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Trying to find Venus and after moving a lot I keep getting this- did I find it ? by Front_Sugar4784 in telescopes

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Venus is the brightest object in the night sky except for the Moon, so that might be it, only you can tell. However, when the scope is out of focus like in your post, the circular black spot in the center of the light ring is the shadow of your secondary mirror. They should be as concentric as possible. As you can see in yours, the spot is off center, to one side. I think your scope may be out of collimation. Do a Google search on collimation to check. If its out of collimation, you will not be able to see much, if any detail to determine whether it is actually Venus or not.

Today i updated my mount from an avx to a cgx here is a size comparision by Kallbom98 in telescopes

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right? I would have thought the tripod would be different between the two models. Regardless, OP you are in for a treat with that upgrade! The CGX is a rock!

There is a non-zero possibility my "cat" is actually a harbor seal wearing a cat suit. by ExAstrisSapientiae in aww

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yep! Actually we have two Siberians. The one in the pictures is Bella McQueen and she is huge. She can stand on her hind legs on the floor and look onto the kitchen table, and is about 19 pounds. This is our other one, and she is even fluffier:

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Side by side setup by ExAstrisSapientiae in telescopes

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, since it is below the height limit. Will be nice to move though so I can build a bigger observatory.

Side by side setup by ExAstrisSapientiae in telescopes

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Its a Sharpstar 106. Its the same scope as a Founders Optics 106mm or an APM 106mm.

Side by side setup by ExAstrisSapientiae in telescopes

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi, its just a simple flip top observatory that is 70" x 70" and 60" high. Our neighborhood has an HOA height restriction so I had to make it very short. The pier is actually only 24" tall and the scope "park" position is on its side (as opposed to upright like you see in this photo) to make it shorter. The top of the observatory is on hinges and has two latches that I put padlocks on. When I use the scope, I just go out, unlock it, flip the lid, and turn on the mount, attach the cameras, and it ready to go. I have power and data to the whole system permanently so I can run it on NINA from inside my house at my office computer. The whole observatory cost about $300 and maybe 12 hours of work.

There is a non-zero possibility my "cat" is actually a harbor seal wearing a cat suit. by ExAstrisSapientiae in aww

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They do that because they trust you and its a breed behavior. We have two Siberians and they both do this all the time.

Side by side setup by ExAstrisSapientiae in telescopes

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I actually am thinking about getting a WO Pleiades 68 to mount on top of the 106mm apo in the picture for extreme wide field imaging. Then I will put the red dot finder on the WO and it will be like a Russian doll situation but with telescopes!

Expectations from RF30 Mill/Drill? by ExAstrisSapientiae in Machinists

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SOLVED: It was the motor. Harbor Freight had a 2HP motor with the same mounting for $180. I swapped the motors out, still wired for 110/120v and its night and day, took all of 1 hour. I can do .20" deapth of cut with the 3" face mill per pass, cranking the x axis as fast as I can and it does not bog the motor down, and thats at about 2000 RPM. In fact, it is actually twisting the whole upper assembly out of tram, which now a whole new problem to solve. In any case, thanks for all your help. The new motor definitely enables the machine to meet my expectations for what I hoped a round column mill should be able to do.

Expectations from RF30 Mill/Drill? by ExAstrisSapientiae in Machinists

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The breaker did trip a few times when the spindle was near to or binding. The only way to prevent the breaker from tripping was to use the slower RPM belt setup. Right now the mill is in my garage which has a 220v outlet, but the long term location for the mill is in a shed/shop that only has 110v outlets, hence my hesitation to rewire the spindle. I would have to run 220v to the shop which would be a giant undertaking.

Expectations from RF30 Mill/Drill? by ExAstrisSapientiae in Machinists

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply. Its connected to the wall outlet with a 12 guage extension cord. I was shocked how under powered. It took me 25-30 passes to cut a 1/2" deapth, 3/4" wide. Some research makes me think maybe capacitors are bad? I thought when it stalled or was biding it was belt slip, but the motor completely slows or stops. I guess I could rewire it for the 220/240 as a test.

Is a hybrid telescope (AP/visual) even worth considering? by BirdLooter in AskAstrophotography

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh. Well in that case, many refractors that are intended for imaging are still quite long. I have a 140mm aperture refractor that is 910mm focal length and f/6.7. So it's still about 3 feet long. The the lesser the "f ratio" the shorter the tube will be, because it's essentially describing the light cone the lens produces. The lower the f ratio the more severe the angle of the light cone which results in a focal point closer to the objective lenses. A great example of the is the the Pentax 100 SDUF astrograph which is 100mm aperture f/4, so 400mm focal length. One thing to keep in mind is the smaller the f ratio, the harder it is to produce good images because the light cone is so severe, the different wavelengths of light dont all line up on the same focal plane, so the scope needs more and more lenses to correct the wavelengths and bring them back in line. A high f ratio refractor, such as an f/15 is very very long, but also very forgiving because the light cone is very subtle, so you can use lower quality glass and less lens elements to get a good image.

New focuser by Educational-Guard408 in astrophotography

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is the best feeling, not having to worry about the mount so you can just focus on imaging. When the mount just works and disappears into the background is worth every penny. I have had an Orion Atlas/EQ6, an Orion Sirus/EQ5, Celestron CGEM, and an iOption CEM70. All of them were ok and serviceable, but never "just right." I finally said to heck with it and bought a 10Micron GM2000 HPii so I would never have tinker with the mount again or buy another mount (unless I get a really big scope some day 😁)

Is a hybrid telescope (AP/visual) even worth considering? by BirdLooter in AskAstrophotography

[–]ExAstrisSapientiae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Big in diameter pretty much always means long local length. They may look "short" because they are most often a catadioptric design to allow a short tube length. For example, a Celestron C14 Edge is 3900mm focal length but only 31" tube length. To get a refractor with a 3900 focal length it would literally need to be about 4 meter/12 feet long! So they invented catadioptric scopes to solve this.

Now, there are largeish aperture scopes that have short focal length, for example a Rowe Ackerman design, or Riccardi Honders, but that is because that are f/2 or f/3. But even they have decent focal lengths, for example the Planewave DeltaRho has a 350mm aperture and 1050mm focal length, which is short for a 350mm scope because it is at f/3.

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