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[patrickm]

West Texas is so flat that if you stand on a tuna can, you can see the back of your own head in the distance.-Joe Ely

[magic612]

Dec 7, 2011 15:22:58 GMT -6 patrickm said:

STILL AWAITING TARGET SUGGESTIONS! C'mon! Y'all got no ideas? Don't make me taunt you a second time. BS. ;-)

"This is your last chance, I've been more than reasonable!"

(You bring Python, I bring Python.) ;D

Seriously, here's some ideas:

M72 and M73 - in Capricornus I believe, and should be visible near some of the brighter (ha!) stars in that constellation.
M74 - near Jupiter right now. Wait til the Moon is out of the way, i if possible. DIM.
IC1396 - easy to find near Mu Cephei; pretty dim by itself.
NGC6946 and NGC6939 - these are pretty cool, because one is an open cluster in our galaxy, and the other is a far off galaxy, but they can be placed in the same FOV.

Well, those should get you started, unless you've already seen the Messiers, in which case, that's not much....

[patrickm]

Awesome! Those are now on the list.

Reporting from DFW:
Faux pas #1
I cannot locate my finder scope. Doesn't fit in the scope box. Isn't in my truss pole bag. Not in my backpack or the interior optics camera bag where it would not fit. Possibilities: office, front counter of store, trunk of car, floorboard of car, floor of dog sitter's, ORD TSA, my checked luggage (would require magic), other. Quite disappointing as my lowest mag eyepiece is a 24mm Panoptic.

I discovered this because I tried to pry it out of my backpack to look at Jupiter in flight which instead led to a minor 30,000' freak out.

Who knows what will happen between here and Midland? The possibilities appear endless. (sigh)

Trouble Every Day.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Is that the finder scope in that pic next to the rolled up light shield?

Dang!

[patrickm]

It is! Found on passenger floorboard & in hands of Fed Ex. Now PO'd I didn't bring anything lower than 24mm to tide me over. Just to hotel room. Super long day. Unless I rally, First Assembly will come tomorrow.

THERE IS SNOW ON THE GROUND HERE from 2.5" on Sat and more on Monday! CRAZY.

Also, we got here so late that the only rental car was a 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan Family Truckster. So many cup holders! 8-o

[erikruud]

Dec 7, 2011 15:22:58 GMT -6 patrickm said:

Getting through security was a bit longer than normal, but I met a new friend, Jim, the TSA supervisor who really likes space! I directed him to our website. The scope has wires on the primary and secondary, and frankly just looks super weird in person and under x-ray, so they did their jobs and that lead to a 10 min talk about astronomy. He lives out west, so if he gets in touch, maybe some of our west suburban chapter can take him out for a good time.

We would be happy to welcome your new friend, but he will have to take his shoes off and wait in line first. ;D

Congrats on getting the scope in time!

[patrickm]

Dec 8, 2011 7:30:41 GMT -6 erikruud said:

We would be happy to welcome your new friend, but he will have to take his shoes off and wait in line first. ;D

YES! We'll drink tea and coffee and discuss Simpsons and our bosses while he waits. Oh no! Astronomer shift change. That'll take a while.

In the airport and on the plane, my new Dutch friend gets many quizzical and/or concerned looks.

With a fully loaded backpack AND scope, yesterday felt like a boot camp day as we negotiated three airports. At 23.5 lbs, the first thing it needs is a new carry strap.

Last night had better skies, but was too pooped. Today, the set up!

[patrickm]

Set up this morning did NOT go very well for me. In spite of the directions & photos I have, every step was really two step: the way I did it and the right way. Sometimes, there were additional steps between them.

I spent 1:20 on it this morning & then left in a funk of self-frustration to get some real work done. Got back this eve, took a deep breath, looked at the instructions & photos again, and dove in. I got the last 25% knocked out in about 15 mins. Better.

Spent the eve with a friend until about 11pm before heading out to see something, anything. I headed north to the end of one of the main streets in town and did a wee bit of offroading in our Dodge Grand Caravanster. Sadly, it was not terribly dark there. Aside from the moon, homes have sprung up around former prime drinkin' ground and the petroleum gods also saw fit to place a working oil rig out there. Dark no more, but still darker than anywhere in Chicago.

My first problem was...remember to remove the primary mirror cover.

Second problem, collimate the scope with my new Howie Glatter doodad. Actually, this wasn't a problem. The gadget worked flawlessly & knocked out secondary alignment in no time. Primary alignment gadget still to come, but definitely close enough for rock and roll.

Third problem, no finder scope. Should be here tomorrow, but even with my laser for a spotter, my 24mm Panoptic is a rotten finder! The moon just fits comfortably in the fov of the Pan, so that's the amount of sky I can cover. Not much.

About 45 mins in the cold was about all I could handle.

I dig it, but need my finder scope.

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Patrick,

See if you can take some pics of it in action while you are getting acquainted with it.

The Moon shot is decent.

[patrickm]

Joe, only camera I have is my phone. Sorry man. Just wanted a document. Holding phone to eyepiece on a tension free Dob, a minor miracle I got anything at all! My small camera bag is full of eyepieces, filters, and warmers, but no camera.

Forecast for tonight is cloudy. Did I haul this to Tx for 45 freezing mins with the moon? If so, astrofolly.

[patrickm]

Moon & Jupiter.
Wish I could have gotten the HUGE lunar halo in the thin clouds but not enough aperture on a cell phone & too much ambient light.
(iPhone)

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Pssshaw!

45 degrees is T-shirt weather and only five degrees away from a balmy 50!

(It's snowing presently in Chicago)...

[patrickm]

32F with wind chill of 26F & some snow still on ground here in West Texas.

[magic612]

Patrick, don't feel too badly. I once went to the dark skies of Colorado, camera and film in-hand (this was 15 years ago), excited about getting TRULY dark sky shots, even if short exposures and wide-field.

Sadly, the developer royally screwed up the development of them - despite my clear, careful instructions - and I wound up with exactly zero shots of the experience.

But just going was worth it. And you at least have a really cool scope now!!

[patrickm]

Magic, sucks about Colorado. I guess now with digital, we now have no one to blame but ourselves.

Early to bed hopefully means early to rise. Setting alarm and we'll see. Scope is set up and resting comfortably in the back of the Truckster so that when called, I can rise and sneak out with a minimum of disturbance. Fairly confident last night's sortie left me with enough chops to at least find the moon. Fingers crossed.

Fed Ex failed me and my finder scope appears to be resting comfortably in my dad's hometown of Ft. Worth, 300+ miles short of its destination. :-(

In other news, today I learned:
*A friend's 87 yo father paid $1500 to rappel down a 22 story building for charity
*A former classmate/teammate is prominently featured on the "reality show" Black Gold, with a fictitious back story
*He works on oil rigs & was knocked out in a bar fight on the show.
*A friend's brother is serving 20 years in state pen on his third strike & is lucky for that.
*If you head up a local charity, you know who has money & how much.
*My mother once spent a day with a female Christian hermit on the Scottish isle of Iona.
*The hermit was originally from McAllen, TX.
*The hermit was a musician who wrote dual meaning folk songs about love for man & God.
*A friend's dad once went on safari in Africa in the early 60's and somehow ended up flying an elephant spotter plane instead of hunting.
*He and a friend counted ~6,000 elephants in a 10 sq. mile area.
*Back then, elephants were hunted to cull the herd because they were eating the forest.
*The same friend's father once flew a US Navy PBY under the Golden Gate Bridge.
*If you need work, come to Midland, TX, where unemployment is below 3%, but you will not find a place to live.
*The drought here is so bad that there are no more quail & dove are scarce.
*Entire sections of surrounding counties are scorched black from grass fires over the last two years.
*A private plane crashed a half mile short of the runway, clipped a house, and nobody died.
*High school coaches post game stats and videos on social networking sites that are shared by other coaches in their division.
*"If they could drill inside the city limits of Midland and Odessa they would."
*It is possible to love and admire someone and vehemently disagree with their politics.
*I still enjoy Maker's Mark.
*People will frequently help if you just ask nicely.
*Sometimes it's them not me.

5300 W Loop 250 N, Midland, TX 79707, USA

[patrickm]

@

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[-=CROMAN=-]

That's a work of art

[patrickm]

Tear down and pack up time, 40 mins. A long way to go to catch Paulie and his dob.

New scope prophecy fulfilled. Cloudy here with no viewing last night. It's never cloudy here. Only 40 mins of lunar observing Thurs night.

Off to the airport.

[patrickm]

First modifications:

24lbs doesn't seem that heavy until you are already carrying a full backpack of at least that weight, the scope rests on your shoulder on a simple nylon strap, and the rental car lot is full necessitating a forced march of some distance. Thankfully, DFW is a gigantic shopping mall.

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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

That's a handsome scope...something Jules Verne would get.

How many Leagues can it go?

[patrickm]

Joe, are you saying it's steam punk? I think mechanically it's good to at least 20,000 but transparency is hell below about .000001.

DHS guy at MAF is still probably muttering "flux capacitor" to anyone who will listen.

Because of wiring on scope, I think I will be seeing DHS folks with explosive testing swabs every time I board. So many new friends to make!

[patrickm]

Here's my scope update post from Cloudy Nights. Needless to say, collimation NOT working itself out.


Starman1, yes, I am hip to collimation v. culmination, but a stray letter sets the spell check to cranking and you end up with an opening! ;-)

Sadly, I have not had really any viewing with this scope. My first light was in West Texas the night of the eclipse. It was mostly cloudy, cold with snow on the ground. I trudged to what used to be a very dark spot when I was a kid, only to find it not so dark any longer. I also found that I'd forgotten my finder scope back in Chicago. My widest eyepiece was a 24mm Panoptic, which makes a lousy finder scope/wide field. I was limited to the full moon, and we all know how less than awesome that is to stare at with no contrast. It did fit nicely in the 24mm Pan though.

shot with my iPhone up to my eyepiece.

Here's the scope in the hotel room sans shroud and light shield:

shot with my iPhone. I haven't taken better pictures yet because I'm mad at it (ie. me).

I took it to Rockford over Xmas weekend hoping to squeeze in a bit of observing there but FORGOT MY TRUSS RODS.

And that was really it until tonight. The Chicago clouds gave way a bit, so I rushed to set up the scope. And three hours later, I'm typing to you instead of warming up with hot tea and stories of the great outdoors.

My issues with the scope mostly start with me. As witnessed above, I am a terrible direction follower, even when I'm trying. I got the scope put together tonight for the second time much, much faster than the first (90 minutes down to about 25). BUT with me it's always something. This time, I cannot find the loose bolt for the finder scope mount, so again, no finder scope.

Since I'm at home, I'd give it a go with a wider field eyepiece, but I can't for the life of me figure out the primary mirror collimation. As stated on the other Sumerian thread, the three bolts from the bottom do not sufficiently tighten the primary. I am not sure how to collimate it or even how to lock it down for travel. There is a single allen bolt on one side that, according to Michael's instructions, can be tightened or loosened for locking. All this appears to do it push the primary around in the box. Am awaiting instructions from him about this and about the related collimation issue, but nothing yet. Any fine folks with one of these scopes have the same issue and/or a solution? How is it even supposed to be collimated? The laser from the tublug was hitting the ceiling and I can't get it happy. Even when I get close, it moves as soon as the scope tilts. Bah humbug.

We leave for a Virgin Isles sailing trip in three weeks and I'm debating about carrying this thing along vs. my 15x70 binos. Would love the dark skies there but it would only be useful on shore, would have to set up and break down every night, and would have to find a wet bag for it and the eyepieces. But man wouldn't 10" of aperture in that dark sky be cool!

Bummed I missed what may be our last clear and not terribly cold night until March.
--------

Michael at Sumerian said he'd send along detailed instructions on collimation & primary mirror lock. There's only so many moving parts, so I am interested to see what it is I am doing wrong!

[patrickm]

Also, we'll be in VI around the new moon, so that weighs in favor of taking the scope. Will just have to get really good at assembly & breakdown. Sumerian boot camp!

Surprised one (or more) of you gearheadz hasn't thought about reverse engineering this thing.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

The three bolts on the bottom should never be rock tight, but snug.

I hope you get that scope working nicely soon...or we can have it as a conversation piece at Chicago Astronomer star parties.

[patrickm]

Dec 28, 2011 14:38:49 GMT -6 Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe said:

The three bolts on the bottom should never be rock tight, but snug.

I hope you get that scope working nicely soon...or we can have it as a conversation piece at Chicago Astronomer star parties.

Even if they are rock tight, the mirror slides around. This is the problem. I haven't heard back from Michael yet, but I read on CN that one of the guys had put extra padding on the bottom of the brackets on top that hold the mirror down. The bolts on the bottom push the mirror up into them. I am assuming that with these bolts, I can collimate a centered primary, but right now it will not stay put for doing so...tight, snug, or loose.

It does look pretty hot just sitting in the living room but if I'd only wanted art, we already had our eyes on a piece out in California.

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