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Some reflections on Mars and new Skyview telescope.
Well, first off, Orion is having some serious inventory problems so I
ended up purchasing their 8" Skyview, a newtonian on an EQ mount. If you want to buy a Dobsonian larger than 4.5", forget Orion until December. Their Epic eyepieces are also gone, but are still being advertised. I am happy to have the EQ mount, but I must say as a rather large man who lifts weights, I still find my self chuckling at how unwieldy this thing is to move about. It may only weigh 65 pounds or so, but it is bulky and awkward to move. A minor or an older person would probably want to think twice before purchasing one of these. Now, Mars... uh, filter suggestions please. It is way too bright in this scope, in fact it is even a tad too bright in my 70 mm. refractor. It is so bright it is washing out it's own features. I never read a warning about this in the past six months, but I suspected it might occur as I observed two weeks ago. One thing that does disappoint me is that the larger aperture appears to worsen the light pollution problem immensely. In targeting the Andromeda Galaxy tonight, low in the sky I admit, the view was no better than in my 20x70 binoculars. In fact, it was a tad worse (eyes not dark adapted). I then moved to M13 overhead, and once again the view was on par between the two. When I upped the magnification to 200x, that darkened the field a tad but I was only able to resolve the outermost stars. I have read in dark skies you can do this at 4" of aperture. In fact, I just read an 8" will perform like a 3" in light polluted skies. Now, I do believe it. God damn it... I live on the coast of Ocean County, New Jersey, there are not any good spots for quite some ways. And, I do not want to transport this thing for fear of getting the optics out of whack. I guess I may have to try though, I do have a number of nature preserves near to me 10 miles to the north. One pleasantry is that the right angle star finder is a pleasure to use. Targeting M13 would have been next to impossible without it tonight. With even the modest 6x30 finder, I could easily spot the triangle formation of two stars with M13, and could detect the cotton fuzz ball of M13 in the finder. I am impressed. So, if anyone would care to suggest a filter to dampen down the brightness of Mars, I would be appreciative. I am not looking for exotic suggestions to bring out clouds or other features, I just want to cut the brightness down while not altering the color spectrum. Albeit I will probably have to wait two years to buy it, I have spent all I wish to at this point. I will hope for some light clouds to solve my dilemma. Damn, I always saw light pollution as a nuisance before, now that I have a better scope it is downright intolerable. Irony... but I am still going out later, as will most people in the Northeast. Finally, we have clear skies and no visible Moon to speak of. Saturn will be rising along with Orion and Taurus, and you know I have got a list of stuff to target there. To all the folks who pollute our skies with your lights without a ca screw you. You are an enemy of all that is beautiful in our skies. I despise you like little worms. You are maggots. I hope you get gnats in your coffee. - Livingston |
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