anyone got telescopes?

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Look South, it's the big red dot slightly to your left

not big and not red, but there was an extremely bright dot to my left, in the south east.

since planets are usually very bright when close and visible I suppose this must have been it

[Ecthy]

bump

would that have been Mars or Sirius or what?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Mars.

You won't see Sirius at all that time of night. (when Mars is still in the SE.

[reds4ever]

Put this on your Xmas persent list

http://deepsky.cia.com.au/binoculars/clive/510mm_binoculars.html

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Put this on your Xmas persent list

http://deepsky.cia.com.au/binoculars...inoculars.html

Oh yeah. Now to motorize that thing.

[reds4ever]

Motorize it? I'd have my work cut out collimating it....

[MichaeltheGreat]

He explained how they collimate one tube to the other using a 200:1 reduction gear and a "joystick" made with a bicycle handle bar.

Collimation within each tube would be a bit dicey. If it was me, I would have at least approached the primary mount differently, assuming access to a top end machine shop.

[Dinner]

There are several motorized & computerized scopes out there. You just enter in the star you want to see and it automatically zeros in on it.

[KrazyHorse]

The 4.5" Newtonian (IIRC) reflector my father owns is in Montreal. Right now the best I can do is a pretty decent set of 10X50 binocs.

I was looking at some scopes the other day. God, I wish I wasn't poor...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Oerdin
There are several motorized & computerized scopes out there. You just enter in the star you want to see and it automatically zeros in on it.

Some of the ones I saw were like that. They were giving away the miniature computer when you bought the scope, equatorial mount, and drive motor...

[KrazyHorse]

You'd still have to calibrate it properly, I think. Maybe it just let you enter your lat/long and it had an internal compass or something...

Now that would be interesting. Take it out and be up and running in 10 seconds...

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
You'd still have to calibrate it properly, I think. Maybe it just let you enter your lat/long and it had an internal compass or something...

Now that would be interesting. Take it out and be up and running in 10 seconds...

yep, you enter your Lat/long, although the new models have their own onboard GPS equipment.

The problems are a) In a 3 grand computerized scope, only around half of the money is in the optics, the computer side costs a LOT and b) if your a newbie, how much are you learning by just typing in objects then having the scope find them for you?

[KrazyHorse]

I know what declination and right ascension are; I just don't want to have to do spherical trigonometry in my head every time I want to look at something...

[MichaeltheGreat]

That's what guide stars are for.

I'd rather have the money in optics than onboard GPS and anything more than a serial port to access the motor controller. I already have Starry Night Pro and The Sky Level 4, so I can do my computer guiding from a laptop, and I've got a portable GPS receiver as well, so I don't need one in the scope.

[reds4ever]

There's a certain satisfaction from finding obscure objects, plus like I say, if I spend 3 grand on a computerized scope I could've got an uncomputerized (is that a word?) one twice the size for the same money. And yes, where telescopes are concerned, size definatley does matter.

Spherical trig???? Most amateurs just use a '2 degrees left from Sirius' way of finding stuff, trig doesn't come into it