooting with the C11 and UV setup.  

After some sharpening in PS, I was able to bring out some of the larger cloud structures.  I know there are some very thin bands in the south (and probably the north) but I couldn't quite tease them out.  There are certainly hints of them but I need better seeing and more aperture to get them.  In my 16 runs on the planet, there was only one run that came close to showing the thinner lines.

Seeing is routinely awful in the pre-dawn hours toward the east for me.  One morning, I did stay up til 9 am and tried to shoot Venus as it rose higher than 30 degrees but the seeing never settled.  My tube just got warmer and warmer due to the sun hitting the dew shield and scope body.

I think I need an open tube scope that I can run with a fan continuously to deal with the heat currents.  I don't think the SCT is a great choice for Venus (though there are some good images from C14's).  I guess I could try to fabricate a white dew shield and maybe completely cover the tube in Reflectix.   And/or I could try wrapping the outer part of the dew shield in aluminum foil.

In my 1200 years in this hobby....

 ...Or when I last talked to Copernicus about premium APOs...

...Or when I told Su Song to move the NCP further from Polaris...

...Or when I told the young Eudoxus that Earth didn't really move much unless one was wearing one's favorite x-ray glasses purchased from the penultimate page of the latest Aquaman comic...

Suspected Scam on CN

 https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/743653-complete-idiot-needs-help-pretty-please/

enddumper

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Posted Yesterday, 08:02 PM

hey guys thanks for reading and helping new rookie out. i just purchased a brand new in case  Astro-Tech TMB-92 Signature Series 92mm f/5.5 Apochromatic Refractor scope for $1199.00 the other day. My basic use is for terrestrial - Celestial viewing only, absolutely no astrophotography .   

 

basically i need informed guys to tell me what other basics ill need for this 6lb boat anchor, other than the tripod which i have figured out already, and is this my best option for which my intended uses are for, again thanks for any and all informed input because purchasing mistakes is digging into my beer money             

Edited by junomike, Yesterday, 08:52 PM.

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I've seen posts a few times where some "regular" person says they're excited about an incredibly great deal they got in regards to a telescope.  Sometimes an avid amateur will stumble across a rare find at an estate sale or garage sale.  But most of the time it turns out to be a scam where the poster (OP) didn't realize they just gave their money to a scam site.  Usually a call to a credit card company fixes the issue.  And of course, the person will need to monitor their credit card account closely as the fraudsters will probably sell/distribute the cc number.

But sometimes you get the above post which eventually leads to a post about how the "lucky" purchaser bought their scope.  It ends up being some sort of scam where the whole reason for the post is to get people to "discover" the scam site.  It's really targetting newbs who only see how much money they can save.  Newbs often don't do their due diligance because they don't know who to trust.

There are a few red flags here.  First, the OP's first post ever is about a great deal.  Mostly, I think folks would ask first to get a sense of the trustworthiness of a potential seller.  Second, the OP seems to know what the actual value of a TMB92 scope is.  But he also claims to be a rookie.  Third, for some reason this poster referred to the scope as a "boat anchor" which might just reveal his/her sense of humor.  But it might also be a Freudian slip revealing that the OP actually knows the value of the scope to be equivalent to a useless boat anchor.  Fourth, the linguistic ticks of the poster are interesting.  In the first sentence, the OP drops an article...  "a" new rookie...   You can draw your own conclusions here.  Fifth, and perhaps most revealing is that there is an added space before the description of the telescope.  If you copy paste what he/she's listed, the first Google hit is a well-known scam site.  No legitimate seller of that scope lists the scope as a "signature series" scope.

Caveat...

 

WinJupos Comparison

 

Having tried a series of 5-11 sets of stacked images de-rotated in WinJupos, I think it's fair to say that you really need like 15-16 sets of stacked images to improve the image.  While the de-rotated image isn't as good as a really good 3 min RGB stack from the previous night, it's a definite improvement.  

I should clarify by saying that not only are we reducing noise in the WinJupos image, but we are getting smaller scale detail which is not available in the single stacked image.

My slight frustration with WinJupos is that most of my attempts have only cleaned up the noise but haven't done much to reveal more small-scale detail.  Had I done this comparison back in August, I would have then instituted a policy (lol) where I always collected 15+ runs of any planets.  For Mars, that's like 45-60 minutes of data.  For Jupiter, that's 45 minutes at most.  

I have derotated a few Jupiter runs, but since I didn't know how many runs would make a difference, I was just doing like 5-7 runs on Jupiter, taking a long break (an hour or longer), then doing another 5-7.  

Chrisotpher Go has mentioned that he does like 5-7 runs in excellent seeing and many more in comparatively worse seeing.  

Also, it's probably worth mentioning (again) that you really need to pay attention to how WinJupos is aligning the images.   Sometimes if you don't pay attention, WinJupos will move the planet slightly from one stack to another which I'm sure is compromising the nature of the stacking.

There are some weird color issues that I couldn't quite fix.   When I did the first Registax wavelet sharpening, I sorta pushed it and in the process, I began to see odd colors (bluish-red).  I didn't really pay attention but then in the final sharpening, I had to deal with it.  And after fifteen minutes of goofing around with the colors, I was too burnt out to go further.  Another color related-issue is that the atmospheric blue "halo" was more orangish.  Again, I can fix this, but I just thought it was interesting that pushing wavelets too hard and de-rotating in WinJupos gave me this "false" color.