Link:
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/731720-heq5-belt-mod-in-us/?p=10569035
It's a question I'm pondering. My heq5pro mount guides around .8" to 1.5" after careful polar alignment. Supposedly, I can get that mostly closer to .5" to 1" with the mod.
I want to do it to prove dummy Rod Molise (the SCT police) and that EFT grump wrong. But maybe they're right.
Lest you think (or lest "I" think) I'm just criticizing Cloudynights, I stumbled across a forum post which I think typifies the problem with online communities:
ifi Zen Signature One DAC vs ifi Zen DAC V2 | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
I was just looking for info on cheaper DAC's and headphone amps and read this really bad moderator comment which mocked and advised someone to go basically "go away". Obviously no real attempt to "moderate" in a constructive manner. But I think it's typical of online communities. Conforming or "norming" is like a primary function of online communities. And I feel like it's quite destructive if one is interested in original thought and the respect of individual opinion. I understand there are times when one's individual opinion is at odds with a community but I feel like those times are really potential learning opportunities. Instead the true tribal qualities of a community get expressed over and over and over again. Conform to us or go away. Hierarchical violence.
It took two nights to get this image. This is about 5-6 hours of polishing of the 6 inch f/4.79 mirror. I started this like 7 years ago. There’s some surface roughness and I’m planning on switching to either red rouge or high quality cerium oxide for figuring. My knife edge is coming from the left side in a janky way. There also a kind of hole? I think.
Occasionally, I would see astigmatism but there's about 1.5 to 2 inches of vertical distance between the light and camera. So that could be test stand astigmatism. I probably should do 2-3 hours of general polishing next with the new polishing agent.
There are supposedly some really dark sites in Utah for astronomy.
http://jaysastronomyobservingblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/conger-springs-utah-dark-is-dark.html
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/89-Hangar-Way-Watsonville-CA/31232756/
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/meade-and-orion-cease-operations-maybe/
Though they haven't been relevant for a decade, Orion Telescopes was the place I bought my first scope in 1984. Cloudynights has a couple threads going but my own "lukewarm take" is that they just fell behind the times and as the market shifted to astrophotography, Orion just powered forward thinking that astrophotography was just a side-hustle compared to all the observers... this attitude reflects their 1980's approach to the astronomy retail business. Some people are decrying the waning interest in astronomy and that's sorta not accurate. A lot of people really like astronomy but not a alot of folks want to drop 500 to 2000 bucks when they can just look at pretty astronomy pictures in their instagram feed. Or they can go to a public star party and look through someone else's stuff. The real excitement for newbies are the pictures and much of the older folks reacting to the demise of Orion still think that most people want to observe astronomical objects with their eyes. I think at the very least they want a cellphone pic of what they are seeing. The other VERY questionable thing about Orion is that they purchased the failing Meade Telescope company. Meade's own product line is very dated and represents the state of astronomy circa 1995. I don't know why they felt like they could absorb Meade and somehow "make it great again".
My other sorta complaint/criticism is that their sales were so stingy. Like 2-3% off on their mounts and telescopes. I really dislike companies that offer trivially small "sales" on their goods. It feels like an insult. In addition, their astrophotography cameras never inspired any real confidence in terms of their reliability or future "repair ability." They had an awful warranty service that was limited to the original purchaser only and when I had problems with my old Sirius mount, they just wanted to replace it instead of trying to fix it.
Finally, they really needed to partner up with some younger astrophotographers like Trevor of Astrobackyard. They probably should have gotten rid of 70% of their "observing inventory" and shifted their emphasis to astrophotography. That's where the small amount of money is going and with a good team, they could probably even bring some innovation to the market.
RIP Orion Telescopes.
UPDATE: I tried calling on the afternoon of the 16th. No one answered sales or customer service lines. :(
Where else?
These "ironic" posts happen so frequently that I don't think it's actually ironic anymore.
Still working on old data. Had tons of sessions of Jupiter but was really depressed or something.
Same equipment as previous post. The detail is pretty crazy for East Flagstaff. There's a ton of decent 3 min data so at some point I can run it through Winjupos.
Appears to be an IO transit and according to Stellarium, I'm off in time by about 30 minutes? Closer to 3:20 am appearance in Stellarium.
Captured on 8/25/2021 around 2:46 am Flagstaff. With the C11 and Qhy462c camera. Unknown barlow but guessing Televue 2x. Stacked best 12% (around 800 frames) of sequence recorded. Stacked in Autostakkert and sharpend in Wavesharp with final color removal in PS. Shot during waning gibbous moon phase.
This image is rotated 180 degrees to match a visual perception. North is roughly up. The darker crater in the upper right is a partial view of Endymion.
I was doing a catalog and survey of "rimae" based on Features of the Near Side Moon by John Moore. Atlas is the large crater on the right. Hercules on the left with little craterlets inside and on the rim.
Including a crop view.
Early May when I was down in Flagstaff, I was able to collect about 45 minutes of data on the Snake Nebula. I had a health emergency on the second night that prevented me from collecting a ton of data. Got 91 light frames at 30 seconds, 60 darks, 60 bias, 50 flat frames. Shot with the AP92 on the HEQ5 pro mount. Seeing was pretty average which means below average but transparency on the first night was excellent. Processed mostly in Pixinsight but final touchups and cropping with Photoshop. Camera was Canon EOS R and ISO was 3200. And I used the .8 reducer/flattener from AP. The image is about an 80 percent crop of the total stacked image. .
I have been thinking of this target for ages and am happy I finally got it.
Not sure what the dark nebulosity to the "left" is but it looks like a fanciful coat hangar.
Here's a close-up crop of the Snake with some Bok Globule friends. The thousands upon thousands of stars...
There was a thread on Cloudynights on a new 203mm refractor coming out from Askar. Inevitably, some person with the username "Heywood" had to comment on Asian folks and their propensity for crappy optics. It was pretty blatant racism and a day after the post, it was still there. I thought about rebutting but someone already had by bringing up Takahashi, Pentax, Nikon, and Zeiss (???) as obvious counterexamples of the racist remark. But immediately, someone questioned whether Zeiss would stoop as low as an Asian company. It was beginning to turn into a racist cesspool of comments. Which is not "rare" on Cloudynights. There is a subtle (or not so subtle) anti-Asian bias on Cloudynights which is remarkably ironic since most of the posters own Asian optics. (Not to mention the thousands of items inside their homes made in China). For anyone who knows me, it should be clear that I'm not some defender of Chinese goods and services. There are some outrageous and tragic human rights violations in China as well as a huge disregard for the safety and wellbeing of people who live in the shadow of a giant industrialized nation. And of course, the situation is different in Korea, India, Japan, etc...
From what I can tell, a lot of Chinese optics and telescopes are trying to fill a niche. It's simple business. To get a 203mm (8 inch) refractor from a premium telescope maker would cost at least $25k. There is no alternative, there is no "cheap" version of that scope... until now. (I'm not considering reflectors or other designs.) The company AiryDisk had one for $15k at the eclipse TSP in Latham Springs, Tx. There is a 20k version of the same scope offered by TS Telescope in Germany. And now Askar is offering one for about $7700. If the Askar version uses the same glass, it's probably going to sell well. My initial thought was that it should be set up next to a 8inch SCT. And I think it would be obvious how much "nicer" the views would be through the refractor.
In any event, in my frustration, I contacted a moderator and wrote the following:
"This guy is making a racist generalization based on what? Racist assumptions about a whole continent of people. These kinds of comments allow other people to "tag" on their own racist thoughts and ideas. Also these kinds of comments tend to get applied to Americans who have Asian ancestry. It makes us feel like outsiders, undeserving of respect and basic civility. I know there are a certain number of people who will try to drop little racist remarks because it amuses them to see the reactions. Cloudy Nights is a well-respected community of astronomy lovers and I feel like racist comments of any kind shouldn't have a place here."
Shot with the PST while looking through sucker holes in the cloudy sky. This is really a test of the QHY 678 Monochrome camera and the SolarQuest mount. It works well. Monochrome image stacked in Autostakkert and shaperned and colorized in Photoshop. There's an obvious "hot spot" that I have to figure out. This is probably one of the reasons why people go with Lunt pressure tuned solar scopes. But overall, I like the detail and it's better that I'm using a camera instead of burning my eyes.
Why have I taken so long to post this? Because I was seriously disappointed by some banding that appeared in the image after I stretched it just a little bit. But I mitigated it somewhat in Photoshop but I'm calling it pretty much done. To invoke a cliche: It is what it is.
Taken through the Orion 100ED and the Canon 6D. Even with its faults, I really like the image. I prefer the "cooler" coronal vibe instead of the bright white that is typically depicted.
One of my better RGB attempts, meaning I shot through red, green and blue filters to get this result. Used my C11. But most of my attempts were inferior due to poor seeing and probably questionable collimation.
Attaching a photography mount on a tripod used to be always an annoying proposition because sometimes it gets stuck to the tripod. It's usually a 3/8 inch screw head. I always keep a Pennzoil Oil Filter Wrench in case I need a little help. But when I attached the Sky-Watcher Solar Quest head to my tripod, it became stuck as I couldn't unloosen it from the tripod. And the part that is attached to the tripod screw is very small, almost recessed. When I turn the Solar Quest head, it just rotates and the part that is attached stays fixed. It's that little round ring in the photo below that stays attached but freely rotates without any effect on the tripod screw head. The part that is fixed to the tripod can't really be grasped by anything. I did a little searching and read that you're supposed barely attach the accessory (tripod head, etc) to the tripod (just enough that it "almost" begins to tighten) and use the little setscrews to tighten the tripod head or whatever. This was a revelation. Have I been doing this wrong for the last 40+ years? It didn't really help me as I unloosened the setscrews but it was still stuck to the tripod. I started pulling on the head at maybe 30 degree angles whilst turning to release it and after a few minutes it unscrewed! I then reattached it like I describe above and used the setscrews to tighten everything. When I was done doing my solar viewing (just a test really), I unloosened the setscrews and the head easily came off.
Yay, I guess.
