Old ATM Returns

Hi,

I'm returning to amateur astronomy after 40 years off. I became
disinterested after my B.A. in Astronomy-Physics from UCLA circa 1968.
Burned out at the time.

Been doing optical engineering, optical design and optical design
software till now.

All the built-like-a-battleship mounting vendors seem to be dead or
gone.

Does anyone build the Byers mount or the Schaefer or the heavy Cave
type.

I'd like to buy a heavy mount for astro photograpy (german equatorial)
that I can use for store bought 11-14" class catadioptric instruments
as well as a future home built 12.5 Cass with an f/5 pri and f/25 as
Cass.

I'm open to all suggestions. I'm not poor but I'd like to get the most
for the $ and at first look the Park's high end mount is a bit on the
pricey side (about what we paid for our 2003 Mini Cooper S. :-))

GOTO is not needed. Slewing by hand using DEC and HA circles and a
good 4" finder will be really fine.

My plans are to install the instument in Escalante UT where I will
retire in about 6 years.

I found ASTROMART and marked it in my favorites.

Also, any questions wrt optical design are welcome as it would be fun
to give back a little of what I do know.

Sincerely,




James E. Klein


Engineering Calculations
http://www.ecalculations.com

Engineering Calculations is the home of
the KDP-2 Optical Design Program
for Windows and (soon) MAC OSX
Free KDP-2 (DEMO) downloadable!
1-818-507-5706 (Voice and Fax)

Jim Klein wrote in
:

I'd like to buy a heavy mount for astro photograpy (german equatorial)
that I can use for store bought 11-14" class catadioptric instruments
as well as a future home built 12.5 Cass with an f/5 pri and f/25 as
Cass.

The current gold standard seems to be that beast

http://www.bisque.com/Products/Paramount/

It's probably a minimum, given the types of instruments you want to use.

GOTO is not needed. Slewing by hand using DEC and HA circles and a
good 4" finder will be really fine.

The lack of goto won't save much. Even cheap Chinese mounts will perform
almost perfect go-to's nowadays.

Jim Klein wrote in
:

Hi,

I'm returning to amateur astronomy after 40 years off. I became
disinterested after my B.A. in Astronomy-Physics from UCLA circa 1968.
Burned out at the time.

Been doing optical engineering, optical design and optical design
software till now.

All the built-like-a-battleship mounting vendors seem to be dead or
gone.

Does anyone build the Byers mount or the Schaefer or the heavy Cave
type.

I'd like to buy a heavy mount for astro photograpy (german equatorial)
that I can use for store bought 11-14" class catadioptric instruments
as well as a future home built 12.5 Cass with an f/5 pri and f/25 as
Cass.

The main players would be in alphabetical order:

Astro-physics:

http://www.astro-physics.com/

Long waiting list I believe.

Losmandy:

http://www.losmandy.com/eq-mounts.html

The Titan might be beefy enough for you?

Mountain Instruments:

http://www.mountaininstruments.com/


Parallax instruments:

http://www.parallaxinstruments.com/index2.html

Have heard good things about these.


Software Bisque:

http://www.bisque.com/Products/Paramount/

Our local astro society has one of these with a C14 mounted on it. It does
well.

Klazmon.



I'm open to all suggestions. I'm not poor but I'd like to get the most
for the $ and at first look the Park's high end mount is a bit on the
pricey side (about what we paid for our 2003 Mini Cooper S. :-))

GOTO is not needed. Slewing by hand using DEC and HA circles and a
good 4" finder will be really fine.

My plans are to install the instument in Escalante UT where I will
retire in about 6 years.

I found ASTROMART and marked it in my favorites.

Also, any questions wrt optical design are welcome as it would be fun
to give back a little of what I do know.

Sincerely,




James E. Klein


Engineering Calculations
http://www.ecalculations.com

Engineering Calculations is the home of
the KDP-2 Optical Design Program
for Windows and (soon) MAC OSX
Free KDP-2 (DEMO) downloadable!
1-818-507-5706 (Voice and Fax)

Jim Klein wrote:


Also, any questions wrt optical design are welcome as it would be fun
to give back a little of what I do know.

If you're not adverse to Yahoo, there just happens to be a group set
up to discuss optical design:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATM_Optics_Software/

There are some good people on that list.

Jim Klein wrote:
Hi,

I'm returning to amateur astronomy after 40 years off. I became
disinterested after my B.A. in Astronomy-Physics from UCLA circa 1968.
Burned out at the time.

Been doing optical engineering, optical design and optical design
software till now.

All the built-like-a-battleship mounting vendors seem to be dead or
gone.

Does anyone build the Byers mount or the Schaefer or the heavy Cave
type.

I'd like to buy a heavy mount for astro photograpy (german equatorial)
that I can use for store bought 11-14" class catadioptric instruments
as well as a future home built 12.5 Cass with an f/5 pri and f/25 as
Cass.

I'm open to all suggestions. I'm not poor but I'd like to get the most
for the $ and at first look the Park's high end mount is a bit on the
pricey side (about what we paid for our 2003 Mini Cooper S. :-))

GOTO is not needed. Slewing by hand using DEC and HA circles and a
good 4" finder will be really fine.

My plans are to install the instument in Escalante UT where I will
retire in about 6 years.

I found ASTROMART and marked it in my favorites.

Also, any questions wrt optical design are welcome as it would be fun
to give back a little of what I do know.

Sincerely,




James E. Klein



Welcome back, the amateur ranks need all the help we can muster. I used
to have the same opinions of goto mounts, but that has changed over the
past five years. Like internet access or a TV remote control, after
using goto for awhile, goto is something you wonder how you ever did
without. You can still find cast iron Cave Astrola GEMs sitting in
garages here and there, not used much. They seem so crude and unfinished
now but I suppose they still work well. The huge, long-focus Newts they
were built to support are even rarer.

The Byers mount is still available from Mountain Instruments, with goto
and all the bells and whistles courtesy of Software Bisque. Meade is
reportedly introducing a high-capacity mount made in Germany, but I
don't know the pricing. The high-end mounts run from $50K to $8k
depending on the level of sophistication. For a fixed observatory I'm
partial to the Bisque Paramount ME (about $13K) because IMO it has the
best combination of feature set, accuracy, and capacity. Like a CNC
machine tool, the Paramount doesn't use clutches and it's nice to walk
in, turn it on, and start observing.

Astro-Physics makes a fine mount that is available in several sizes and
is semi-portable. Order one now and you might receive it after the next
Presidential election. Takahashi has always built good gear and their
larger mounts are finally coming up to speed in terms of features and
correction for secondary tracking errors. Losmandy makes a big mount but
I have no personal experience with it.

Escalate? Not many places with darker skies, you chose well. Let us know
when that OS X design software is available. The fellow who runs Stellar
Software hasn't updated his wares since '01, and I'm beginning to think
he will never make the leap from OS9.

On 2006-08-24, Jim Klein wrote:

Does anyone build the Byers mount or the Schaefer or the heavy Cave
type.

While Cave mounts are heavy, the clevis between the equatorial
head and the pier is a wiggle point. Parks Optical builds the
same stype of mount and Scope City sells them.

http://www.scopecity.com/

Bud

Hi:

Things have changed a lot in 40 years. What's changed the most,
however? The growth of suburbs/exurbs means most observers have to
travel to observe. In 1968 I could (between tokes ;-)) still see the
Milky Way from most suburban areas around here. About that time,
though, the shopping malls and street lights really started coming.

There are plenty of heavy duty mounts available, however. Many more
than back in the day, and most considerably "better" than a Byers (he's
long-since retired). Take a look at the Bisque Paramount, the Meade
Max, the Mountain Instruments GEMS, the Losmandy Titan, the AP1200 and
on and on and on. However, rank and file amateurs are not always
anxious to own one of these bigdogs. When you have to travel to dark
sites, you see, the need to carry around something on the order of a
Byers mounting is not overly attractive.

Couple of other things:

Do you mean FILM astrophotography? I'd forget that. There ain't any
film to shoot. Think CCD or, at least DSLR. That being the case, you'll
want goto in order to place the target on a smaller-than-35mm sensor
without a lot of hassle. Goto doesn't add much to the price, and fewer
and fewer makers are offering mounts without goto.

Big mount? Any of those I mentioned will do the job very well. Don't
want to spend the moola? A Losmandy G11 or Celestron CGE will do the
job, if not with the battleship steadiness of the Titan, AP1200, MI,
Max, Paramount, etc.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of:
Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope
and
The Urban Astronomer's Guide
http://skywatch.brainiac.com/astroland
The Annual SCT User Imaging Contest is Underway!
http://www.rothritter.com/contest/2006/

Jim Klein wrote:
Hi,

I'm returning to amateur astronomy after 40 years off. I became
disinterested after my B.A. in Astronomy-Physics from UCLA circa 1968.
Burned out at the time.

Been doing optical engineering, optical design and optical design
software till now.

All the built-like-a-battleship mounting vendors seem to be dead or
gone.

Does anyone build the Byers mount or the Schaefer or the heavy Cave
type.

I'd like to buy a heavy mount for astro photograpy (german equatorial)
that I can use for store bought 11-14" class catadioptric instruments
as well as a future home built 12.5 Cass with an f/5 pri and f/25 as
Cass.

I'm open to all suggestions. I'm not poor but I'd like to get the most
for the $ and at first look the Park's high end mount is a bit on the
pricey side (about what we paid for our 2003 Mini Cooper S. :-))

GOTO is not needed. Slewing by hand using DEC and HA circles and a
good 4" finder will be really fine.

My plans are to install the instument in Escalante UT where I will
retire in about 6 years.

I found ASTROMART and marked it in my favorites.

Also, any questions wrt optical design are welcome as it would be fun
to give back a little of what I do know.

Sincerely,




James E. Klein


Engineering Calculations
http://www.ecalculations.com

Engineering Calculations is the home of
the KDP-2 Optical Design Program
for Windows and (soon) MAC OSX
Free KDP-2 (DEMO) downloadable!
1-818-507-5706 (Voice and Fax)

"Jim Klein" wrote

Jim,

Others have already mentioned the mounts I or my friends use. I have a
non-GoTo Mountain Instruments MI-250 that works great. I put a Optical
Guidance Systems 10-inch RC Cass on in most of the time and I use it both at
home (where I have mag 5.5 sky) or on trips. I have friends who have been
successful imaging with the smaller Losmandy G-11 mount ( 3 friends have
these and image with scopes like a C-11 and 10-in F/4 Newt) and the larger
AstroPhysics 1200. I chose the (out-of-production) non-goto version of the
MI-250 because I need to be on battery power sometimes. I've had no problems
finding targets with the digital read-outs.

George N

[quote=Jim Klein]Hi, I'm returning to amateur astronomy after 40 years off. I became
disinterested after my B.A. in Astronomy-Physics from UCLA circa 1968. Burned out at the time....snip... Been doing optical engineering, optical design and optical design
software till now.

Sincerely, James E. Klein


Welcome back;-) CloudyNights has a fair and moderated ATM at http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthrea...at/0/Board/atm

Nytecam 51N 0.1W
http://www.astroman.fsnet.co.uk/optics.htm