RTMC (long)
Derek Wong
Conference. Beautiful weather, only moderate light pollution, and
periods of good seeing with big crowds (over 1000 Saturday night). The
best part of RTMC was meeting lots of old and new friends, including
many from s.a.a. (too numerous to list). Thanks to all the organizers
for their extremely hard work.
One highlight of my trip was observing with a group in one corner of the
camp, consisting of Rick Singmaster with his 20" Dob, Tom Noe and
Teleports, Carl Zambuto, and several others. It was great seeing that
Rick, Tom Noe, Tom Osypowski, Al Nagler etc. are amateurs just like the
rest of us and love observing with the great equipment they build.
Apparently Carl Zambuto only has a few brief outings a year to see what
wonderful views his mirrors give. He was mercilessly harrased as people
told Rick to turn off his GOTO and have Carl find objects :-) When
crazy Ed and Markus Ludes joined the fray the conversation got very
funny.
The only minor complaint I have is that many of the large Dobs were
pointed at the same showpiece objects. One friend of mine said that the
36" scope should be pointed at Hickson groups, not M13 and I heartily
agree. Perhaps we need Tom Polakis' deep sky talk moved to Saturday
instead.
The talk which generated the most buzz was Bryan Greer's fabulous
thermodynamic lecture. What was incredible was that a 6" UNMOUNTED
mirror took three hours to cool. He has some great video which should
be available on the net about the same time as his article in September
S+T. The bottom line is fans fans fans (low vibration) for any mirrored
scope, thin well supported mirrors are good, and we all need to move to
a tropical area with small temperature changes :-) By the way, Bryan is
a very nice guy, and makes great spider mounts at Protostar.
The big item this year was a multitude of medium to large sized mounts.
I don't claim to have visited all the booths.
Permanent mounts:
http://www.hardin-optical.com/jpgs/frame07lg.jpg
This was one impressive piece of machinery! Not as many fancy pieces of
electronics as some others. The old mount has an 80# head, this one
looks like more.
Paramount new version of GT1100. This 90-100# mount (head on;y!) has
super fancy electronics but few cables to tangle, 2400x slew rate, and
apparently extremely accurate GOTO and pointing. Rumored to be designed
by the same person who helped design the AP mounts.
Transportable Mounts:
Mountain Instruments MI-250, now sold by Tony and Daphne Hallas at
http://www.astrophoto.com/Mntinst.htm . Tony is very big on this mount,
which does NOT have GOTO and will NOT be upgradable if and when they get
GOTO. However, apparently a tremendous amount of customization has been
done, including extremely precise gear grinding. The mount apparently
is extemely accurate, and runs on a 9V battery! The pier is being
upgraded to a "Mt. Pinos" style lightweight transportable model which is
much easier to set up than the current version and will have a
customizable height. Polar alignment scope is being developed which
will not require scope rotation like in other setups. Tony says the
capacity is at least 65-70#, more with the new tripods.
William Optics.
There was a rough prototype of a $3000 mount with a 60-70# capacity
which stands on a tripod. The prototype was not up to production
standards, but if it really performs as stated this should be
interesting. Sold by Anacortes--very intriguing.
Unimounts for binos
Very well designed, the Millennium mount worked well for 26# Chinese
binoculars.
Advanced Telescope Systems Portable Piers
Nice, very strong, lightweight--I didn't have a chance to rap one with a
scope on it, but they look impressive. See www.advancedtelescope.com
May be customized to any mount.
Equatorial Platforms--Tom Osypowski's work gets better every year. The
dual axis platform he showed was outstanding.
Selected Scopes:
There was a prototype of a very expensive Kowa 45 degree bino with
interchangeable eyepieces (proprietary only) which looked very nice but
will sell for $3500-$4000 if and when it comes out--ouch!
The LABT-T version of the Chinese military 100mm binos with
interchangeable eyepieces is a very nice unit with double helical
focusers, great at low powers, not tested over 50x.
Teleports--what is there to say, wonderful scopes! All three models
were there--the airplane portable 7" (with 4 Radians), the 32-35 pound
10", and the 14.5" with Feathertouch focuser. I'm not an expert star
tester but the 7" looked damn good! The 14.5" was easy to carry (68#) or
wheel around.
Markus and John Biggs had several refractors. A Tak 152 looked very
nice, as did a Tak FSQ. As there was no Jupiter their corner became
star testers heaven (non-experts like me not included!) Markus has a
very hypercritical eye--he was trying to show me chromatic aberration in
the Tak in the daytime, and I BARELY saw traces of blue-violet out of
focus. Other scopes included an APM 6" f/6 Apo, and next year Markus
may bring a 10" f/9 Apo! His Zeiss 25mm special eyepieces had great
contrast, especially with helical focusers for binoviewing. Todd Gross
is going to review the 16mm versions.
Stellarvue--the 80mm f/6 refractor seems like an excellent deal, baffled
tube with sharp optics. Apparently there will eventually be 2" models
of this scope and the 80mm f/7.5 version. I did not get to see this
scope at night.
Televue--both the TV 101 and 102 were present. The TV 101 showed a
great binoviewed image of M27. The TV 102 always had a line, so I can't
comment, but the focuser is smooth and the scope looks like the same
excellent build quality as the 101. I was a last minute substitution
for a forum on eyepieces and felt about two inches tall when sitting
next to Al! However, he is such a nice man that he corrected us gently
:-)
Other scopes I saw included a Litebox 18" (very nice, 85# owned by Jeff
Gortatowky), a great looking Astrosystems Dob, several AP and TV
refractors, lots of other Dobs and quite a few SCT's. Of course, the
ATM scopes were the best looking, with incredible craftsmanship.
I ran from the TV booth to avoid spending more on eyepieces :-)
I hope everyone had half as much fun as I did. Clear skies,
Derek
Mike Simmons
>
> I hope everyone had half as much fun as I did. Clear skies,
I sure did! But don't forget some of the great solar scopes. The 6"
refractor (AP lens, I think) with a Daystar 0.35A bandwidth filter gave
incredible views of solar detail all over the disk. It was brought out
from Philadelphia by an amateur named Alan but I don't remember his last
name. Maybe you can fill in for my failing memory, Derek.
Mike... uh... oh yeah... Simmons
Bob May
lot of water in the air. Alberio had a lot more color in it than I
was used to seeing, more like Stellafane in it's appearance. This
also showed in views to the north and east where things just seemed to
be in the mud until they got about 30 degrees up.
I did enjoy a nice run through the faint fuzzies in Virgo again this
year but didn't stay up long enough for the Moon to come popping up.
I think that I am just getting old.
--
Bob May
Don't subscribe to ACCESS1 for your webserver for the low prices. The
service has
been lousy and has been poor for the last year. Bob May
Dan Cook
> The only thing that I differ on from that report is that there was a
> lot of water in the air.
It appeared to me that Saturday night was better in that regard than
Friday night. I didn't stay for Sunday night.
- Dan
Del Johnson
gathering, and also it was nice meeting you and so many others from
this newsgroup. Sorry I missed you, Chuck Gulker. I was frequently
seen walking around with a black and white Border collie.
My highlight was finally seeing the central star in the Ring Nebula
with both Rick's fabulous 20" Starmaster with GOTO and also with Tom
Osypowski's equally magnificent 22" on his platform drive. Todd Gross
was right on the mark when he described the Starmaster GOTO system as
a "panic". It was wonderful and funny at the same time to see that big
20" Dobsonian swinging quietly around and landing right on target.
MUCH more elegant than the noisy Meade systems and with a big mirror
that can really show the 10,000+ deep sky objects.
Del Johnson
In article <39323847...@earthlink.net>,
Derek Wong <daw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> One highlight of my trip was observing with a group in one corner of
the
> camp, consisting of Rick Singmaster with his 20" Dob, Tom Noe and
> Teleports, Carl Zambuto, and several others. It was great seeing that
> Rick, Tom Noe, Tom Osypowski, Al Nagler etc. are amateurs just like
the
> rest of us and love observing with the great equipment they build.
>
> I hope everyone had half as much fun as I did. Clear skies,
>
> Derek
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Mike Simmons
>
> I was frequently
> seen walking around with a black and white Border collie.
I was frequently seen petting your black and white Border collie on
Friday night (she kissed me back). I didn't realize an s.a.a. member
was the dog's human.
Mike Simmons
ILoveDoctorDave
Even had other folks with me keeping an eye out for you. Oh well. I'll
plan to fly out again next year.
Take care, Chuck
Bob May
Gil both nights. Had a lot of good conversations with a lot of
different people. Thanks all of you that were SAA writers. Other
than the slightly less than perfect skies I had a great time and also
got about 5lb. of free grit from the guys up at the top of the
Telescope Field when they cleaned up thier worktable. That grit will
come in very handy at the Mirror Making workshop that SDAA is running.
Ed Erbeck Jr.
> When Crazy Ed and Markus Ludes joined the fray the conversation got very
> funny.
Hi Derek, glad I could help lighten things up. You should have stopped
by my Table Sunday night, joined in the rectangle table sillyness session
and helped us ambush unsuspecting wanderers too and from the Telescope field
with the last question they expected to hear out of the dark - "Want some
Popcorn?". Well maybe next year.
--
Ed Erbeck Jr. (Owner Crazy Ed Optical)
Online Catalog:
http://www.crazyedoptical.com - hopefully someday soon
Snail Mail:
Crazy Ed Optical
P.O. Box 446
Pearce, AZ 85625-0446
Phone / Fax 520-826-1484
Jeffrey D. Gortatowsky
that league yet and they would not know me from Adam. But missing Bob May is
a real bummer. Sorry I missed you Bob. I had a great time around your entry
two years ago (assuming it's the same Bob May!).
Clear skies,
Jeff
"Bob May" <bob...@nethere.com> wrote in message
news:sj6icms...@corp.supernews.com...
> The only thing that I differ on from that report is that there was a
<snip>
Derek Wong
>
> But don't forget some of the great solar scopes. The 6"
> refractor (AP lens, I think) with a Daystar 0.35A bandwidth filter gave
> incredible views of solar detail all over the disk.
Hi Mike:
I did look through a few scopes at the sun, but unfortunately by the
time I got to that one they were taking it down. Bummer, hopefully next
year.
Derek
Tom Polakis
Derek Wong wrote:
>
> The only minor complaint I have is that many of the large Dobs were
> pointed at the same showpiece objects. One friend of mine said that the
> 36" scope should be pointed at Hickson groups, not M13 and I heartily
> agree. Perhaps we need Tom Polakis' deep sky talk moved to Saturday
> instead.
Thanks for noticing, Derek. I'm not sure that the Yard Scope needed to be
pointed at Hickson groups, but anyting but the same ol' four objects, listed
here:
RTMC same ol' four objects:
M13
M51
M104
M57 (as it rises)
It seems like the other field near the lake had a larger number of scopes
pointed at other, more interesting objects. Dave Eicher and I had the
pleasure of finding Randy Cunningham of Astro-Systems, who was taking
requests for his fine 16-inch. We took a look at the Siamese Twin galaxies,
NGC 4319 and the quasar, among many others.
The low point was finding an 8-inch refractor on a beautiful Byers mount
pointed at Epsilon Lyrae. Even at the too-low magnification they were
using, the stars were boiling less than 30 degrees above the horizon.
Meanwhile, Bootes and its many tight double stars were straight up. Go
figure.
--
Tom Polakis
Tempe, AZ
Arizona Sky Pages
http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/
DBogan3220
>
>M13
>M51
>M104
>M57 (as it rises)
>
Hey Tom These have been the RTMC staples for the last 22 years I've been
going to RTMC. I remember years ago I had to show a guy with a large dob where
to find the ring too. :-)
>The low point was finding an 8-inch refractor on a beautiful Byers mount
>pointed at Epsilon Lyrae. Even at the too-low magnification they were
>using, the stars were boiling less than 30 degrees above the horizon.
>Meanwhile, Bootes and its many tight double stars were straight up. Go
>figure.
>
>--
>
>Tom Polakis
>Tempe, AZ
>Arizona Sky Pages
>http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/
>
>
>
That would have been the Fred Morozak 8 inch triplet, owned by Mr Ed
Byers I was told. Too bad there were no planets to observe.
The 20 inch Singmaster with the goto drive was absolutely a killer
combo. The optics in the zambuto mirror made you think you were looking through
a giant refractor. I was parked only a few paces away with my AP 155F7 and the
optics where just as sharp only BRIGHTER!!!!!! :-)
BTW for those guy's who don't know. You don't want Crazy Ed and Marcus
Ludes near the same telescope, the're nuts :-)
Clear Skies
Dwight L Bogan
Clear Skies
Dwight L Bogan
Derek Wong
>
> RTMC same ol' four objects:
>
> M13
> M51
> M104
> M57 (as it rises)
Hi Tom:
Sorry I missed your talk for the second year in a row, I'm needed at
home by Sunday noon every year :-( I really do think it should be moved
earlier.
Part of the problem is that many people, myself included cannot find
objects quickly enough to satisfy big lines without star hopping for 5
minutes. That is why a GOTO tracking Dob makes it very nice.
One person suggested the hockey stick galaxy NGC 4656/7, which showed an
amazing image in a 20". Other nice objects are globulars with different
shapes. I suggested NGC 5466, and while light pollution prevented some
of the background haze from showing the 20" resolved quite a few stars.
Last month I looked at NGC 5053 near M53, which did not look like a
globular at all.
Another thing to do is go to objects near showpieces, like NGC 6207 near
M13. I did that, then asked Rick Singmaster about the tiny galaxy
between those two objects (I think it is IC 4617 or something like
that). Rick said, "oh yeah, we saw that with five different scopes at
home". So these big Dob owners do look at some really faint objects,
but the masses demand otherwise.
> The low point was finding an 8-inch refractor on a beautiful Byers mount
> pointed at Epsilon Lyrae. Even at the too-low magnification they were
> using, the stars were boiling less than 30 degrees above the horizon.
> Meanwhile, Bootes and its many tight double stars were straight up. Go
> figure.
Yet the line on that scope was always extremely long. That was in "star
test corner" with all the refractors. I spent some time there because I
wanted to learn something about star testing from Markus and test a
couple eyepieces. A couple people came by and were pronouncing
wavefront errors after a ten second glance through the eyepiece.
However, while I was there I did get a nice view of Mercury through my
92mm refractor, and later I snuck off away from the lights of the scope
field and found Pluto (barely) at 112x and 150x with the same scope.
Derek
Bob May
popcorn purveyor! It was amazing the number that refused the
refreshments.
Bob May
both sat and sun nights and took several tours of the field both
nights. Got some nice viewing in with a dob into Virgo, did an
amazing find of M57 with a 10" F8 and failed to find the simple
Lagoon on the big refractor (got lost just enjoying the MW with it)
and then wandered up the alley for a view through Jack's Clark
refractor.
I didn't bring up the 200" because I was looking at the weather on the
coast and figuring that the wind will be up and last year, the scope
had some damage from that wind. Did also enjoy some good times with
Bob Geoff and took him down to Leonard Higgins' spectrohelioscope and
enjoyed some good time with it myself. I have to build one of those
myself.
Jeffrey Gortatowsky
front of the pickup and the LITEBOX in front of the RV. Musta just not
recognized you in the dark. <g>
"Bob May" <bob...@nethere.com> wrote in message
> I was there and yex, that's me! I spent a bit of time with CEO on
> both sat and sun nights and took several tours of the field both
Now that sounds like a hellvua good time. Observing with Bob and CEO. Gotta
try that next year!
I sent my thanks out to CEO yesterday morning for the HB Atlas I won.
Clear skies,
Jeff G
Jeffrey Gortatowsky
8^) 8^) 8^)
"Bob May" <bob...@nethere.com> wrote in message >
Ed Erbeck Jr.
Let's play nice now - I NEVER offered Candy to ANYONE - Popcorn yes,
Soda Yes, But NO Candy ;-).
To Tom P. and Derek W.
The general choice of Deep Sky Objects at RTMC is both good and bad. Good
because it allows one to see if there is a differance between the "displayed
scope" and theirs and bad because lots' of the folks showing up only get
limited chances to see through Larger Scopes and it would be nice to "See
what they can do".
To Chuck G.
Given my Vehicle, I was more worried 'bout the folks on the road between
RTMC and here ;-). If you would contact me "offline"
Crazy Ed
Chuck Gulker
at Riverside. I'm planning on returning next year.
Take care, Chuck
Del Johnson
He was show us one galaxy after another. The Needle Galaxy was very
nice!
I am now a converted GOTO fan with the following caveat: GOTO enhances
an already great telescope, but does not make up for mediocre telecope
optics!
Del Johnson
In article <3934A86D...@sprintmail.com>,
Tom Polakis <pol...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
>
> Derek Wong wrote:
>
> >
> > The only minor complaint I have is that many of the large Dobs were
> > pointed at the same showpiece objects. One friend of mine said
that the
> > 36" scope should be pointed at Hickson groups, not M13 and I
heartily
> > agree. Perhaps we need Tom Polakis' deep sky talk moved to Saturday
> > instead.
>
> Thanks for noticing, Derek. I'm not sure that the Yard Scope needed
to be
> pointed at Hickson groups, but anyting but the same ol' four objects,
listed
> here:
>
> RTMC same ol' four objects:
>
> M13
> M51
> M104
> M57 (as it rises)
>
> It seems like the other field near the lake had a larger number of
scopes
> pointed at other, more interesting objects. Dave Eicher and I had the
> pleasure of finding Randy Cunningham of Astro-Systems, who was taking
> requests for his fine 16-inch. We took a look at the Siamese Twin
galaxies,
> NGC 4319 and the quasar, among many others.
>
> The low point was finding an 8-inch refractor on a beautiful Byers
mount
> pointed at Epsilon Lyrae. Even at the too-low magnification they were
> using, the stars were boiling less than 30 degrees above the horizon.
> Meanwhile, Bootes and its many tight double stars were straight up.
Go
> figure.
>
> --
>
> Tom Polakis
> Tempe, AZ
> Arizona Sky Pages
> http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/
>
>
WHALEN44
You don't have to worry, you will not find mediocre optics in a starmaster very
often. And you won't find that GOTO w/drive system on any other dob I believe
Richard Whalen
whal...@aol.com
"Time spent observing the heavens is not deducted from your lifespan"
JSweenPa
Philadelphia by an amateur named Alan but I don't remember his last name.<
Mike,
That would be Alan Daroff from Philly. The lens is a Jaegers 6" f/15.
Alan and I shared the A-P 900 mount - he with his solar scope and me with my 7"
A-P at night. It was our first RTMC and we enjoyed it very much. Met a lot of
nice folks.
Jim Sweeney
Mike Simmons
seemed to recall an AP lens on that mount but couldn't for the life of
me figure how it got into Alan's silver-tubed solar scope. Can I blame
this on aging? :-)
I came by your scope several times while others waited in line at the
Yardscope and others. It was truly awesome and I appreciate you and
Alan bringing these beasts out. I hope to see you there next year.
Please!
Mike Simmons
Bob May
find the Lagoon for you Sat. night but then again, I basically
hijacked your scope for the 20 minutes or so that I went searching and
did enjoy the views through it. I am getting to the point where I had
better start wearing glasses at night so I can see the sky.
APM
glad to meet you again, to bad, that we have had no cuban cigars
and no cool drinks from Rob Hunt out there. I dropped Alan down
the on monday with the minivan like on an Rodeo, that he got his
flight.
Here some of my impressions:
First of all, I would like to thank all funny guys for the great
meeting, was my best of 3 RTMC, many cool beer ( special thank
to Crazy Ed), during talks and jokes with Rick Singlemaster and
Crazy Ed my stomach got muscleburned, was great to meet the
magic Carl Zambuto ( looked a little bit diffrent than a person
with such a name), everybody liked to exchange T-Shirts.
From the Dob I was mostly impressed by Rick's 20" Zambuto to go
and by Tom's 22" Zambuto on his platform, Carl itself was very
much himself impressed to see such tinny faint stars on such
large scopes, a great guy is John who helped Teletrade to move
around the heavy boxes, a old marine, who swinged around a 17"
Dob from object to object , like a GOTO drive.
Rick's 20" GOTO worked just perfect, even at 400 power moving
over 120° it got the object near the center of the eyepiece.Fred
Mrozek's 8"F/8 Apomax was just as great as the Byers mounts. But
I see that nobody mentioned one of the finest and best scopes on
RTMC, a 10" F/10 Medial with superapoperformance splitting on
the acceptable seeing 0,32 douplestars.
Another extremly interested small Item, mostly overseen was
shown by Crazy Ed's friend, a quick cooler for SC and MCT
telescopes, just put this piece into the primary mirrors and it
reduces the cool down time to the half, a simple but perfect
working trick.
was a real great and I hope to meet next year even more of the
s.a.a. guy's
Markus
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!