An Hour Of Jupiter

12 May 2006. One frame every five minutes. The moon is Europa.

Review: Eclipse Makview 4

I've been spending a lot of time doing planetary observation and photography, so when I got the chance to review an Eclipse Makview4 Maksutov-Cassegrain from AGENA AstroProducts, I jumped at it. Maks enjoy a reputation as excellent planetary scopes with their long focal length and performance approaching apochromatic refractors of the same aperture.





The Eclipse Makview 4 is a 105 mm, f/13 (1365 mm focal length) Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope featuring BK7 glass optics. The manufacturer claims a wavefront of 1/5 wave (corresponding to a surface accuracy of 1/10 wave) or better. Superficially, the scope resembles the well-known Meade ETX-series OTA with a plastic rear housing containing a built-in flip mirror and eyepiece holder.







The scope arrived nicely packed in an aluminum carrying case. Inside, the scope, finder and two eyepieces ride in custom-cut dense foam. That said, I did encounter a couple of issues. The lack of foam at the objective end makes this a carrying case and not a shipping case, since any shock can be transmitted to the tube. The other thing I noticed right away is that the finder must be removed from the mount, and the mount completely disassembled to fit the cutouts. That means re-aligning the finder from scratch every time you take the scope out. For me, that's enough hassle to make me want to skip the case, which is a shame. It looks like the foam is deep enough to re-engineer this, however.



With the scope out of the case, I proceeded to mount it to my equatorial mount by attaching a dovetail bar to the 3/8-16 and a 1/4-20 thread mounting socket. From there, I attached the 6x30 finder to its bracket, and then to the scope. The finder bracket uses two sets of three screws, which I find harder to adjust than the o-ring/spring-loaded pin system other manufacturers use. In addition, the metal mounting screws dinged up the finder scope while I was using it. To top things off, there's no way to adjust the focus on the cheap-feeling finder scope.



Before I ever inserted an eyepiece, I ran the focuser through its range. The movement was very smooth, and the large, rubber-gripped knob comfortable in my hand. Alongside the focuser at the rear of the scope is the lever controlling the internal flip-mirror and t-threaded eyepiece holder. There's a simple 1.25-inch plug in the rear, which leaves the t-threads exposed. I would have preferred a screw-on cap to protect them from the inevitable damage. The combination of the flip mirror and threaded connector is a nice touch, allowing you to easily switch between an attached camera and eyepiece.



Overall, the fit and finish of the telescope is fine. The coatings on the objective appeared smooth and even. The primary mirror was clean and appeared well-polished. My sample did have a small blemish in the paint on one side of the tube.



You don't buy a telescope to look at though, you buy a telescope to look through. I inserted the supplied 20-mm eyepiece and pointed the scope at Jupiter. Sadly, that's where I encountered the Makview 4's most glaring faults. The very first thing I saw when I put my eye to the eyepiece was an out of center donut, indicating that the optics of the scope were misaligned. The next thing that happened is that the donut moved from one side of the field of view to the other when I turned the focus knob. I own two other cassegrain telescopes--a Meade ETX-90 and a 10-inch LX200, and neither of them exhibit nearly the amount of mirror shift when focusing that the Eclipse unit does. I suspected the flip mirror might be contributing to the non-concentric diffraction rings I was seeing, so I bypassed it by attaching a 1.25" diagonal to the rear port, but saw a very similar pattern, leading me to believe the scope truly is out of collimation.



Despite the somewhat misaligned optics, the planetary views were pleasing. Using a 13-mm Nagler Type 6 eyepiece, Jupiter's equatorial belts and temperate zones were visible, along with a darkening at the poles. The Great Red Spot could be made out, but it didn't exhibit much redness. I wasn't able to make out Red Jr., but I didn't expect to, either. Saturn was getting pretty low by mid-May, but I could still view the two equatorial bands on the planet and the Cassini Division in the rings. The three-day old moon looked very nice, with lots of detail and contrast in the Nagler and a 22-mm Lanthanum Superwide. As for deep space objects, well, it is a four-inch telescope. The globular cluster M13 was unremarkable and unresolved in the small aperture from my moderately light-polluted suburban back yard.

The unit I reviewed included two generic Plössl eyepieces, but I'm not commenting on them as they are due to be replaced by higher-quality eyepieces.

I'm disappointed overall. I really wanted to like this telescope, but the out of collimation (and not easily adjusted) optics coupled with the large amount of mirror shift made viewing more difficult than it should be. While the views were nice, I couldn't help this nagging feeling that I wasn't seeing the best that the scope had to offer. I also found the US$375 OTA-only price a bit high for the overall quality, especially considering the competition's similar scope priced only $35 more including an EQ-2 mount.

Eclipse Makview 4, www.agenaastro.com

This review is also available as a PDF file.

Jupiter From the HPO

CSC says 4/5 seeing, but no way was it that good. Jupiter was swimming in the heat. I'm pretty happy with the finished shot, though. That's Red Jr. just above and to the right of the GRS. Ganymede is on the lower left, and Io on the right.

Darth Vader's Mounting Plate

The last piece of the observatory is finally ready to go.The mounting plate is back from the machine shop, and you won't see another one like it. Now to bolt it up and watch the rain!

HPO First Light Party

Thanks to my fellow Dam Astronomers for helping me christen the Heritage Park Observatory. My back yard looked like a used telescope lot!


L to R: Andy, Daniel, Dave, Ian, Me, Barry, Kathy & Ralph. And Buddy the Astro Dog.

Observatory Update

One Setback Encountered, Another Avoided

I got the mounting plate back from the machine shop, and boy, does it look sharp. I bolted it to the top of the pier with a little effort, and immediately discovered that the holes for the wedge attachment were drilled 15° off. I double-checked my drawing, and the part was machined wrong. It's OK, it's just a matter of drilling & tapping new holes--the old ones won't hurt anything. If there's an upside, it's that I found this before the plate went out for anodizing.

While I was trying the plate out, I thought, "Man, the wedge sure looks close to the roof." So this morning I set the tripod up alongside the pier, mounted everything up, and breathed a sigh of relief. It looks like I have about 1 1/2 inches (37 mm) to spare. It is tight, though, and I'm not quite sure what I'll do if I want to piggyback anything on the tube in the future.

What would I have done if the scope didn't clear the roof? Disassemble the shed, put down concrete pavers under the floor, and rebuild on top. I'm glad I don't have to deal with the money and labor now.

How To Build An Observatory in 5 Minutes (With Music)

It's a Shed!

It's a shed!

Observatory, Day Three

Day Three: There's a Hole In My Floor

Easier than digging a hole in the ground.

Observatory, Day Two

Level & north. Suppose Meade will sue me?

I'd rather mix concrete than dig holes.

Now the worry starts--did I mix right? Is everything well-compacted? Am I going to unwrap the tube and find huge voids?

Slide show here.

Observatory, Day One

My arms are killing me.

View a slide show of the first half of the pier installation here.

Jupiter at 45° Reprocessed

I re-ran my stack and got a tighter alignment. The half-size image looks pretty good, so there's that at least.

Jupiter at 45°

I don't know what I can do get a sharper image. The scope was (should have been) well cooled-off--I ran the cooler for 45 minutes, and this was shot after being out for about three hours. Jupiter was 45° up, which is still low but not awful. Seeing was good--the difference between the good frames and bad ones was very small. I tweaked focus back & forth for about 15 minutes, and am satisfied it's the best I can do. I looked at the collimation on Io, and to me it looks spot on. If I push the wavelets any harder I get ringing around the planet.

The only thing I can figure is it's my collimation skills. I get nice round concentric rings on one side of focus, but they're all spike-y on the other. I wonder if the collimation knobs are installed correctly, or if the the secondary is somehow being "pinched."

10" LX200 Classic, 2.5x PowerMate, NexImage, 500 frames (35 seconds) in alt-az

Lunar Processing, Pt. II

I used five zones this time--the 4 corners and the center. No wavelets at all--just the same three passes of high-pass filtering and an unsharp mask. It's a little noisy still, but I'm making progress with the process.

Original:



Re-Processed:

Lunar Processing

After getting turned on to Tony Gondola's lunar processing workflow, I thought I'd give it a shot.

Here's my first attempt at a six-zone (3 col. x 2 row) stack & mosaic, followed by high-pass filter sharpening.

I enlarged my original 640x480 .mov 150% in Quicktime Pro player and aligned & stacked on six areas in Keith's Image Stacker. I did one pass of wavelets, and am afraid I used to much.

I used PS CS2 to crop the six images and automerge them back into one. I made three passes with the high pass filter at 6, 3 and 1 pixel using Tony's settings.

I reduced the image back to 640 x 480 and despeckled. Alan Friedman is safe from me for a while, but I can see great potential here.

Original version:



Reprocessed:

Baby Blues

Sunday: "You really want to be an astronomer?"
"I'll be anything that lets me stay up past my bedtime."

Monday: "Is this just homework by another name?"

Tuesday: "We're amazed, all right."

Wednesday: "Wow, look at all the streets."

Thursday: "Galileo must have been a bachelor."

Friday & Saturday

Sometimes the weather just won't cooperate. Friday night I was invited to the Audubon Society's evening event to host a little star party for their members. Alas, the clouds moved in hard, and there was even hail overnight, so there was obviously no stargazing. I did bring the iBook and a projector, so we all looked at fake computer stars instead. I had fun, and several people expressed their appreciation, so I suppose it wasn't a wasted evening after all.

Saturday night was better-I took Ian and the two Wades to the Erwin Center and watched the Austin Wranglers play Arena League Football. It's a different game than the NFL or NCAA play, but still a lot of fun. The league works hard at being fan-friendly and it showed. They host an autograph session on the field after every game, and the players & cheerleaders are very accessible. They seemed pleased to have the opportunity as well.

See my pictures from the game here.

A New Version of an Old Joke

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.
George: Great. Lay it on me.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The main man in China!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you, Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's who's name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you, or will you not, tell me the name of the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he's dead in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: Milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: And call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi.
George: All right! With cream and two sugars.

A Dam Good Friday

It didn't look like it was going to be much of a night last night. The sky was full of crud, and every time an airplane flew over, it left a contrail that just fattened up until it covered a big stretch of sky. By about 11:00 most folks at the dam were packing up to go home, but I wasn't ready to give up just yet. There was a general clearing in the west, and I suspected that the reason those contrails weren't going away was that we had a pretty steady upper atmosphere, which would mean good seeing.

I'm glad I stuck around, because by 0100 the sky was completely clear. There was no wind, the temperature was reasonable enough to not require a jacket, and the dew was just holding off, mostly.



So here's the boring side of Jupiter, with Io just peeking around the edge. Unless I modify my camera, I don't know any technique I'm not using to get the most out of my setup. Collimation? As good as I know how to make it. Focus? The WO focuser is working well, and I've been bracketing my shots to try to find the sweetest spot. Seeing? I can't control it, but last night was as good as we've seen in a long time. Jupiter's altitude above the horizon? It's just 39° up at this point, but even at transit it'll barely top 43°. It's just not going to be a great summer for shooting Jove this year.

Anyway, here's a three-frame animation shot in just six minutes. The big guy moves fast!

The Military Life

I came across this curiosity today and thought, I didn't spend but a month sleeping on a rack like that and I didn't find it very much fun at all. This is a toy?



Then I wondered if I could get a little R. Lee Ermey doll to go with it.



It turns out you can.