LOG Sunday May 8 2022
We have now collected a total of 29 recycled distilled water bottles to be used for making the back side extension of the indoor/outdoor platform extension. The distilled water bottle is ten times the strength of a regular water bottle. Further design indicates ten per row are needed with 4 rows for a total of 40 bottles required to complete the project. The cache increases at one per day and we will have enough by the end of eleven days. "You will be in the green world."
House of telescopes! After a period of about 2 years, the Orion CT80 was stored in the shipping box, and was a situation of basically not knowing how to mount it. Today, I've become so familiar with mountings, it was a piece of cake establishing how to mount the OTA onto a tripod and also how to attach a finderscope. The CT80 comes without the finderscope, without the mount, and with no accessories like EPs or focal extensions so added eyepieces will come into focus.
Left: the Orion CT80 came with only the OTA tube. This weekend, a finderscope, finderscope ring mount, dovetail shoe, and HF-3110 tripod were added for standalone functionality. A future order will include a 90-degree diagonal with 99% transmission.
Tripod HF-3110
Free tripod! There's an interesting story around this tripod. About six years ago I had the need to mount my camera on a tripod and visited the night market to find one. I chose the best and largest available at that time. A local friend bartered with the merchants to get the price down so it was a very good deal. The tripod has four long extensions so it can raise a camera or telescope a good distance off the ground, and the best features are low cost, small size and ultra lightweight. It has its own bag and is ideal for portability. So this tripod is excellent for initial use with the small Orion CT80 OTA and the upcoming Acuter Maksutov.
The minuscule mak! Monday is the big day! Coming soon is a new Acuter Maksutov 60mm small light blue telescope (Maksy), tentatively to be ordered on Monday, May 8, 2022.
Left: the minuscule maksutov will be ordered without the matching blue finderscope. It will however, contain the very high quality sun filter, sun finder, and AMICI prism in the 90-degree diagonal for upright and correct orientation views.
While the Orion CT80 OTA white metal tube is 14.7-inches long and 3.25 lbs, the Acuter Maksy is only a third of that weight and its plastic tube is only 8-inches long. It should work better with the HF-3110 tripod due to lighter weight and it also will mount alongside the Celestron main observatory telescope OTA, putting less stress on the mount and motors in the Nexstar 6SE. The popularity of the small high resolution Maksy with exceptional optics is spreading like wildfire and is now sold out at most places. One key feature is the accessory roster, which lists a solar filter claimed to be comprised of high quality Baader film and mounted with its own solar finder. With the right techniques and accessories (CMOS astro imaging camera, processing computers), computer processing software power, additional h-alpha and spectroscopic filters, solar results could be spectacular for the minuscule Mak. Plus, when attached to the main observatory telescope, the telescopes will share guiding, tracking and all the advanced resources provided by the Celestron Nexstar GOTO mount.
New Observatory Naming
It does seem that Nexstar Observatory has caught on for a new name. The previous name of NTO Nexstar Telescope Observatory is retained but not being used in its entirety at this time. The nice thing about NO or NTO is it can be reconfigured for many additional applications, indoor, outdoor, through glass, no glass (lunar, planetary, deep sky, solar, nature & conservation).
Green Gem Laser Finder
The green gem laser finder on the Nexstar was removed and decommissioned for safety and legal issues.
INDEX
* Nexstar Observatory
* Orion CT80
* Tripod HF-3110
* Acuter Maksutov
* New Observatory Naming
* Green Gem Laserfinder
