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[OM] the (mis)adventures of Siddiq and Celeste...

Subject: [OM] the (mis)adventures of Siddiq and Celeste...
From: Acer Victoria <siddim01@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 21:13:27 -0700 (PDT)
...Celeste being a 2000mm f:10 Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain scope ;-)

One phrase sums it up: Oh my poor aching back and neck. <moan>

Yessiree, picked up this monster, along with 16, 32 and 40mm eyepieces
(the last two being Tele-Vue, 32's a Plossl, whatever that means), and I
forget the same of this doohickey at the moment, but it shines a bulls-eye
type target of variable brightness onto a screen; view sky thru screen and 
use that to pinpoint object of interest, fine tune with the side-mounted
spotting (?) scope, and view thru the main eyepiece. Name ends with a
-dar, I think.

Tripod must've weighed 50pounds by itself. Perhaps 20 for the scope,
and mounting hardware, including (yes!) the motor that moves the scope
with the earth's rotation.

Hard part was craning my neck and bending down at various angles to view
the moon/planets. Killed my neck, knees, and back. Oooo.

Observations: 

the moon is a BRIGHT sucker, even through an f:10 lens;

seems to be chromatic aberration (?) where star aren't quite perfect

points, and diffraction-type color change at edge of point
shimmering type thing at edge of moon, like hotair shimmer off asphalt on
a hot day

things move fast at that magnification (didn't hook up the motor yet)

our eyes (or mine, anyway) aren't as sensitive to color as they are to
brightness--took some time before I saw the bands and great red spot on
Jupiter, and its 4 moons; Saturn's very pretty too

things are upside down and left-right swapped (duh, astro scope) which
makes for some initial blunders trying to keep up with something as it
moves

Tmount has't arrived, but i shall hope to get some photos when it does,
and even use the camerafinder to view directly (thus having true 2000mm
focal length instead of 2k/[focal-length of eyepiece]...and then adding
the teleconverter to see if that helps any

I take it that exposure will be sunny16 based? So, with 400ASA film
(SUperia 400; Sky&Telscope magazine likes this!), I can shoot 1/1000; low
of 1/125 with teleconverte if I can use that.

Things shake a LOT, so that's a concern.

Oooh, my poor back....

Tomorrow, I'll go to the library and try to see if I can get nebulae
and/or other goodies to view. 

All comments/hints most welcome :-)

Oh, Uni had a scope that was twice as large as this beast! I can dream :-)

/Acer "steppenwolf" Victoria
--
goosnargh.sig





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