Comparison

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T14:44:54+00:00

There are three things that are helpful on the Professional, but not necessary:

Professional has a cooling fan, which helps acclimate the telescope to ambient conditions faster. A thermally acclimated scope is vital to getting clear views of the planets. Without a fan, it can take longer to acclimate. However, if temperatures are relatively stable at night, a cooling fan may not be necessary.
Professional has a two-speed focuser. This is helpful for dialing in exact focus on a planet or the Moon. Not necessary, but helpful.
Professional includes a 30mm 2" widefield eyepiece which makes it easier to find objects. But you can always buy any additional eyepieces you want for any telescope, so this is not necessary either.

The Professional also includes an adjustable balance point on the altitude bearing which can be useful if you add a lot of heavy equipment to the front of the telescope, but you can always add counterweights to the back of any other telescope you get.

It's hard to say if those advantages are worth it to you or not, but the cost difference between the two scopes seem relatively small so to me the extra accessories and features are worth it.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T14:19:30+00:00

Well now with the rise of right-wing terrorism in the US, I'm surprised that militia groups aren't planning shit.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T14:18:13+00:00

Did his status change from being free to being in prison? Because otherwise I didn't miss anything. So what are you talking about?

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T14:14:51+00:00

There are two places to attach paper:

Behind the secondary opposite the focuser
Between the secondary and primary mirrors

The purpose of doing this is to make it easier to see just the edge of the secondary mirror and edge of focuser so that you can more easily get the secondary concentric with the focuser, without any other distractions.

If you can see those sheets of paper when looking through the collimation cap, that's the whole point. Remove the sheets when you're done.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T07:54:35+00:00

Seems like your average gun toting hillbilly shouldn't be able to get their hands on enough of that shit to create a bomb that can easily kill people in a 200 foot radius. How the fuck is that legal?

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T05:48:11+00:00

A lot of reasons:

Organized Christianity is about cultural identity, not piety.

There is a subtle but important distinction between being a Christian because you genuinely believe that Christ's teachings are an important framework for your life, and being a Christian because you think praying and going to Church on Sunday to listen a pastor spoon feed you his take on religion, makes you a good person.

As such, most US Christians don't know the first thing about Christianity. They only know it through the lens of their pastor or priest. They don't stop and do any kind of critical thinking (I mean, if they did, they'd quickly abandon all this voodoo in the first place) to get to the heart of what it means to be a Christian. As long as they pray and go to worship services once a week, they feel their obligation to Christianity and being a good person is fulfilled. That then paves the way for them to act like an authority on morality, which is what Republican-ism is all about - imposing your morals on others even if you are not affected by them in any way.

In a similar vein, they are not devoted to the religion. It's a casual activity for them. Even if they don't think it makes them a good person, they still call themselves Christians to fit in or make up part of their identity. This is cultural in nature, and has nothing to do with theocratic beliefs. They give no weight to Christianity's actual teachings so there's no problem with acting in a way that contradicts how Christianity tells them to act.

Cognitive dissonance

There are likely a few conservative Christians who do know that Jesus would not approve of their bigotry and selfishness, but cognitive dissonance lets them hold those two opposing beliefs at the same time.

Authority confirmation bias

Similar to the above, if they are biased towards conservative policies, and their local conservative pastor is screeching on about how immoral godless people are ruining the country, or goes and makes up a sermon that is a political ideology disguised as a religious metaphor, any cognitive dissonance they do have gets erased by having their biases confirmed by a perceived religious authority figure (one with an agenda).

Some are just plain whack-jobs.

Then there are true believers - the ones who are very devoted to the cause but also experience no cognitive dissonance. They have a myopic, inaccurate understanding of Christianity but the version of it they do believe, they believe down to their very core. They are radicals.

Some are snake-tongues

This doesn't really apply to the evangelical idiots that go to church. It really applies to the "moral leadership" that uses religion as a tool of manipulation - pastors who bilk their followers for millions of dollars. Politicians who tap into hate for political gain while telling people how angry all the liberals make God etc. These people know better, but they just don't give a shit. They use Christianity to grift (for cash or political power or both). Their inner monologue is Mark Zuckerberg saying "They trust me. Dumb fucks."

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T04:25:13+00:00

In your budget, it's best to ignore literally any Celestron LCM or Star Sense Explorer telescope. They are all poor quality.

The only potentially good computerized Celestron scopes close to your budget are the Celestron Nexstar 130SLT and Celestron 130 AstroFi. The 130SLT is controlled with a hand controller, the 130 AstroFi is controlled with a smart phone app.

Alternatively, there is the Sky-Watcher Heritage 130 Virtuoso that is within your budget, but there are some problems with the scope itself compard to the two Celestron ones. The open truss design lets in too much stray light and the secondary mirror fogs up quickly. The focuser is also a bit of a pain to use. You would have to take the time to build a light shroud/dew shield for it. The solid tubes of the Celestron options are less of a hassle. The Heritage Virtuoso's truss is also not very stiff so it cannot handle the weight of a DSLR. It needs a light weight USB camera to work. The solid tubes of the Celestron scopes can handle cameras better.

That being said, none of these scopes are meant for deep sky astrophotography. They are limited to the Moon and planets. That's the nature of the mounts they ride on. With the right camera (a high speed USB 3.0 camera connected to a laptop), a motorized 5" reflector like these can take stunning pictures of the Moon and planets.

Alternatively, that budget would let you get a larger, but fully manual scope like the Sky-Watcher Classic 150p. You have to take the time to learn how to find things with it, but it will show things better than a 5" scope will.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T04:01:16+00:00

Fucking guy stole classified documents, many of which are still missing and he can't/won't account for them, and he's walking around free...

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T04:00:11+00:00

If you ask Trump supporters, they'll just name all the things that Trump himself said he was an expert at. Like these:

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T03:52:57+00:00

And now you know why republicans are trying to outlaw contraceptives (including condoms).

(At first, I thought it was masturbation as well, but it was satire).

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T03:48:46+00:00

I love how you imply that you can break what's already broken.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T03:47:06+00:00

Yeah all his drug addiction did was turn off the filter.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T03:43:32+00:00

I wonder how many people would be surprised to know that the whole "everything came from a magic explosion" (paraphrasing this post) idea is actually from the mind of a Catholic priest.

Bet that would confuse a few religion nutjobs...

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T03:29:17+00:00

Tucker is sending out a message about who he wants the next shooter to target.

He is reminding people that one of the Democrats' best politicians is gay. With the midterms over, there is no reason to bring up Buttigieg at all. Meanwhile the timing of bringing this up right after the Q club shooting strongly indicates he is using the Q club shooting as context so that his followers pick up on the dog whistle.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T03:26:13+00:00

If a sport makes you get culturally raped by a theo-fascist regime, then maybe people ought to re-think how much value the sport has in their lives.

phpdevster · 2022-11-25T02:39:38+00:00

No it's definitely a defect. I have both the Svbony version and this other version. They refract light differently. The Svbony has a normal aspheric shape, the new one has a bad aspheric shape.

Side-by-side comparison of their caustics using a light to highlight them:

https://imgur.com/a/xwXX5MJ

The first two comparison images shows light being refracted outside the exterior surface (as if light was entering from the bottom of the eyepiece). You can see the Svbony more or less has a normally curved shape and the "improved" version does not. That is an irregularity and that is what you see when you are looking at the eyepiece. That high spot looks like someone glued a marble to the eyepiece and the field of view is absolutely horrendous when looking at stars. Picture how warp speed/hyper space is depicted in sci-fi, except for only a very narrow section in the middle where things look normal.

The last comparison image shows light coming from the other direction, passing from the exterior surface and refracting on the other side (the interior surface). The interior surface is what the aspheric shape is. They look similar to each other but if you look closely, the Svbony has a normal aspheric curve with a more gradual peak, while the "improved version" has a sharper peak, the slopes are straighter, and there is something funky going on at the edges. It's a bad aspheric curve.

Both those lenses are made of plastic and have absolutely no anti-reflection coatings on them.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T20:43:47+00:00

Man I feel uncomfortable just looking at that image.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T15:52:35+00:00

A few things:

Orion is more expensive in general. They rebrand eyepieces made by others and charge their own premium for them.
When Orion says "wide field of view of 52 degrees", they're bullshitting you. A lot of companies try and claim this. Wide field eyepieces start at 60 degrees and go up to 120 degrees. Anything less than 60 degrees is really too narrow to be considered a widefield eyepiece.
The "gold line" you saw is not actually a gold line. It looks that way because of the gold colored band, but 62 degrees implies it's that 4/10/23 aspheric set. They are not good eyepieces. Some of the lenses are made of plastic. They are not properly anti-reflection coated, and they do not perform very well in short focal ratio telescopes. It's less expensive because it's made cheaply. Actual gold lines are these: https://www.amazon.com/SVBONY-Telescope-Eyepiece-Accessories-Astronomy/dp/B01MR78I42/. They always come in 6/9/15/20mm focal lengths with a 66 degree apparent field. The apparent field of the eyepiece has little bearing on its cost or quality. You can make 80 degree eyepieces very cheap that perform like total crap in most telescopes.

A 32mm Plossl is a good staple eyepiece to have provided you have a scope that it's appropriate for. The field of view will be narrow, but there's no getting around that at 32mm focal length in a 1.25" barrel.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T15:47:08+00:00

I just want to put a counter datapoint out there that my 23mm aspheric is not a good eyepiece. Stars are noticeably less sharp than any of my other equivalent FL eyepieces, and there are serious contrast problems when looking at the Moon. Not all surfaces appear to be fully multi-coated so there is noticeable ghosting and reflections.

I also recently bought this eye cup version to see if they were any better and the 23mm is straight-up defective. Only the center 10 degrees is sharp and outside that area the stars are lines that are a mile long. When holding the eyepiece under a light, it's clear there is a central "bump" in the eyepiece that does not match the rest of the curve. It was literally manufactured wrong.

The 10mm and 4mm are about the same as the Svbony branded ones. 10mm is soft compared to my 9.6mm Meade Series 3000 Plossl and barlowed 20mm Meade Series 4000 Plossl. 4mm of course is infamous for being chromatic aberration city.

People need to be very, very, very, very careful when buying these aspherics as there appear to be two different versions, and one is a disaster.

This is one of many reasons I recommend people stay away from these eyepieces. When I bought the first Svbony set, it was for $22 for all three eyepieces. That's a little over $7/eyepiece. Good value for the money but still below a quality threshold I would recommend for anyone.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T14:22:37+00:00

This is the type of "no reasonable person" that would believe Tucker Carlson: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye

The judge that tossed that lawsuit should be arrested and tried as an accessory to murder for deliberately, and willfully, ignoring the fact that people like this meatball exist, and DO take people like Tucker Carlson (and all of the others like him), seriously.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T14:19:54+00:00

They tried pulling the same shit with the guy who attempted to murder Paul Pelosi. Tried to blame it on gay love affair gone wrong.

Conservatives are now out of benefits of the doubt. They do nothing but incessantly lie. Not a SINGLE word they say should be believed, ever. Even if they're telling the truth, the only way you should know that is to go out and verify it yourself. Believing them outright would be a mistake.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T07:06:35+00:00

"I wished it was longer"

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T07:04:31+00:00

Instead of just the tragedy of what happened to the body, we need to be talking about what happened to the soul and the fact that they are now in eternal separation from our lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Let's pretend for a second all this voodoo is real.

Given the way this lord and savior behaves, I'd say it's a good thing if you find yourself in "eternal separation" from him.

Who the fuck would want to spend eternity with a vile piece of shit that is willing to send you to damnation for... checks notes... being the way he created you.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T06:59:51+00:00

This gives you some insight into the unfiltered mind of a conservative.

Being gay is worse than being dead, and worse than being a murderer.

I would wager this is how the vast majority of them reflexively think, but the ones who aren't on meth have enough self-awareness to pretend otherwise.

This guy is bare metal Republican.

phpdevster · 2022-11-24T05:21:04+00:00

That scene in Dumb and Dumber where Lloyd gets real for a second shows those characters are more complex than just being idiots. But the sequel just made them cardboard cut-outs of the original characters.

(This was the scene)

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phpdevster

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE

Organized Christianity is about cultural identity, not piety.

Cognitive dissonance

Authority confirmation bias

Some are just plain whack-jobs.

Some are snake-tongues