Lessons learned, technical and pro tips

I was out last night after taking the C11 back to Celestron (I live close to their HQ) the previous week because of problems with the optics. I found that after cooling it and dealing with some problems with my finderscope I just did not enjoy looking through it. The views were brighter, I could go deeper, and the things I was looking at were "bigger" (note the quotes) BUT... For the most part I wasn't viewing I was cursing. Cursing that it hadn't cooled, cursing the weight of the CGEM, ...

I am getting more serious about Astrophotography (AP) and was researching a good AP scope to hone my skills on. My budget for the OTA was $1,000 US or under. So this eliminated the high end super scopes like the Tak, AP, Televue, etc. I wanted a fast scope at least f/6.5 and one with a nice wide field. I also wanted one where I wasn't having to piece together a whole farm or extra parts. Lastly I wanted a scope that I could also use as a grab and go and solar observing one. The contenders were the ...

Tags: es 80mm apo

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Lessons learned, technical and pro tips , Astro Photography , Visual Observing

I have been looking into the addition of binoviewer's to my kit and wanted to use them in both the ES 127mm and the C11. I also wanted to use my existing ES EP line up to save a bit on costs. And I wanted to use as little correction (barlowing) as possible.

I started out with the Baader Maxbrights and after testing with the BV's and their 1.2x glass path corrector (GPC) I found that without using a T2 diagonal and possibly a 1.2x GPC and most likely a 1.7x GPC they would not be able ...

Tags: binoviewer, es 127, explore scientific

Categories

Explore Scientific Eye Pieces , Visual Observing , Lessons learned, technical and pro tips , Equipment

The Pale Bright Mistress was in full form tonight with her whole face exposed and high in the sky. Add to that a bunch of water vapor and my usual light pollution and I end up with an absolute crap night for being under the stars. But...

Why not? It was clear skies without clouds water vapor aside I had the new CG5 to play with with the Orion pier on it and that lovely lovely 127mm Explore Scientific Apo so there must be some stuff out there that I could see...
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As a total fluke I found today that the LX80 plug is the same as the Celestron. I have a Starizona LiOn power pack and I had a adapter that Starizona sold to me so I could use it on my Meade products. I ended up accidentally breaking the adapter and hadn't gotten a replacement for it. As I was packing for the star party tonight I decided to just see what happened when I plugged it directly into the LX80. Lo and behold it powered on just fine!

On the subject of the Starizona power ...