p.1 #7 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
The mount is actually a form of an equatorial platform. It is a pier that is properly angled to the celestial pole (think north star, but a bit more accurate). Then the fork arms, holding the CCD and lenses, can move along the celestial sphere axis (right ascension and declination). OK, OK – I’m a bit of an astro geek.
Here is a pic of my LX200 8” SCT scope with my 5D and 100-400 mounted on it.
And here is a (humble) pic I took with this setup of the moon and Pleiades (seven sisters) star cluster on 4/8/08. exif - f/5.6, 370mm, 30”, iso 100. The glowing area in the Pleiades is a reflection nebula – scattering of light from the stars off of tiny grains of interstellar dust.
p.1 #8 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
Jason,
How about some more pics? This stuff just fascinates me.
The link you provided spoke of newly discovered planets. I do wonder what's out there.
Yes. I'm one of the kids who made sure to get home after school to watch Star Trek.
Even the successful landing of Phoenix on Mars is just such a small step of what our race will do in the future. I'm a GrandFather now so I know I won't be "off planet". I do envy the folks who will be.
I do like this image.
Could/Would you post one of Orion? And that little gas cloud there?
p.1 #11 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
Most telescopes arent going to be close to f/1.8, nor will they be a shorter focal length around 200mm. The whole point of being f/1.8 and 200mm is to cover a BIG area of the sky and to gather a LOT of light quickly. It takes a LOOOONG time to cover the entire sky and this lets you cover more of the sky and notice changes in the placement of stars, which are in turn possibly going to be planets.
p.1 #12 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
Beni wrote:
Pardon my ignorance but wouldn't longer focal length lenses make more sense ala telescope?
Longer focal lengths are good for planetary observation and star clusters. Shorter lengths, like the 200/1.8L are good for deep sky stuff like the Milky Way. What you're looking for is not so much magnification as light gathering capability. These are very faint objects and aperture rules. Even a 200/1.8L is limited in its light gathering capabilities.
That's for photography. For observing, the rules are different.
My brother uses a 200mm scope...but that is the mirror diameter, not the focal length (1200mm). That's a good combination scope but for deep sky, you want at least a 300mm mirror. It doesn't matter what the f stop is. The absolute aperture is what's important. The best deep sky observing is done with low magnification eyepieces. In fact, an awful lot of people use binoculars.
p.1 #14 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
Thanks for the comments. It would seem from recent findings that there is definitely the possibility of other habitable planets in our galaxy. Now we just have to find a way not to kill ourselves before we figure out where those planets are and how to get there.
A little word about telescopes in general. The bigger the primary objective diameter (be it glass or mirror) the better the resolving power. In fact, big amateur scopes are often called light buckets. However, there are other factors such as atmosphere. The less of it the better. That’s why big telescopes are built on tall mountains. The best telescope to date has a relatively small mirror – Hubble’s mirror is 2.4 meters but it has no atmosphere to contend with. My telescope pictured above only has 0.2 meter (8”) primary mirror. Being right outside NYC my biggest problem is light pollution.
Also, as stated above, the faster systems are generally better for imaging of deep space objects. But when systems are fast they introduce optical problems such coma, astigmatism and spherical aberration.
George – I have photo the Great Orion Nebula that I took about a year or so ago. I will look around and post it if I find it.
p.1 #15 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
Jason,
Looking forward to it. Thanks.
Speaking of light pollution. My daughter came to visit Victoria day weekend with her girls and we all went out. She drove her 'arrest me red' mustang. I noticed that the head lights had a shade on them. Nothing over horizontal showed light. Told her that a country, I think Sweden, not sure, had made that law for all head lights on cars. Think that was a smart move on their part.
p.1 #16 · What would you do with 8 200 f/1.8 lenses?
George -
Here is a shot of Orion's sword with the great nebula at its center. I had some better more recent shots, but I have had a nightmare when upgrading computers awhile ago and cannot find some photo folders.
