Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

Whither Uncle Rod's Astroblog?!

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:08:06 GMT

If you've been directed here by a link from somewhere, you'll probably note that Your Old Uncle's blog entries come to a screeching halt some time back. Rest assured, Unk Rod is still bloggin' his little heart out, just in the easier to use and more attractive surroundings of:

http://uncle-rods.blogspot.com/

See ya there, pards!

The End of an Era

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 20:55:04 GMT

I'd been predicting it for a while: Chinese made 8-inch SCTs. With Synta's purchase of Celestron it became inevitable, I thought. Sure enough, before long, Celestron brought forth a Chinese produced 6-inch SCT, the new C6. But the C8? Surely not...not right away...the C8 is just...well...sacred.

That's where things stood until this past weekend, when word reached Chaos Manor South of Celestron's expansion of their SE series. There's been one of these scopes on the market for a while, the "new" Orange Tube C8, the successor to Celestron's Nexstar "i" series scopes. It wasn't overly surprising that Celestron chose to expand this line of budget single-arm fork instruments.

What was a little suprising? That the lineup includes a C5. We figgered it was a gone-pecan with the advent of the C6. That's hardly a staggering revelation, though.

Somewhat surprising? Celestron also revived its 4-inch MCT for the new lineup. I'm told this 4-incher is from a different source than the old (and somewhat pitiful) NS4 GT.

NOT surprisingly, there's a fork-mounted C6, too.

So what was the Freddie-Jason-Michael Myers- midnight-out-at-Camp Crystal Lake-zombies-at-the-door shock that sent your Uncle Rod straight to the liquor cabinet for another bottle o' Rebel Yell? What really shook things up good 'round here?

The information we received that ALL the SEs, mounts and OTAs, are made in China. Yep, the first Chinese C8.

What does that mean for you and me? Probably not much. The C6, which has been around for some months now, has proven to have excellent optics. I hope Synta realizes it's foolish to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, to sully the Celestron name.

I'm not too worried in this regard. Synta has garnered a surprising and growing reputation for self-improvement and optical quality in the decade or so since they arrived on these shores in a big way.

What does this mean for Celestron, though? Difficult to say. I'm told that the CPCs and the stand-alone optical tubes will still be produced in Torrance, California (presumably this includes the CGE OTAs). The question is,"for how long?" I can't help but think this is the beginning of a winding-down of U.S. operations. Manufacturing-wise, anyway.

What do I predict? If I had to guess, I'd guess that all Celestron OTA production will inevitably move to China. I'd also guess that the CGE may be living on borrowed time. It would be oh-so-easy to put Chinese 8, 11, and 14-inch OTAs on the goto-equipped Synta EQ-6 Skycan (aka "Atlas") mount .

What's left for our friends in California? Marketing. Engineering development. Software development. Not much more than that I assume. But you know what they say about that word, doncha? It makes an ass out of "u" and "me."

For information about the new Orange Tubes, go here:

http://www.buytelescopes.com/search.asp?go=1&adv=&q=nexstar%2Bse&s=&searchbtn=Search

Here We Go Again...

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:24:54 GMT

While (soon to be, they say) Hurricane Alberto will likely reach landfall fairly far to the east of us here at Chaos Manor South, our opinion is that this does not bode well for the coming summer. Another season of unscheduled trips to Atlanta? Internet "observing" only? Looks like it...

Anyhoo...clouds for a while, no doubt. Glad I got out and hit Jupiter hard over the last week.

Curious About Your Old Uncle?

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:51:53 GMT

Heaven knows why...

But if you're curious about:

How Rod got started in amateur astronomy...

His latest projects...

The secrets of Chaos Manor South...

The Truth About Rebel Yell...

Your questions are answered here:

http://skywatch.brainiac.com/rodspage/index.htm

And...if you're really bored, you can even ask questions of your own...!

Sweet!

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 22:31:43 GMT

That William Optics 66SD APO looks sweet riding on my faithful C8 OTA, anyway, but, as your Uncle always says, “Purty is as purty does.” That means you’ll have to wait a little longer and allow me to do some in-depth testing before you’ll hear my final verdict on this little refractor. Shore looks nice, though, don’t it?

You’re impatient, are you? You wanna know your Old Uncle’s impressions of the 66 RIGHT NOW? Sheesh, you young folks! Well, OK, you know how tender hearted I am. But before I tell you what happened with the 66 last night after I installed the piggyback ring system to mount her on my Ultima 8, let me tell you why the U8 looks the way she does now.

Those of you who’ve known me for a while will recall that way back in ‘95, I decided to purchase what would, I thought, be the ULTIMATE C8, an Ultima C8, and that I would finally and for all time be happy. And I was happy for a few years. But people change, and Uncle Rod is no exception. After preaching about how wonderful fork mounts are for more years than I care to remember, I suddenly found myself good and sick of ‘em. Equatorial forks anyway.

The last time I took the U8 in her original form to a star party--oh, must have been the 2001 Peach State Star Gaze--I had a great time with the scope. Saw some wonderful “stuff.” But before the three days were up, I had come to the conclusion that equatorially aligned forks are a big pain in the—neck. All that bending down to look through the often weirdly placed finder and contorting my bod to get at the main eyepiece when viewing objects anywhere close to the NCP had finally got me down. I realized the fork-setup on the U8 (no goto, just equatorially aligned tracking) had always been painful. It was just that my 40-ish body was more able to take this torture than my 50-ish one now was.

How do you find objects with an Ultima 8? The OLD FASHONED WAY. I used to boast that no object in the sky could elude my combo of analog setting circles, 50mm finder, and TELRAD. And that was true. When I was in practice. Like most of you, my observing time, my deep sky observing time, is severely limited. I’d get to a star party and fumble around for a night or two before getting back into the groove. But by then it was almost time to go home.

Yep, four little letters were assuming ever more prominence in my mind (or what passes for a mind): g-o-t-o. I finally had to admit that, good as I was at star hopping, I couldn’t compete with modern technology. Even when I was really in the swing of things, people with goto scopes were seeing a lot more than I was. Sure, hunting can be fun, but after 40 years of hunting, I’m now more interested in seeing.

Step one on the path to accommodating my changing astronomical life was the purchase of my first serious goto scope, a Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS. This is a fine instrument, and I continueto use her frequently. But in the process of getting friendly with the NS11, I came to a couple more conclusions: a C8 is still the Queen of Portability, and forks are not perfect mounts when you find yourself doing more imaging and less visual work.

With increasing light pollution along the Gulf Coast and a continuing loss of remaining dark sites to developers, I’m more involved than ever in celestial picture-taking with video, CCD, and webcams. I’ve certainly used fork mounts successfully for these endeavors, but when it’s time to start piggybacking refractors and heavy cameras, one major difficulty with forks becomes increasingly obvious: balance. It’s very difficult to balance a fork in both RA and dec for substantial piggyback loads (and even a Short Tube 80 is “substantial” for a C8). Life is just a lot easier with a GEM, a “German Equatorial Mount.”

What’s one thing y’all know about me? I’m not about to spend a lot of money unless I know what I’m gettin’ into first. That being the case I decided to low-ball it when it came to a goto GEM for my Ultima 8 OTA (I was perfectly happy with the pretty black C8 tube, XLT or no XLT). Rather than a GM8 or a Sphinx, I’d try one of Celestron’s inexpensive CG5 (ASGT) mounts first. See how I liked it and whether it seemed as good an alternative to getting forked all the time as I thought it would be. I didn’t expect too much, and figgered that when the (Synta) CG5 gave up the ghost a few months hence, I’d sell the remains on Astromart to help finance a good GEM.

Surprise! Over a year later, the CG5 continues to perform like a champ on every task I set it to. Not only does it do a great job visually (the goto accuracy is at least as good as that of the NS11), it’s also proved to be a capable imaging platform that is easily autoguided. Only painful part? Removing the U8 OTA from that big, beautiful Celestron fork. It really did seem like the end of an era.

Which brings us, in Uncle Rod’s meandering fashion, back around to last night. Once I got the rings installed (a proletarian, but crazily inexpensive and perfectly functional piggyback system from Jim Henson at Scopestuff.com), I didn’t waste time setting up the C8 in the hot, muggy, and Tiger Mosquito infested backyard of Chaos Manor South. A glance to the east revealed a nice gibbous Moon, but it wouldn’t be long before it was lost in the trees

One of the wonderful things about the CG5 is that you can do a decent goto alignment with it even if you can’t see any alignment stars. Just point the RA axis in the direction you think Polaris lies, and hit “Quick Align” on the hand control. You won’t get perfect pointing, no, but it will turn on your RA tracking, and this simple alignment is often enough to place objects in the central 1/3 of the finder field, which it did with the Moon.

Being in a hurry, I didn’t run upstairs to the Equipment Vault for the premium eyepieces, just grabbed a box of 1.25”ers containing a Meade plössl or two and several of Synta’s “Expanses” (that’s what Orion calls ‘em, anyway). Inserted a Synta 9mm in the WO dielectric diagonal and took a look. It wasn’t dark yet, but there was tremendous detail visible along the terminator, detail that held up well even when I upped the power to about 150x with the aid ofa 3X barlow (Gassendi was a treat). It wasn’t dark enough to make any hard conclusions about false color on the Lunar limb; all I can say is I didn’t see any in the twilight.

With Luna lost in leaves, I switched over to the C8 and spent the next hour or so imaging Jupiter (for some of my recent shots see http://skywatch.brainiac.com/planets/index.htm). But, just before Jupe followed Diana into the limbs, I took a good look at him with the 66. What did I see? Ah-ah-ah…you li’l rascals are just gonna have to wait. I will say this, though: the 66 sucks up power like a sponge and asks for more. Despite its small aperture, it delivered such sharp images that I kept searching for shorter and shorter focal length eyepieces and more powerful barlows. Exactly what did Jupiter look like in this purty little thang? How sharp is “sharp”? Ask me again in a week or three. Till then…

Gotta Know More Now?

http://www.buytelescopes.com/manufacturer.asp?s=2&m=49

UWANna Know a Secret?

Fri, 19 May 2006 15:10:25 GMT

The amateur astronomy eyepiece market just changed, thanks to William Optics. Their new UWAN eyepieces

(http://www.buytelescopes.com/search.asp?go=1&adv=&q=uwan&s=) are so remarkably good that they spell the end of the days when “Chinese eyepieces” meant “cheap plossls.”

I’ve just completed testing three examples of WO’s new UWAN (Ultra Wide Angle) 82-degree apparent field eyepiece line—the 28mm, the 16mm and the 7mm. What’s my initial reaction? Surprise. Astonishment.

A year or two ago I wrote an article for my Anacortes column about Chinese eyepieces wherein I predicted we would eventually see Chinese (Mainland or Taiwan) oculars that would challenge those giants in the eyepiece “field”: TeleVue, Meade, and Pentax. And that has indeed come to pass in the form of these UWANs. I just didn’t expect it to happen this soon.

You’ll get to read all about the UWANs in my upcoming review (next week or two), but for now I’ll just leave you with a comment from one of the observers who tried the 28mm at the recent Chiefland Spring Picnic (star party):

“Let’s get on Astromart and sell our Naglers before anybody else finds out about the UWANs.”

--Uncle Rod

Uncle Rod Ain't Exactly a Refractor Guy BUT...

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 17:24:32 GMT

No, I've never been one for fancy-dan lens-type scopes. Oh, well, I'll admit I did want (mightily) a Unitron Photoequatorial back in the good old days, but I outgrew that notion. Sure, I own a Short Tube 80, who doesn't? But that's as far as it's gone till now.

Till now? What's changed? The review copies of William Optics' APO (http://www.buytelescopes.com/manufacturer.asp?s=2&m=49) refractors, a Fluorite 80 ("Megrez II") and an SD 66 ("Zenithstar") that showed up on Chaos Manor South's front porch this A.M.

I'm just bowled over by the build quality and--from what I can tell on terrestrial objects--the optical quality of these little scopes. Yeah, "terrestrial objects." As you might have guessed, IT'S CLOUDY and looks to remain cloudy ("rainfall in excess of one inch) Naturally. Of course.

Stay tuned, though, because in addition to writing detailed reviews of these scopes, I'll be recounting my adventures in refractorland here.

Oh, did I mention the 82 degree Uwan widefield eyepieces that were in the box, including the humongous 28mm? They look superb, and will be put through their paces. The only true test of astronomy gear is out under the stars, but, yes, I'm impressed. This stuff looks world class.

The 2006 Georgia Sky View!

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:44:04 GMT

Indian Springs State Park near Jackson, Georgia has long been host to star parties—and it’s easy to see why. Despite being located just to the south of the massive Atlanta Light Dome, skies are still good enough to allow deep imaging with CCD cameras and rewarding visual observing. But, the biggest reason for this site’s continuing attractiveness for star partiers? Some of the best facilities in the southeast. In addition to spacious “barracks” (with indoor bathrooms) and motel-style cabins, the “group camp” portion of the park features a large meeting/dining hall, as well as a separate and secure building that’s perfect for vendors

Indian Springs was “discovered” by Ken Poshedly and the Atlanta Astronomy Club when they were searching for a site for the first Peach State Star Gaze back in 1994. PSSG enjoyed a long string of successes at Jackson, and developed a real following amongst southeastern amateurs.

Alas, all good things come to an end, it seems. In 2002, Peach State left Indian Springs for the greener pastures of Whitewater Express at Copperhill, Tennessee, just over the Georgia-Tennessee state line. This was done for a couple of pretty good reasons. First, being sponsored by the large and active Atlanta Astronomy Club meant PSSG had begun to draw an increasingly large audience. Attendance of 300 plus people stretched the Indian Springs group camp facilities to the limit. Astronomers were packed onto the single observing field like sardines. Also, some in the Atlanta club had become exasperated at what they considered the less-than-perfect skies of Jackson. Certainly there’s no question that the site is a long way from The Texas Star Party--and not just geographically speaking.

The Tennessee site may turn out to be a better venue for the AAC and Peach State. The single year I’ve attended, 2002, the skies were somewhat better than those at Indian Springs, but only somewhat. This may have been because of a peculiar weather system that was hovering over the southeast at the time, however, and I have had some encouraging reports about Whitewater in recent years. For the best or not, though, the move left some of us high and dry.

By the late 90s, PSSG had begun to draw quite a few observers from central-south Alabama. For these folks, including me, the drive to Jackson was relatively short—about 6 hours in my case, same as Atlanta. Going to Tennessee meant an extra 2 to 3 hours, something that some of us were reluctant to undertake for a number of reasons. Foremost among these was that Chiefland, Florida (star parties in both spring and fall) with its very dark skies is a shorter trip for many of us. In these days of 3 dollar a gallon gas, mileage is a very important issue for many folks.

Some of us also missed having a spring star party. Originally in the late spring, PSSG was moved to fall shortly before it left Indian Springs. Bummer. In the spring, Peach State was a great option for those of us not able to do TSP on any given year. Moved to the fall, it became “one of the many” (a “many” that includes, just in the southeast, The Deep South Regional Star Gaze, The Mid-Atlantic Star Party, The Chiefland Star Party, and more).

Consarnit, for whatever reason many amateurs just missed the pleasant Indian Springs area with its cool piney woods, expansive lake, friendly people (and the Fresh Air Bar-b-Que). Someone noticed this and decided to do something to bring amateur astronomy back to Indian Springs. That someone was the Flint River Astronomy Club (http://www.flintriverastronomy.org/), and, in particular, the husband and wife team of Dawn and Steve Knight. They’ve put together a new spring event, The Georgia Sky View, with many of the best features of those bygone PSSGs we loved so much.

This year, your Old Uncle not only spoke at GSV 2006 (believe it or not, already the 3rd year for this star party), but spent a lot of time of observing and imaging. Verdict? The skies are still more than passable. The image of M101 shown above was taken with a C8 and an humble Meade DSI camera. It’s a stack of only 20 30 second exposures. Visually, things were also very good. As long as you avoid the Atlanta Light Dome (to the relatively uninteresting northwest), all is well. I’ve noticed no obvious degradation of the skies at Indian Springs over the six years I’ve been attending star parties at the site.

While the Georgia Sky View is still relatively Spartan, I expect it to become more posh as the years roll on. Actually, there were some new attractions already evident this year. On Friday, a pot-luck supper modeled on the famous Chiefland Spring Picnic was held, and on the following evening new-age/space music/planetarium musician John Serrie played a short concert in the main hall. All that’s really missing now is vendors (who doesn’t want to spend like a drunken sailor on allthose pretty gadgets?). I believe we will see the vendor situation improve next year.

Despite a Thursday evening rain-out and an iffy Friday night (Saturday was close to perfect), attendance was good, with an impressive number of setups on the field by the time Saturday rolled around. This is a great star party, one I predict will only get better, and this is your chance to get in on the ground floor.

For pictures of GSV 2006, see :

http://skywatch.brainiac.com/starparty/starparty.htm

--Uncle Rod

Vacation Astronomy

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 21:02:29 GMT

“It’s too darned hot. It’s too darned hot.”

Yes it was. Despite the usual pull of W-0-R-K for workaholics like Uncle Rod and Miss Dorothy, enough was enough. The last straw was a fiendishly grinning Weather Channel Gal who chirped: “Expect heat indexes of 109 degrees or hotter for the Gulf Coast!” We took a week off and headed north (relatively speaking) to the Smoky Mountains, to Mount Pisgah and the Pisgah Inn. Ah…blessed relief. Warm days, yeah, but nights in the lower 60s (Fahrenheit-wise).

What’s a vacation without astronomy? Not much. It’s a rare trip where D. and I don’t at least tote along a pair of 10x50s. For this spur-of-the-moment getaway? I wasn’t ready with big guns. Not even a “small” C8. But I am blessed with an accumulation of that much-talked-about species of telescope, the Grab-n-Go. Which one, though? The Short Tube 80mm refractor? The StarBlast 4.5 inch mini-dob? Either would have performed admirably. But in the interests of compactness, and in the interests of laziness, I chose the Meade ETX-60.

This little no-longer-produced wide-field refractor (60mm, f/5.8) member of Meade’s ETX clan is small, sure, and that’s good. The scope rides very comfortably on a light Manfrotto tripod, and the whole shebang fits easily into a corner of the Toyota’s trunk. “But,” as they say late at night on WTBS, “that’s not all!” Since even this wee ETX is equipped with an Autostar computer-controller, I was able leave the star atlases and observing lists at home, freeing-up much valuable room for bottles of you-know-what.

What in tarnation can you see with a 60mm refractor, though? A lot, it turns out, when the skies are as dark as they are up on top of a mountain situated smack-dab in the middle of a National Forest. Despite its somewhat silly soul, the li’l 60 performed brilliantly, delivering DSO after DSO. And man did they looknice! It ain’t no C14, but the dark skies of the Smokies (when clear…you know why they CALL ‘em the “Smokies,” doncha?) gave the tiny thing a leg up. M8, for example, looked better in the ETX-60 up on top of Pisgah than it often does in the C11 from the humid backyard of Chaos Manor South. M22 gave up a few stars. I even thought I spied a few around the periphery of much tighter M13. M17 showed off a well-defined, if small, Swan body. I was amazed to realize I was seeing some nebulosity around the stars of M16. It didn’t form the famous Eagle body, but it was clear something was there. And boy-howdy was it nice to observe without sweatin’ like a pig!

The ETX-60 will amaze with what it can do in the right environment, true, but it’s also, thank God, not a serious scope. Its small size and chirpy little computer are perfect for informal stargazing. Equipped with this not-serious scope, I didn’t have to feel guilty about filling up every square inch of the car with gear and hijacking a family vacation for purely astronomical (heh-heh) purposes.

What’s really interested me about this trip, though, ain’t the ETX specifically; it’s the whole concept of “vacation astronomy,” the idea that astronomy and observing can be integrated into a family-type vacation without doing major damage to tempers or agendas. In fact, look for an article from me (somewhere) soon on this subject.

As for D. and me? We’re back at Chaos Manor South. It’s hot. It’s cloudy. But in my mind I can still see that wondrous starry Lagoon spreading out before me as cool breezes blow.

The New "Uncle Rod's Corner" is Online!

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 16:32:26 GMT

Howdy, y'all!

After all the post hurricane cleanup and traveling, I'm finally back in the swing of things astronomically speaking.

That being the case, another installment in my long-running series of reviews/articles/cracker-barrel-philosophizing/long-winded-collections-of-folderol-and-fiddle-dee-dee is up on the fine Anacortes web site.

To get there, you can go direct with: http://www.buytelescopes.com/container.asp?dest=/uncle_rod/archive7.htm

But even if you go direct, don't forget to visit the Anacortes home page at:

http://www.buytelescopes.com/ as that's where Herb, Ray, and the Anacortes gang announce those mouthwartering new astro-gear releases.

Let me know what you think of the new one. While not about a catadioptric scope, it's about a little scope that many of you will find very useful as a piggyback imager, a guider, even as a superfine quicklook scope: the Megrez 80 Flurorite. This is a "short tube" with a down-to-earth price, but performance like no other 80 in its range. Period. I guar-ron-tee.