Nov09

ASTRONOMY

TECHNOLOGY TODAY Your Complete Guide to Astronomical Equipment

THE 100-MM GARRET OPTICAL BINOCULAR TELESCOPE SYSTEM • THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE REMOVING THE AFFECTS OF RESIDUAL BULK IMAGE (RBI) AT THE SIERRA STARS OBSERVATORY THE POD PEOPLE – MORE THAN PODS • LAPTOP DEW SHIELD/STORAGE BOX • SKYVOYAGER AND SKIFI

The Ultimate in Wide-field Observing!

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Contents Industry News

Cover Story: Pages 37 - 41 The full lineup of Ethos eyepieces is shown including the new 21mm Ethos just introduced by Tele Vue. The background astro image was taken by Jim Burnell and previously was featured in ATT in his review of the Tele Vue IS imaging line of telescopes (all subscribers have access to online back issues and can read this and any past article on the ATT website as often as they like).

This image shows NGC1499, The California Nebula in Perseus and was acquired using an SBIG STL11000M CCD camera mounted on a Tele Vue TV-102iis with a 0.8x reducer-corrector.

This image is a stack of 17 eight-minute exposures taken through a Hydrogen-alpha filter. The images were calibrated, defect-corrected and stacked using AIP4Win Version 2.

12 Editor’s Note The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same?

By Gary Parkerson

43 The Pod People, More Than Pods Piers and Adapters from SkyShed

By Dave Snay 49 The 100-mm Garret Optical Binocular Telescope System Model GT100-45 These Big Boys Will Change the Way You Think About Binoculars!

By Richard Harris

16 ATIK Announces the Opening of North American Offices 16 RIGEL SYSTEMS Offers New nFOCUS Controller for DC Focus Motors 17 TEETER’S TELESCOPES Announces Upgrades, Change in Production Runs 18 OBSERVATORIES SAVED FROM CALIFORNIA FIRES Mount Wilson Observatory and Stony Ridge Observatory Still Operational

In This Issue

37 Tele Vue Ethos The Ultimate in Wide-field Observing!

By Erik Wilcox

15 WHITE HOUSE HOSTS STAR PARTY Dean Koenig of Starizona and Caroline Moore Attend Event

19 EXPLORE SCIENTIFIC Creates Explore Alliance Online Community 19 OBSESSION TELESCOPES Introduces 22 Ultra Compact Telescope 53 The Binocular Photon Machine Military High Tech for Astronomy

By Mark Vanderaar 61 Removing the Affects of Residual Bulk Image (RBI) at the Sierra Stars Observatory The Discovery and Solution to RBI

By Rich Williams 65 SkyVoyager and SkyFi How Astronomy Came to the iPhone: a Personal Story

By Tim DeBenedictis 72 Astro Tips, Tricks, & Novel Solutions Laptop Dew Shield/Storage Box

By Wes Atchison

20 SCOPEGUARD Offers Storage Options and Transport Cases for Many New Scope Introductions 21 LCROSS A SMASHING SUCCESS Despite Lack of Fireworks 22 USA SCIENCE & ENGINEERING FESTIVAL To Host Event in National Mall in Washington, DC 23 SIERRA STARS OBSERVATORY NETWORK Promotes Asteroid Research

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

9

Contributing Writers

Contents New Products 24 GERD NEWMAN, JR. OF ASTRONOMIK Introduces Flatfield Foils Deluxe

Wes Atchison is a “Techno Geek” with astronomy and amateur radio hobbies that fill his spare time. Recently retired, he observes with a local North Texas group called the StarGazers.

25 JMI Introduces New Accessories for the Holidays

Tim DeBenedictis is currently the product architect at Carina Software. He graduated from MIT in 1993 with a degree in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary science, and has worked at a number of Silicon Valley technology firms since then. Carina has given Tim a chance to combine his work experience with a lifelong love of astronomy.

Richrd Harris is an avid astronomer and the founder of many popular Astronomy Web sites including www.scopetrader.com. He pioneered the LXD55/LXD75 HyperTune process, is an Apple iPhone Certified Developer and is a member of the Springfield Missouri Astronomical Society.

David Snay is a retired software engineer living in central Massachusetts. He graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and has been an astronomer and astrophotographer for more than 10 years. David currently pursues fine art photography, specializing in traditional black/white images.

26 STARIZONA Announces First Production Run of Hyperion 28 ORION TELESCOPES & BINOCULARS Continues to Release a Multitude of New Products

Mark Vanderaar has had a lifelong interest in astronomy. This interest was on hold for over 20 years while he became an engineer and co-founded a small satellite communications company. He leaped back into astronomy with a passion in 2008. Mark is a member of the Richland Astronomical Society

Erik Wilcox lives off the grid on the Big Island of Hawaii, and has been observing for over 20 years. When he’s not viewing from his dark backyard sky, he works for a natural foods chain, and spends his spare time hiking, kayaking, snorkeling, and performing music. He also runs the astronomy forum at: www.starstuffforums.com.

Rich Williams has a varied technical background with stints at Raytheon, Wang Laboratories, Boeing and Microsoft as well as being co-founder of Optical Mechanics, Inc. He has a lifelong passion for astronomy and his creation of the Sierra Stars Observatory Network is the culmination of his efforts to create a world class observatory that anyone can use.

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

30 KENDRICK ASTRO INSTRUMENTS Introduces Three New Products 31 ASTRONOMIK Introduces CLS-CCD Filter 32 TELE VUE OPTICS Introduces 21mm Ethos 34 MEADE INSTRUMENTS Introduces the LT6 Telescope 35 TAKAHASHI AMERICA New Takahashi TSA-120 Triplet APO Refractor

The Supporting

CAST

The Companies And Organizations That Have Made Our Magazine Possible!

We wish to thank our advertisers without whom this magazine would not be possible.

When making a decision on your next purchase, we encourage you to consider these advertisers’ commitment to you by underwriting this issue of Astronomy Technology Today.

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Finger Lakes Instrumentation www.flicamera.com page 75

Astronomik www.astronomik.com page 57

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Glatter Collimation www.collimator.com page 30

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Great Red Spot Astronomy www.greatredspot.com page 44

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Half Hitch Telescope www.halfhitchtelescope.com page 51

ATIK USA www.atik-usa.com page 77

Hands On Optics www.handsonoptics.com page 5

Bobs Knobs www.bobsknobs.com page 66

Hubble Optics www.hubbleoptics.com page 67

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Denkmeier Optical www.deepskybinoviewer.com page 21, 24

Kendrick Astro Instruments www.kendrickastro.com page 67

ScopeStuff www.scopestuff.com page 16

Woodland Hills Telescopes www.telescopes.net page 20

Lunatico Astronomia www.lunaticoastro.com page 55 Night Vision Astronomy www.nightvisionastronomy.com page 32 MoonLite Telescope Accessories www.focuser.com page 79 Oceanside Photo and Telescope www.optcorp.com page 38 Optec www.optecinc.com page 34 Optical Mechanics www.opticalmechanics.com page 30 Orion Telescopes and Bionoculars www.oriontelescopes.com page 42, 80 Optic-Craft Machining www.opticcraft.com page 59 Ostahowski Optics www.ostahowskioptics.com page 66 PlaneWave Instruments www.planewaveinstruments.com page 78 ProtoStar www.fpi-protostar.com page 18 Quantum Scientific Imaging www.qsimaging.com page 4 Rigel Systems www.rigelsys.com page 34

Skyhound www.skyhound.com page 45 SkyShed Observatories www.skyshed.com page 68 Spike-A www.spike-a.com page 64 Starizona www.starizona.com page 3 Stark Labs www.stark-labs.com page 22 Stellar Technologies International www.stellar-international.com page 70 Surplus Shed www.surplusshed.com page 70 Tele Vue Optics www.televue.com page 8, 73 Teeter’s Telescopes www.teeterstelescope.com page 41 Unihedron www.unihedron.com page 69 Van Slyke Instruments www.observatory.org page 33, 56 Vixen Optics www.vixenoptics.com page 76

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ASTRONOMY

TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Volume 3 • Issue 6 Nov. - Dec. 2009 Publisher Stuart Parkerson

Managing Editor Gary Parkerson

Editor’s

Note

Associate Editors Russ Besancon Karol Birchfield Jessica Parkerson

Art Director Lance Palmer

Staff Photographer Jim Osborne

Web Master Richard Harris

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The publication welcomes and encourages contributions; however is not responsible for the return of manuscripts and photographs. The publication, at the sole discretion of the publisher, reserves the right to accept or reject any advertising or contributions. For more information contact the publisher at Astronomy Technology Today, 3825 Gilbert Drive, Shreveport, Louisiana 71104, or e-mail at info@astronomytechnologytoday.com.

12

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Gary Parkerson, Managing Editor

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME? One of the highlights of my experiences as editor of ATT was the opportunity to first meet Al Nagler. We had just introduced our new magazine and I remember how gracious Al was in taking the time to visit with me. Here I was, the rookie editor of an unproven, startup astronomy technology magazine, chatting with Al Nagler, it doesn’t get much better than that! Another highlight was after we had published several issues and Al told us how much he enjoyed the magazine, which to me is as close to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval as you can get!

This year celebrates 30 years of Al’s pioneering optical designs. There have been a number of articles written over the years that have chronicled Al’s experiences, some of which are posted on the Tele Vue website (they are very interesting reads and can be found on the “About Tele Vue” link at www.televue.com).

As I read these articles and learned more about Al’s background prior to founding Tele Vue (while in the middle of planning out this issue of the magazine), it struck me how much technology not originally created for amateur astronomy has trickled its way into that domain.

One such article about Al was from 1999, when David Levy sat down with him for an article that appeared in Sky &

Telescope. Levy did an excellent job covering Al’s pursuits in astronomy including a look at Al’s experiences in the 1960’s and how it shaped his future efforts. He describes how Al designed the original eyepieces for the U.S. Army’s first night-vision goggles as well as his efforts helping NASA train astronauts by designing the optics for visual simulators used with the Gemini spacecraft and the Apollo Lunar Module.

I have to admit I am a fascinated by any gee whiz technology, and in the late 60’s, it didn’t get more gee whiz for me than watching those huge rockets shoot our astronauts to the moon. And it’s neat to know that Al was in the middle of these efforts.

I also find it interesting that more than 40 years ago, Al was involved in the development of the first night vision goggles and in this issue of ATT we have an article about where that technology is today with the Binocular Photon Machine (which in my opinion is a really cool name!). Utilizing the latest night vision technology used by the military, Doug Baum has taken this technology and cleverly incorporated it into the BIPH for the use of amateur astronomers.

Also consider that astronomy has not been left out in the explosion of applications for the iPhone and other such devices. It seems like it was just yes-

terday that I was using a cellular telephone in a bag and today’s cell phones seem more sophisticated than anything the Star Trek crew utilized. A perfect example is shown in this issue’s article by Tim DeBenedictis.

Not satisfied to just create the SkyVoyager app for the iPhone, Tim went a step further by creating the SkyFi which allows an iPhone to control most GoTo telescopes using the serial port on a telescope, which means that iPhones and similar devices could usher in a new era of telescope control in the field.

And in the mist of these articles on technological marvels, it is somewhat comforting to look at images of Dave Snay (page 44) on his knees digging a hole to install his SkyShed Pier. I guess it proves that no matter how much some things change, some low tech pursuits still stay the same!

And I hope that you will forgive me in advance for a little shameless promotion.

During this holiday season, why not consider purchasing a subscription for a friend?

We hope that you have enjoyed our magazine and we feel like it’s a pretty good deal for under $20 bucks and it will keep on giving all year long. In addition to receiving the gift of print issues throughout the year, they will also have access to almost 200 articles featured in our online back issues, which they can view as often as they like on our website. So if you know someone that would enjoy reading about the latest astro gear, we hope you will surprise them with a gift subscription!

Also, in the same vein, we are winding down our back issue sale of all 24 of our previous issues for $30 which includes shipping. Our inventory of some issues is getting low so we’ll need to end the sale soon.

So if you would like a complete set of issues, now is the time to get one!

Finally, we have had numerous requests to accept subscriptions through astronomy club memberships. We’d like to know just how much interest there is in doing so, and if your club would be interested, please email your club name and appropriate club contact, as well as a phone number and email address. Our email address is subscribe@astronomytechnologytoday.com

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13

The Supporting

CAST

The Companies And Organizations That Have Made Our Magazine Possible!

We wish to thank our advertisers without whom this magazine would not be possible.

When making a decision on your next purchase, we encourage you to consider these advertisers’ commitment to you by underwriting this issue of Astronomy Technology Today.

Adirondack Astronomy www.astrovid.com page 54

Equatorial Platforms www.equatorialplatforms.com page 50

Knightware www.knightware.biz page 69

Shrouds By Heather www.teeterstelescopes.com/shrouds page 31

Apogee Instruments www.ccd.com page 6

Explore Scientific www.explorescientific.com page 74

Lumicon www.lumicon.com page 17

Sirius Observatories www.siriusobservatories.com page 39

Astro Hutech www.hutech.com page 26, 48

Finger Lakes Instrumentation www.flicamera.com page 75

Astronomik www.astronomik.com page 57

Foster Systems www.fostersystems.com page 29

Astro Physics www.astro-physics.com page 13, 40

Garrett Optical www.garrettoptical.com page 23

AstroSystems www.astrosystems.biz page 58

Glatter Collimation www.collimator.com page 30

AstroTrac www.astrotrack.com page 62

Great Red Spot Astronomy www.greatredspot.com page 44

Astrozap www.astrozap.com page 59

Half Hitch Telescope www.halfhitchtelescope.com page 51

ATIK USA www.atik-usa.com page 77

Hands On Optics www.handsonoptics.com page 5

Bobs Knobs www.bobsknobs.com page 66

Hubble Optics www.hubbleoptics.com page 67

Camera Concepts www.cameraconcepts.com page 25

InnerPlanetary Products www.innerplanetaryproducts.com page 56

Catseye Collimation www.catseyecollimation.com page 64

iOptron www.ioptron.com page 7

Celestron www.celestron.com page 36

iPhonetown www.iphonetown.com page 35

Chronos www.chronosmount.com page 58

ISTAR Optical www.istar-optical.com page 28

Deep Sky Instruments www.deepskyinstruments.com page 46

Jack’s Astro Accessories www.waningmoonii.com page 22

ScopeBuggy www.scopebuggy.com page 56

William Optics www.williamoptics.com page 2

Deep Sky Printing www.deepskyprinting.com page 18

JMI Telescopes www.jmitelescopes.com page 14

ScopeGuard www.scopeguard.com page 60

Wood Wonders www.wood-wonders.com page 56

Denkmeier Optical www.deepskybinoviewer.com page 21, 24

Kendrick Astro Instruments www.kendrickastro.com page 67

ScopeStuff www.scopestuff.com page 16

Woodland Hills Telescopes www.telescopes.net page 20

Lunatico Astronomia www.lunaticoastro.com page 55 Night Vision Astronomy www.nightvisionastronomy.com page 32 MoonLite Telescope Accessories www.focuser.com page 79 Oceanside Photo and Telescope www.optcorp.com page 38 Optec www.optecinc.com page 34 Optical Mechanics www.opticalmechanics.com page 30 Orion Telescopes and Bionoculars www.oriontelescopes.com page 42, 80 Optic-Craft Machining www.opticcraft.com page 59 Ostahowski Optics www.ostahowskioptics.com page 66 PlaneWave Instruments www.planewaveinstruments.com page 78 ProtoStar www.fpi-protostar.com page 18 Quantum Scientific Imaging www.qsimaging.com page 4 Rigel Systems www.rigelsys.com page 34

Skyhound www.skyhound.com page 45 SkyShed Observatories www.skyshed.com page 68 Spike-A www.spike-a.com page 64 Starizona www.starizona.com page 3 Stark Labs www.stark-labs.com page 22 Stellar Technologies International www.stellar-international.com page 70 Surplus Shed www.surplusshed.com page 70 Tele Vue Optics www.televue.com page 8, 73 Teeter’s Telescopes www.teeterstelescope.com page 41 Unihedron www.unihedron.com page 69 Van Slyke Instruments www.observatory.org page 33, 56 Vixen Optics www.vixenoptics.com page 76

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INDUSTRYNEWS

WHITE HOUSE HOSTS STAR PARTY Dean Koenig of Starizona and Caroline Moore Attend Event A group of professional and amateur astronomers set up more than 20 telescopes on the White House lawn during the presidential star party to mark the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009). President Obama, his family and a group of local middle-school students were present at the event.

Dean Koenig of Starizona was there sporting two HyperStar equipped Celestron scopes (shown in Image 1).

When we asked him about the event his response aptly summed it up, “It was a

Image 1

Image 2

once in a lifetime experience!”

Fortunately Caroline Moore, who gained notoriety earlier this year as the youngest person to discover a supernova at the tender age of 14, was a little more verbose. She was kind enough to send us her thoughts on the experience, which we are pleased to share with you here.

“The White House Night of Astronomy was great. It was a wonderful experience for me and every one there. My primary role was to host the event with the President and another young astronomer, Lucas Bolyard. Lucas and I started our evening off with interviews and some photo ops (Image 2).

On the south lawn right behind us there was a whole slew of telescopes ranging from a Galileo Scope to a 24-inch Newtonian set up for the 150 local middle school students that would be joining us. Most of these telescopes were set up by NASA and the Navel Observatory. There was a tent where NASA had

some hands on activities for the kids and two Geodomes. Lucas and I, along with our families, went into the White House to meet with the President and to take pictures as we waited for the arrival of the students. I walked outside to the south lawn, following the president and the first lady for his opening address and then the first official viewing of the evening by the president.

When he looked in that telescope, the people got so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. After the rest of the family joined us (Sasha, Malia, and grandma) Lucas and I dispersed with the president into the crowd to see some of what NASA had set up and to get a look at the telescopes. Our main role was to serve as a role model for the kids and show them that greatness can be achieved at any age.

So we talked to the students and encouraged them with their interests in science and showed them how much fun astronomy can be.

The kids also had the opportunity to meet some of science’s legends such as Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, and John Grunsfeld. The President and the first family actively participated in the event concluding the night with the whole family climbing a ladder to reach the 24-inch Newtonian. Derrick Pits, head astronomer of the Franklin Institute, was there as well as Dean from Starizona. I also had the pleasure of meeting John Holdren, the President’s science advisor and also Charles Bolden, the director of NASA. This was a great event with a great agenda especially with it being the IYA. I suggested to Mr. Holdren that it would be a great event to continue in the future, and just because IYA is coming to an end there is no reason not to continue to encourage kids to study and reach for the stars.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

15

INDUSTRYNEWS

ATIK Announces the Opening of North American Offices imaging products from entry level 1/3-inch CCDs, all the way up to 11-megapixel, large format 35-mm cameras. All of their products are specifically designed to deliver superior performance for the specialized and demanding field of astro imaging.

Warren Keller, who is well known in the astro imaging community, is heading up the new office and has established a dedicated website for the North American market. For more information please visit www.atik-usa.com.

ATIK, a leading European manufacturer of cooled CCD cameras for astronomy, has announced that it has opened a new office in Frederick, Maryland, to support its efforts in expanding its offerings to the North American market.

The company officially made the announcement of the opening of its North American office at the 2009 Advanced Imaging Conference in California.

ATIK offers a full range of astro

RIGEL SYSTEMS Offers New nFOCUS Controller for DC Focus Motors Rigel Systems has introduced new nFOCUS focus motor controllers for Stellarvue, Televue and GSO focusers.

The nFOCUS controller fits in the palm of your hand and provides two directions at two speeds with only two buttons using advanced logic control and voltage regulated output. nFOCUS offers an affordable way to get high precision fine focusing without vibration for visual and astro-imaging and is easily switchable from motorized to manual focusing.

Low speed is by adjustable Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) drive, providing full voltage torque for reliable low speed operation. The length of the pulse of current to

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

the motor can be adjusted shorter or longer, to produce from 1° to 3° rotation of the focuser knob per step. nFOCUS also allows for the selection of the length of the pauses between pulses. With nFOCUS the focuser steps then pauses allowing the user to check the discrete changes in the focus before nFOCUS steps to the next focus position.

Simply, press the second button down while holding the first button down and the nFOCUS digital logic control switches to high speed drive, to get to focus quickly.

The wide ranges of variability with the nFOCUS make it a snap to reach perfect

focus. nFOCUS avoids the problems with some focus motor controllers which adjust voltage to adjust speed, and thereby don't have the power needed to turn the motor over at low speed. The nFOCUS pushes the motor with a full 12 volt, short duration pulse to overcome stiction at low speed operation, providing plenty of power.

The nFOCUS works to change focus step by step till it's just right, eliminating coasting past then back past then past again.

It uses 3 AA batteries (supplied) for long life.

For more information about the nFOCUS please visit www.rigelsys.com.

INDUSTRYNEWS

TEETER’S TELESCOPES Announces Upgrades, Change in Production Runs Prior to advent of the Ultra-LimitedEdition (ULE) Truss Dobsonians from Teeter’s Telescopes, orders had been accepted throughout the year, however, due to recent changes in scheduling, all orders are now filled in four quarterly “production runs.” This new process helps to facilitate the faster turnaround time of the ULE scopes. The current production run is full and then next production run will begin in mid January. A limited number of orders are now being accepted on a first come, first served basis.

The production run can accommodate most apertures between 10-inch and 20-inch, and focal ratios between f/3.5-f/7, with primary mirrors from a multitude of manufacturers.

Teeter’s will also build a scope for owners that have their own primary. Teeter’s has also announced that it is now offering primary mirrors from Zambuto Optical Company (ZOC) as an option. ZOC’s reputation in the astrono-

my industry is legendary and their work is regarded as among the best available. Offered will be ZOC Pyrex primary mirrors in 10-inch f/6, 12.5-inch f/5, 15-inch f/4.5, 16-inch f/4.5, 18-inch f/4.5, 20-inch f/4.5, and 22-inch f/4.1.

Teeter’s has also announced that it is now offering the new DigiFire-7 digital dew controller unit from Kendrick Astro Instruments.

The DigiFire-7 offers six outputs, four of which are variable and two of which are constant voltage. This allows the user to power the exclusive Teeter’s Telescopes Dual Boundary Layer Cooling Fans and another 12-volt instrument such as digital setting circles through the constant outputs. The four variable outputs can then be used for heaters on the secondary mirror, optical finderscope, reflex finder, eyepieces and other items.

Please visit Teeter’s Telescopes at www.teeterstelescopes.com for additional information.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

17

INDUSTRYNEWS

OBSERVATORIES SAVED FROM CALIFORNIA FIRES Mount Wilson Observatory and Stony Ridge Observatory Still Operational

Leadership of the Mount Wilson Observatory and Stony Ridge Observatory were relieved to report that both observatories survived the Station Fire, the largest fire in the recorded history of the Angeles National Forest and the 10th largest fire in California since 1933.

Ultimately the fire, which started in late August, destroyed 89 homes, burned 250 square miles of national forest and killed two firefighters when their truck plunged off a road.

The fire ended up costing more than $95 million and was not declared officially contained until Friday, October 16, 52 days after it began.

The fire began to threaten the observatories soon after it began, and firefighters used every tool in their arsenal, including setting back fires, digging fire lines, clearing brush, and dropping water and retardant by aircraft, to

18

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

protect the area surrounding the observatories, which are now back in operation.

The Stony Ridge Observatory, five miles from the Wilson Observatory, was established in 1957 by a group of Southern California amateur astronomers. It features a 76cm (30-inch) f/6 Newtonian-Cassegrain Reflector, which at the time was one of the largest amateur telescopes in the world. Over the years the instruments and facilities at the observatory have been upgraded with the addition of new technology including the latest computer equipment and CCD and video imaging equipment.

The two images shown here of the Stony Ridge Observatory provide a “before” photo taken on June 20, 2009, with the tops of the dome and administration building just barely visible through the bushes, in roughly the same place they are in the “after” photo which was

taken September 16, 2009.

The renowned Mount Wilson Observatory, which was created in 1904

by George Ellery Hale, would quickly rise to dominate astronomy worldwide and was successively home to the world’s two largest telescopes as well as the most powerful facilities in existence for studying the sun.

Its Director, Hal McAlister, established a fire blog on August 29 that is still being updated. The blog provides a fascinating behind the scenes look at the challenges faced by McAlister, his staff, and their interaction with the fire fighters and others who helped keep the observatory safe. The blog is available at www.mtwilson.edu/fire.php.

Each facility did sustain some damage and incurred significant costs associated from the fires. Donations to help recover the costs incurred by the fire can be made by accessing each observatory’s website. The Stony Ridge Observatory website is www.stony-ridge.org and the Mount Wilson website is www.mtwilson.edu.

INDUSTRYNEWS

EXPLORE SCIENTIFIC Creates Explore Alliance Online Community The new Explore Alliance was created by Scott Roberts of Explore Scientific to provide an online community for those who support or work within the astronomy and space exploration public outreach community. Its goal is to improve science literacy and encourage youth to consider STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) career paths with the belief that astronomy and space exploration are gateways to

inspire people to learn more about science in general.

The Explore Alliance is a managed community for education and public outreach (EPO) professionals, amateur astronomers engaged in public outreach, museums, observatories, planetariums, interpretation centers, schools and universities with astronomy and/or space exploration programs, and concerned individuals who support a

greater understanding of astronomy and science.

Membership is free and members can submit articles with photos, video clips, and event notices. The site features an events calendar, Explore Radio, and regular blogs by David Levy and others involved in astronomy outreach.

For more information or to join the Explore Alliance please visit www.explorealliance.com.

and lower baffles, and wheelbarrow transport handles.

The design is identical to the previous Obsession Ultra Compacts but with eight truss poles instead of six. Like its predecessors, the 22 UC use a “reverse” counterweight method. The scope is intentionally built slightly bottom heavy so that heavy items can be added to the upper tube assembly. Heavy eyepieces with a Paracorr, a video camera, or the Argo Navis DSC computer are more efficiently balanced using this method.

The 22UC utilizes a “virtual mirror box.” Essentially, there is no mirror box as such. The frame that supports the mir-

ror consists of a unique and surprisingly rigid assembly of folding side bearings and a standard Obsession open tailgate mirror mount that is reversed from its normal orientation to better accommodate the folding application. The virtual mirror box, when turned 90 degrees, nestles in the rocker box yielding an amazing small disassembled package. This decreases the transport height to an amazing 16 inches, allowing the 22UC to fit in nearly all vehicles in the hatch area or trunk.

For more information visit the Obsession Telescopes website at www.obsessiontelescopes.com

OBSESSION TELESCOPES Introduces 22 Ultra Compact Telescope

The 22UC is the latest addition to Obsession’s popular Ultra Compact telescopes. Like the 15-inch and 18-inch Ultra Compacts, the new 22-inch UC has an f/4.2 focal ratio. Cost is $9,995 and standard equipment includes 22inch premium optics from Galaxy or OMI, interferometry for both primary and secondary mirrors, 96% ion deposition enhanced coatings, Feathertouch focuser, Telrad, counterweights, upper

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

19

INDUSTRYNEWS

SCOPEGUARD Offers Storage Options and Transport Cases for Many New Scope Introductions It is rare that we attend a star party and don’t see one of the beautifully designed and manufactured telescope cases from ScopeGuard. We were recently speaking with Don Holcombe, owner of ScopeGuard, who reminded us that he offers a storage HOLIDAY SALE – HUGE REBATES, DISCOUNTS AND MORE! at www.TelescopeS.Net! Too Many Deals to List Here!

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

solution for virtually all new telescope introductions.

“We receive numerous requests for cases from individuals who have purchased one of the new telescopes that have been recently introduced,” said Don. “They are relieved to know that we can build a case for practically any telescope, and since all of our cases are custom built to the standard dimensions of their particular telescope, we can accommodate every astronomers’ needs.”

All ScopeGuard cases include a secure, high density open cell foam interior with a minimum thickness of one inch, double wall extruded aluminum with tongue and groove valences, and numerous other protective features, all engineered to provide the safest transport/ storage alternative available. Scope owners can choose from a large number of custom options including tie-down shackles, stackable corners, removable casters, dishes/plate to attach shipping labels, vented dishes and grills, and much more.

To learn more about case options for your individual telescope, please visit www.scopeguard.com.

INDUSTRYNEWS

LCROSS A SMASHING SUCCESS Despite Lack of Fireworks On the morning of Friday, October 9, people across the globe waited to see NASA blow up the moon. Well not really blow up the moon, but at least create some pretty good fireworks as they steered the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into the moon’s Cabeus crater.

Unfortunately, the fireworks never really materialized. The morning news networks quickly shifted to other news items and the impact quickly became a non-news item and viewers, after not seeing anything blow up, moved on as well.

What was the general public expecting?

Probably what they have seen over and over again from the special effects crowd in Hollywood which has jaded many in their expectations of astronomical phenomena. Millions have seen Bruce Willis help NASA blow up an asteroid, and so when they hear that NASA is going to fire a rocket into the moon, they expect to see fireworks!

The many astro-observers who were in the right geographical area to set up their equipment and watch the impact were disappointed as well, although they probably had much more realistic expectations when it comes to observing astronomical events. As Jack Huercamp, of Jack’s Astro Accessories who markets the Mallincam CCD Video System, reported, “The LCROSS impact on Friday proved to be a non-event for the MallinCamers who tried to observe anything.”

As uninspiring as the actual impact was, according to NASA, it was a “smashing success returning tantalizing data about the Centaur impact before the spacecraft itself impacted the surface of the moon.”

As NASA reported, the nine LCROSS instruments successfully captured each phase of the impact sequence: the impact flash, the ejecta plume, and the creation of the Centaur crater.

And the lack of visual fireworks may have provided a clue as well, as Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project

scientist, commented.

“There is a clear indication of a plume of vapor and fine debris,” said Colaprete.

“Within the range of model predictions we made, the ejecta brightness appears to be at the low end of our predictions and this may be a clue to the properties of the material the Centaur impacted.”

Fortunately the naked eye was not the scientific tool of choice by NASA as they used a variety of scientific instruments to collect data. The NASA image shown is the result of three co-added, stretched LCROSS Visible Light Camera images taken shortly after

impact (with 15 seconds following impact).

The extent of the plume at 15 sec is approximately 6-8 km in diameter.

NASA will continue to analyze the data collected from the impact and while the announcement of further findings probably won’t make the morning news, it should help further our knowledge of our closest astronomical neighbor.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

21

INDUSTRYNEWS

USA SCIENCE & ENGINEERING FESTIVAL To Host Event in National Mall in Washington, DC The inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival, a celebration of science and technology, will be held in Washington, DC, next fall. It will culminate with an expo on the National Mall that will give more than 500 science and engineering organizations from all over the U.S. the opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

The organizers of the USA Science & Engineering Festival created the San Diego Science Festival, which drew more than 200,000 people in March 2009. They are inviting all professional and amateur astronomy associations to participate in next fall's national festival and expo.

Participating organizations are asked to create engaging, hands-on activities to be presented in a 10-by-10-foot tent (or

multiples thereof ) during the expo. The goal of the festival is to have 1 million people celebrating science and technology on the Mall.

The USA Science & Engineering Festival is modeled after similar events held in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, and Australia. These are typically 1- to 2-week festivals; they draw between 100,000 and 1 million people and celebrate all aspects of science through lectures, activities, exhibits, contests, and more.

Anyone interested in becoming involved with the event are encouraged to contact Larry Bock at biobock@mac.com or 760-846-3473.

More details such as the specific date and times for the festival will be available soon at http://usascience festival.org.

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

INDUSTRYNEWS

SIERRA STARS OBSERVATORY NETWORK Promotes Asteroid Research The Sierra Stars Observatory Network (SSON) is an automated astronomy education and research facility consisting of professional telescopes remotely accessible via the Internet. SSON currently has two observatories in its network; A 0.61-meter f/10 OMI Classical Cassegrain research-grade telescope and high-precision CCD imaging instruments enclosed in a observatory located at a dark sky site on the east side of the Sierra Mountains in Alpine County California, and the University of Iowa’s OMI 37cm f/14 Rigel Telescope located at the Winer Observatory in Sonoita, Arizona.

The network is operated by Rich and Kathleen Williams. They recently announced that Roger Dymock, Web Site Manager of the Asteroids and Remote Planets Section of the British Astronomical Association (BAA), has published a paper on light curve work on Asteroid (01909) Alehkin from observations using the Sierra Stars Observatory.

Roger’s paper is included in the latest Minor Planet Bulletin (P182) at http://www.minorplanetobserver.com/m pb/MPB36-4.pdf.

Roger is currently scheduling observations to gather more photometry light curve data on two more asteroids.

“Obviously he is very enthusiastic about doing work on asteroids and told me he hoped his example will inspire other SSON users to do some serious scientific work and write up their results,” said Rich. “Having your results published in a professional peer-reviewed science journal is rewarding and contributes valuable scientific data to the astronomical community.”

“Several other SSON users continue to do great asteroid discovery and followup work,” he continued. “The results are quite impressive. Since January 2008 SSON users have generated 140 asteroid discovery designations with the Minor

Planet Center (MPC) for SSO (MPC observatory code – G68).”

Fabrizio Tozzi, a regular SSON user and a SSON grant recipient, submitted a proposal to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) to name an asteroid he discovered in recognition of SSON’s support of astroid research. His provisional designation of the asteroid was 2008 SW2, which was subsequently assigned an official MPC number of 202806.

After its being officially numbered, Fabrizio applied to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to have the asteroid named Sierrastars after the Sierra Stars Observatory.

The Sierra Stars Observatory Network has also announced its collaboration with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) which is an astronomy educational outreach program for high schools and colleges around the world. The primary mission of the project to date is to have students analyze and interpret image data from a 32-inch (0.81-meter) telescope at the Astronomical Research Observatory (ARO) located in Charleston, Illinois. ARO’s mission is to do follow-up work on Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and has had the highest number of such observations (11,593) of any observatory since 2008.

The IASC students work with the

ARO image data and look for incidental (non-NEO) asteroids that might be in the images to discover new asteroids. The problem they have realized is that the Minor Planet Center (MPC) requires a minimum of two astrometric position measurements on each of two or more nights. Single night observations may be submitted to the MPC, but in these cases the submitters do not get credit for any new asteroid designations/discoveries.

Because the ARO’s job is to do follow-up observations of NEOs, they seldom cover the fields where any incidentally discovered non-NEO asteroid are located on succeeding nights. Therefore, IASC will now do follow up work using SSON telescopes to take images of asteroid discovery candidates detected from ARO data.

IASC will also start using SSON as a primary asteroid discovery tool and do subsequent follow up work using the SSON telescopes. To read more about the IASC project go to their web site: http://iasc.hsutx.edu/index.htm.

The Sierra Stars Observatory Network is available to any professional or amateur observer who is interested in accessing its facilities. The December 2007 issue of ATT features an article by Dave Snay on imaging with SSON and is available online for ATT subscribers.

For more information go to www.sierrastars.com.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

23

The Supporting

CAST

The Companies And Organizations That Have Made Our Magazine Possible!

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NEWPRODUCTS

GERD NEWMAN, JR. OF ASTRONOMIK Introduces Flatfield Foils Deluxe Gerd Newman, Jr. of Astronomik has announced the introduction of a Deluxe version of his EF Flatfield Foils which offer a comfortable and reliable way to capture flatfield data with an imaging system. The flat foils eliminate the need for bulky flatfield boxes or getting the correct timeslot for skyflats. Simply place the EF Foil Deluxe in front of the instrument, switch the inverter on and start getting flatfield data.

The benefits of the original EF foils include a perfectly even illuminated surface, broad - continuous spectrum that may be used with emission line filters, are lightweight and easy to handle, are powered by an available 12V and 110/240V inverter, and are perfect for stationary and mobile use.

The original foils can easily be cut to any size

and the new deluxe version comes in a set frame size that you choose when ordering.

The new deluxe frame is made of unbreakable polymer with a special protection around the edge. The opaque frame in the deluxe version gives an even more uniform brightness than the foil alone.

Additionally, the foils are very well protected against humidity, moisture, dirt and scratches during transport.

Says Gerd, “The light from the foil looks blueish/white. Many foils from other sources seem to be white to the human eye, but the light is made of discrete emission lines which mean that they are not suitable for narrowband emission line filters. I tested several products worldwide and selected these foils because in my opinion they are

best for astronomical applications. The spectrum of our EF Flatfield Foils is not made of some emission lines like most foils do. Ours has a very broad, continuous

emission across the whole spectrum. This fact makes the foils great for narrowband emission line filters.�

The EF foil looks like a laminated piece of thick paper, with a cable on one side. They are very lightweight but very sturdy and can be used directly at the scope.

The easiest way is to point the instrument to the zenith and put the EF foil on top of the instrument. For scopes with fast optics additional pieces of paper can be used to dull-down the brightness if needed.

The EF foils are available in sizes from A7 (74mm) up to A1 (594mm) and the EF foils are shipped in a rectangular size. The original foil may be square cut to square size with normal scissors then protecting the new edge with a piece of tape to ensure that no moisture enters the foil layers. It is not possible to cut the foil round, as the electrode on the upper side of the foil may not be cut.

For more information please visit www.gerdneumann.net.

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

NEWPRODUCTS

JMI Introduces New Accessories for the Holidays It is sometimes hard to keep up with all of the innovations that owner Jim Burr and the staff at JMI crank out on a regular basis. It seems that any time a new mount, scope or some other innovation is introduced, JMI has an accessory ready to deliver to aid its performance.

Recently, they have introduced a new Trainn-Track (TNT) system for the Vixen Porta Mount. The TNT was developed by JMI in 2008 and used very successfully on the Meade Lightbridge and the Sky-Watcher Collapsible Truss-Tube 12-inch Dobsonian. The TNT is a sophisticated, but simple-to-operate altitudeazimuth motor drive system with adjustable or “trainable” tracking. A simple 30-second training procedure allows the scope to track the target object for ten minutes or more without further input, thus freeing the user to enjoy uninterrupted views without the disruption of having to constantly bump the scope to keep the target centered in the eyepiece’s field-of-view sweet spot.

The TNT motor drives provide for adjustment of the speeds of both axes, highspeed centering, and one-touch repositioning of the altitude tangent arm.

The azimuth friction drive also allows the user to slew the scope by hand without unlocking any clutches – slew the scope and then just let go; the drive automatically takes over.

With a little practice, objects can be kept in the eyepiece for 10 minutes or more, even at high magnification. The TNT unit includes a rechargeable battery with an AC adapter/charger. Installation is simple – you’ll be set up and tracking in very short order! Price including shipping is $389 US. They have also introduced the EverReady red dot finder to solve the problem of what Jim Burr calls a “neverready red dot finder” because

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the switch was left on. The JMI EverReady solves this problem in this way: press the button and the red dot is activated for 20 seconds and then is turned off till you press the button again.

JMI has also introduced a luggage-style retractable handle bar to increase maneuverability in their carrying case models.

The telescoping handle slides in to reduce the space necessary for storage and transportation. The upgrade can be included at the time a case is purchase. It is also available from JMI for retrofitting cases offering easy installation which requires drilling four holes in the case with a 3/16-inch bit. A template is provided for lining up the holes in the case. A hex wrench is provided and a 5/16-inch wrench is also required.

For more information please visit www.jmitelescopes.com.

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25

NEWPRODUCTS

STARIZONA Announces First Production Run of Hyperion A full service astro gear retailer, Starizona is also renowned for astronomical innovation in manufacturing both

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

optical and mechanical accessories for telescopes including their innovative wireless temperature-compensating autofocuser. Their popular HyperStar system has revolutionized deep-sky imaging by making it fast and easy to capture incredible images of the night sky with CCD or digital SLR cameras. Building on their expertise in optical and mechanical design, and following their passion as astroimagers, the staff at Starizona has taken the next step by developing the ultimate telescope for high-resolution deep-sky imaging.

Dean Koenig of Starizona has announced that they have begun the assembly of the first production Hyperion 12.5-inch f/8 telescopes, a state-of-the-art astrographic telescope. Standard features include an instrument rotator, temperature-compensating autofocuser, integrated

telescope control panel, cooling fans, dew heaters, and wireless control of all electronic features. Optically, the Hyperion offers a 70mm flat aberration-free field of view, giving pinpoint stars across the full field of any CCD. Starizona first announced the development of the Hyperion in the spring of 2008, and this September at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show in Pasadena, Dean unveiled the final production version of the telescope. Shown is the Hyperion 12.5 mounted on AP1200GTO. Also shown is an image

by Mel Martin of Tucson taken with a self-guided SBIG STL-11000M CCD camera.

Says Dean, “Telescopes can suffer from a variety of aberrations which are inherent in different optical designs.

There are six primary aberrations to worry

NEWPRODUCTS about: spherical aberration, distortion, coma, astigmatism, field curvature and chromatic aberration. All telescopes are corrected for spherical aberration, and distortion is not a problem over the relatively narrow fields produced by telescopes.

Coma causes stars to take on an asymmetric comet-like shape off axis. Coma is inherent in Newtonians, classical Cassegrains, and most SchmidtCassegrain telescopes. By using an aspheric mirror, some SCTs eliminate coma. The Ritchey-Chrétien design uses two hyperbolic mirrors to eliminate coma. But such designs can still suffer from astigmatism and field curvature, causing enlarged star images over a large field.”

He continued, “The Hyperion telescope does not suffer from coma, astigmatism or field curvature. By using an afocal (zero-power) corrector lens system, it can correct for all these aberrations without inducing chromatic (color) aberration.

We believe it truly delivers the best image quality over the largest possible field of view.”

The Hyperion telescope includes a Starlight Instruments 3.5-inch Feathertouch Focuser and Starizona’s MicroTouch autofocuser. Recommended optional accessories include Losmandy

adjustable 6-point mounting rings for finderscope/guidescope, Astrodon MonsterMOAG off-axis guider, Howie Glatter laser collimator, 9x50 finderscope and quick-release bracket, and Telrad finderscope.

Standard features include a highprecision instrument rotator, integrated telescope control panel, and wireless computer control. The instrument rotator is integrated into the back of the telescope and uses a custom 6-inch brass worm gear and unique stainless-steel bearing system, allowing for a precise and robust design.

The telescope control panel, built into the back plate of the telescope, features a digital readout display and controls the instrument rotator, cooling fans, dew heaters, and two MicroTouch autofocusers (one for the Hyperion and one for an optional piggyback instrument).

All telescope electronic functions are controlled from a computer via a tiny wireless USB box, eliminating the tangle of cables normally associated with running imaging accessories. All features are ASCOM compatible, allowing for automation with popular imaging control software.

For more information please visit www.starizona.com.

FEATURES • Flat-field, Harmer-Wynne optical design • 70mm (1.6°) diffraction-limited image circle • RMS spot diameter less than 9 microns over 84mm (1.9°) field • No chromatic aberration over 350nm-1100nm range • Low thermal expansion carbonfiber optical tube • Starlight Instruments 3.5" Feathertouch Focuser • MicroTouch temperaturecompensating autofocuser • High-precision instrument rotator • Integrated telescope control panel with automatic and manual control of telescope electronics • Digital readout display • Wireless computer interface • ASCOM compliant electronic features • CNC machined 6061 aluminum construction • Two Losmandy-style dovetail plates • Two rear cell cooling fans for rapid thermal stabilization • Made in USA SPECIFICATIONS • • • • •

Aperture: 12.5" (320mm) Focal Ratio: f/8 Focal Length: 2540mm Secondary Mirror Diameter: 5.5" Overall Length: 39 inches (45 inches with focuser) • Overall Diameter: 15.5 inches • Total Weight: 60 lbs.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

27

NEWPRODUCTS

ORION TELESCOPES & BINOCULARS Continues to Release a Multitude of New Products Orion Telescopes & Binoculars is well known for offering a wide range of products and continue to do so with these new products.

The new Orion Nautilus Motorized 4 x 2-inch and 7 x 1.25-inch Filter Wheels allow users of monochrome imaging cameras to automatically change filters using their imaging software for advanced tri-color imaging techniques.

These filter wheels eliminate the arduous manual adjustment needed to take exposures through different filters allowing

imagers to increase the productivity of each imaging session. Remote motorized filter selection is controlled through a PC operating through a direct USB connection and the filters are Windows Vista 64 Bit, Windows 7, and ASCOM compati-

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

ble. The 1.25-inch model allows up to 7 filters to be installed and the 2-inch model allows up to 4 filters to be installed. Filters are easily attached by removing the Nautilus cover plate attachment screws (hex key included).

Pricing is $429.95US. The Orion Wide Dovetail Saddle for the Orion Atlas EQ-G Mount increases the versatility of owners of Atlas EQ-G mounts. The saddle allows attachment of “wide” dovetail mounting bar-equipped OTAs and tube ring systems and makes the Atlas EQ-G an affordable option for mounting heavy non-Orion telescopes.

Atlas mounts manufactured in 2009 and beyond require the #7951 saddle and Atlas mounts made prior to 2009 accept the #7950 saddle. Pricing is $24.95US.

The Orion Padded Telescope Case for the Starblast 6 & 6i are custom-designed carrying cases for the popular StarBlast 6 and new StarBlast 6i IntellisScope reflectors. An ideal way to transport a StarBlast 6 or 6i safely and easily, the cases feature a handle that has been precisely positioned at balance point for easy balanced

transport of the telescope, external zippered pouch which holds all accessories securely, and is double-stitched for extra strength. Pricing is $69.95US. The Orion Zooom! 7.2mm-21.5mm eyepiece is an affordable zoom eyepiece that provides a variety of focal lengths without having to switch to many different eyepieces. It was designed to fill the role of several fixed-power eyepieces by allowing the opportunity to change magnification with a simple twist of the focal length dial – saving time during observing and saving space in accessory cases.

The eyepiece design consists of 7 lens elements in 4 groups and all air-toglass surfaces are fully multi-coated with anti-reflection coatings for maximum light throughput to provide crisp, clear images high in contrast. The twist-up

NEWPRODUCTS eyeguard with three detent positions offers a customizable fit. The Zooom offers a comfortable 15-mm eye relief and a 40-degree field of view at 21.5-mm

setting and large 60-degree field of view at 7.2-mm setting allowing owners to get the most out of their views. Pricing is $159.95US. Following on the heels of its popular SkyQuest XX12i comes the next member in Orion’s new line of truss tube Dobsonian telescopes – the SkyQuest XX14i IntelliScope Truss Tube Dobsonian. Featuring 14-inch diffraction-limited optics and a design engineered by Orion that is optimized from top to bottom for portability, the XX14i delivers the one of the highest levels of performance and transportability of any telescope in its class.

The 14-inch (356-mm) parabolic primary mirror, made from low-thermalexpansion glass, features enhanced reflectivity (94%) aluminum coatings to deliver more light to the eye. The XX14i pulls in 36% more light than 12-inch and 96% more than 10-inch optics, allowing views of significantly fainter objects and more subtle details.

The Computerized Object Locator’s

database of 14,000+ celestial objects and the XX14i’s dual-speed (11:1) 2-inch Crayford focuser allows access to objects into crisp, clear focus using either of the included eyepieces: a low-power 35-mm 2-inch DeepView or high-power 10-mm 1.25-inch Sirius Plossl.

The XX14i adds a convenient new twist to truss tube Dob portability by allowing easy disassembly of both the optical tube and the base into smaller, easily manageable pieces. The optical tube itself features an 8-pole truss design (four captive pairs) that provides enhanced structural rigidity when com-

pared to similar 6-pole truss or 3-pole “parallel strut” designs. Large hand knobs and captive bolts make for userfriendly assembly and disassembly of the tube sections. To minimize the size of the

bottom section of the XX14i’s optical tube, it has been engineered with three removable, recessed counterweights that provide the optimum balance for the tube on its 8-inch diameter altitude hubs.

The Orion-designed collapsible base, made of 1-inch thick laminated wood panels for rock-solid stability, adds to the portability of the XX14i. The base quickly breaks down into four pieces without tools, to easily fit into standard-sized automobiles. All hardware is captive to prevent accidental loss. Pricing is $1,799.95US. For more information on these and other Orion Telescopes & Binoculars products please visit www.oriontelescopes.com.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

29

NEWPRODUCTS

KENDRICK ASTRO INSTRUMENTS Introduces Three New Products Well known for it extensive line of dew removal products and other accessories, Kendrick has introduced three new products to help astronomers in the field.

The newest addition to Kendrick’s dew removal system, the Standard Dual Channel controller, has been introduced to replace their original, long standing Model VI controller. The new controller has many new features but is still very simple to use.

In addition, it can handle more power and use that power more efficiently. The versatility of the controller makes it an even more effective device for dew control.

It features a rugged plastic case with modern styling, zero to 100% power settings, and on board protection from over current, over temperature, and over voltage. Fused onboard, it offers auto reset which is a feature exclusive to Kendrick’s controller as well as its exclusive on/off switch. It is lightweight and the dimensions are 4-inch x 3-inch x 1.35-inch (1.75-inch with knobs). It comes with a one year warranty.

It features ten amp capacity (five amps per channel), LED over current indication and LED Power on indicator at both outputs, a six-foot detachable fused power cord which is fused at seven amps, and is reverse polarity protected. It also offers four outputs, two for each control knob, Pulse Width Modulation duty cycle control, low voltage cut-off control with LED indication, and 12 Volt/DC operation.

Mosfet transistors are built on board

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

and on each output which means no voltage drops allowing for the best possible performance out of heaters. It is RFI (radio frequency interference) free which is a critical feature for astro imagers.

Kendrick has also been making their popular Observer Tents for many years and with input from its customers, has introduced its best tent yet.

The new Stargate Observer Tent is a true expedition quality tent that is head and shoulders above all previous versions of their tents. Kendrick contracts with a company who manufactures tents for some of the best known names in the high end tent business. The company has an excellent reputation for making very high end, quality survival tents and they build the Stargate Tent to the same high standards.

The spacious tent weighs 40 lbs and its dimensions are 15' x 9'/10.4' x 5.7'/6.6'/6.5' (L x W x H = inner tent). The observing slot size is 6'2" wide x 6'6" long.

Kendrick also offers a heater for virtually any optic used in amateur astronomy and outdoor photography. The new press fit Kendrick Red Dot Finder Heater has proven to be very effective at dew removal and dew prevention.

Typically a low to medium controller setting will be fine to keep the finder free of moisture. The heater draws very little current and at a typical 40% and will draw only .08 amp (less than a 10th of an amp).

For information on these and other unique Kendrick products visit www.kendrickastro.com.

NEWPRODUCTS

ASTRONOMIK Introduces CLS-CCD Filter The Astronomik CLS-CCD is a new version of their well known CLS Filter. The optimized transmission curve blocks all unwanted artificial light pollution while still protecting the integrity of the colors of all objects. Because of the integrated IR-blocker, it is also good for cooled CCD cameras.

The CLS CCD is suitable under lightpolluted skies for DSLR cameras, which have been optimized for astronomical use. The filter enhances the contrast between all deep-sky objects and the background.

The CLS-CCD Filter enhances the contrast between astronomical objects and the background. Due to the wider transmission curve compared to UHC filters, a greater amount of light will pass the filter and stars will be less dimmed. The filter has been optimized to block as much spurious light as pos-

sible and simultaneously provide the best performance for “useful” light. It is a suitable filter for DSLR, CCD and film b/w photography as well as observation of deep-sky-objects with telescopes or photo lenses of all aperture f/3 and above.

The filter blocks completely emission lines of artificial light sources like streetlights (e.g. sodium- and mercury-vapor) as well as the airglow. All “important” emission lines as well as the spectral range of the nightadapted eye are passed. The supplementary IR-blocking layer allows the use for DSLR and Webcams without an integrated IR-block filter. Other uses include easier resolution of double stars and when creating color images from emission line data, the CLSCCD filter is a great choice for the lumi-

Suitability of Usage • Visual observation (dark skies): Good, to reduce light pollution by mercury-vapor lamps (streetlight) • Visual observation (urban skies): Reasonable, an UHC-E or UHC filter is more suitable • Film photography: Very good, color balance is near perfect • CCD photography: Very good, optimized rejection of light pollution • DSLR photography (non modified): Very good, color balance shifted but contrast enhanced • DSLR photography (astro modified): Very good, color balance is near perfect • DSLR photography (MC modified): Very good, color balance is near perfect

nance channel.

The filter is available in many sizes and filters with custom diameters available upon request. For more information visit www.astronomik.com.

• Webcam/Video (Planets): Unsuitable • Webcam/Video (Deep Sky): Very good, if light pollution is a big problem Technical Data • 95% transmission at 486nm (H-beta) • 95% transmission at 496nm (OIII) • 95% transmission at 501nm (OIII) • 97% transmission at 656nm (H-alpha) • pass from 450 to 520nm and from 640 to 690nm • Parfocal with other Astronomik filters • Glass thickness is 1mm • Resistant against high humidity, scratches and aging effects • Diffraction limited, the filter will not reduce the optical performance of a telescope

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

31

NEWPRODUCTS

TELE VUE OPTICS Introduces 21mm Ethos Tele Vue Optics has announced that its newest addition to the Ethos line, the 21mm Ethos, is now available for preorder from authorized Tele Vue dealers and availability from stock is expected in December.

Pricing has not been set as of publication of this issue.

Tele Vue has long been known for its in-house eyepiece and telescope designs

by Al Nagler. This tradition continued with the introduction of the 100º AFOV Ethos eyepieces which were first proposed by Tele Vue President David Nagler, with performance parameters giving it the fundamental characteristics (the

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

ethos) of a Tele Vue eyepiece: high contrast, comfortable eye relief and full field sharpness. Control of astigmatism, field curvature, lateral color, angular magnification distortion correction, and low pupil sensitivity for daytime use were specified criteria.

The optical performance of the 21mm is the work of Tele Vue optical designer Paul Dellechiaie, who achieved a level of optical aberration correction right in line with his other Ethos designs.

Contrast and transmission have been maximized using

the same advanced coating techniques and further aided by the internal mechanical design techniques used in all Tele Vue eyepieces.

Extending the Ethos focal length range to 21mm while maintaining the original performance goals of the rest of the series brings the eyepiece up against the mechanical limits of the 2-inch barrel and focus constraints. The 21mm provides the maximum true field of view, has no significant vignetting at the edge of the field, and is parfocal with the 31mm Nagler Type 5.

The 21mm focal length completes the logical set of 21mm/13mm/8mm and nicely juxtaposes the 17mm/10mm/6mm combination. Each step within these two sets approaches a 3X field area gain. The 21mm’s effective field stop diameter is 36.2mm, bringing its true field close to the 35mm Panoptic (38.7mm field stop diameter). Its true field is also larger than the 26mm Nagler with its 35mm effective field stop diameter. In an f/4 Dobsonian, the exit pupil is just 5.25mm using the 21mm Ethos instead of 8.75mm with a 35mm Panoptic, or 6.5mm with a 26mm Nagler.

Since the 21mm, like all Ethos models, accepts Dioptrx, owners will have the ability to compensate for eyesight astigmatism with a superb multi-coated lens providing for exact correction, rotation orientation and centration over the eyepiece.

Like all Tele Vue eyepieces, every 21mm Ethos goes through Tele Vue’s optical and cosmetic quality control procedure in Chester, NY and should an owner’s eyepiece ever need service, Tele Vue can do everything from replacing a dented barrel to replacing a scratched eye lens.

For more information or for a list of Tele Vue dealers, visit www.televue.com.

NEWPRODUCTS

MEADE INSTRUMENTS Introduces the LT6 Telescope The new Meade LT-6 is similar to the Meade ETX-LS 6 without the fully automated alignment feature. It offers two optics choices, Schmidt-Cassegrain optics or Meade’s Advanced Coma-Free ACF Optical System. The telescope weighs 30 lbs. and the tripod weight is 9 lbs.

The LT6 features precision worm gear drives, die-cast aluminum mount and solid steel tripod. It utilizes the Meade AutoStar 497 system computer controller which automatically guides the telescope to any of the over 30,000 objects in the comprehensive library and is updateable with downloads from Meade’s website.

The rigid aluminum mount supports the optical tube in all sky orientations. The precision 4.875-inch

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

diameter worm gears in both axes provide smooth sidereal tracking of objects in the night sky. The stable, fully adjustable stainless steel tripod delivers all the rigidity required for field applications and adjusts from 23.5 to 43.5 inches in height, providing a comfortable eyepiece height for virtually everyone.

Meade LT-6 telescopes use level north alignment. Provide the telescope with the appropriate city or zip code, then the date and time, and orient the OTA so that it is level and pointing north. AutoStar’s Easy Align picks two alignment stars and places them in the viewfinder. Just center them to fine tune the alignment and you are set.

For more information visit www.meade.com.

NEWPRODUCTS

TAKAHASHI AMERICA New Takahashi TSA-120 Triplet APO Refractor The Takahashi TSA-120 Triplet APO Refractor is the second TSA triplet apochromat introduced by Takahashi, the first being the TSA-102S. The new scope has a 900mm focal length (f/7.5) and a tube diameter of 125mm. The weight of the TSA-120 tube assembly is 12.6 pounds and the tube length is approximately 28.25-inches when collapsed. It's a very compact scope which makes it ideal for remote imaging. It’s also light enough to fit onto smaller mounts as well.

The “T” stands for the OrthoApochromatic Triplet Lens which incorporates an FPL-53 Extra-low Dispersion glass element sandwiched between crown glass to eliminate chromatic aberration. The “SA” is for “Super Apochromat” which helps eliminate the violet glows which often are seen with bright stars or planets.

It offers a long back focus of 227mm (8.93”) to accommodate binoviewers and 2-inch diagonals. It is supplied with 2-inch and 1/1/4-inch accessories and extension tubes, a quick release finder bracket, and knife edge baffles are standard for highest contrast.

The TSA-120 is a excellent scope for

imaging. The Takahashi TOA 35 Flattener converts the 120 into an f/7.3 882mm flat field 2.6º instrument and their TOA 35 Reducer changes it to an f/5.6 672mm.

For more information please visit www.takahashiamerica.com.

SPECIFICATIONS Aperture:...................................................................................................................120mm Focal Length: ............................................................................................................900mm Focal Ratio: ......................................................................................................................7.5 Tube Length with Dew Shield: ..................................................................................990mm Tube Diameter:..........................................................................................................125mm Diameter of Dew Shield: ..................................................................................713mm (28") Resolution:.....................................................................................................................0.97 Limiting Magnitude: .......................................................................................................12.1 Back Focus:................................................................................................227.5mm (8.93") Weight:.....................................................................................................................12.6 lbs

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

35

Tele Vue Ethos The Ultimate in Wide-field Observing!

By Erik Wilcox

I still remember observing through a Nagler for the first time. The difference in AFOV between a Nagler and the plossls I was using at the time was like night and day, but I don’t think I fully realized the other differences until I began using fast scopes. Suddenly, the plossls that worked well enough at f/8 looked like warp drive at f/4 and I knew I needed something better. Over the years, I’ve owned many, many eyepieces but despite my tendency to

experiment, my eyepiece case always contains mostly Tele Vue products.

I also remember the first night observing with the then just released 13-mm Ethos. At a star party at Mount Pinos in Southern California a while back, veteran observer Don Pensack had a brand new 13-mm Ethos, and I think he spent nearly the entire night with that one eyepiece in the focuser of his 12.5inch truss Dob. I remember comparing it

with a 13-mm Nagler, and in terms of AFOV, the Nagler seemed plossl-like by comparison!

Yet the correction was every bit as perfect as the Nagler; sharp right to the overwhelmingly wide field stop. So it was with great anticipation and excitement when Tele Vue began to announce other focal lengths. And I was even more excited when I found out I was going to get an opportunity to review the whole line!

The eyepieces arrived well packed, and Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

37

TELE VUE ETHOS in perfect condition, with the exception of the 17-mm, which had a small “rattle”. A quick note to David Nagler provided easy instructions to correct the problem without tools.

I’ve purchased many Tele Vue eyepieces and other products in the past, and this was the first time I’d ever had anything arrive with something wrong. So it was nice to experience the excellent customer service that Tele Vue is known for firsthand. I’d also add that it’s likely the rattle developed on the 5,500 mile journey from New York to Hawaii, and other than the one minor issue, the eyepieces arrived in flawless condition (believe me, with the great distance and time spent in transport, I’ve seen many lesser products arrive completely destroyed). The skies were clear and the light from dusk was waning, so I went outside with the prized Ethos. It was a dark moonless night with a temperature in the low 60’s, and the only sounds were of an occasional breeze that rustled through the trees.

I had a few Naglers, Panoptics, a Radian, and other wide-fields of similar focal length set out, and was planning on comparing them

38 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

with the Ethos, but frankly, there wasn’t much comparison. The AFOV of the Ethos is just so much wider, about 50% wider in area than a Nagler (!), it was like comparing apples and oranges. Most of my observing on this night was done with my homebuilt 16-inch f/4.5 truss dob equipped with a Tele Vue Paracorr (the Paracorr corrects both the coma and field curvature of a Newtonian’s parabolic mirror, thereby allowing evaluation of the eyepiece without introducing these aberrations inherent in the telescope). It didn’t seem to matter that I was looking at an AFOV that seemed like twice that of my Naglers, all of the Ethos were perfectly, and I do mean perfectly corrected right to the field stop. Stars looked exactly the same in the center of the field as they did right at the edge. To look at the edge, I often had to physically move my eye around.

However, concentrating on the center of the field allowed me to naturally see the field stop with peripheral vision since it is 50 degrees to each side of the center. Even more so than the Naglers, the Ethos seemed to make me more aware of my peripheral vision and how much

it adds to the overall viewing experience.

Sweeping through Sagittarius with the Ethos in my dark skies and low latitude was utterly mesmerizing. Extended dark nebula like B92 suddenly “came to life” in my small refractor because I could use higher power to darken the sky background and still see the entire object at once through the massive 100 degree AFOV. Favorites like the Swan, Lagoon, and Trifid Nebulae were suddenly surrounded by a plethora of stars where before there was just a field stop. Throughout the rest of the sky, the Veil was more haunting than ever, and framing multiple objects (like M81/82) could be done at a higher magnification, yielding more detail. The Double Cluster was ablaze with tiny diamond-like pinpoints, and since I could frame both sections at a higher magnification, I observed color subtleties in stars that I usually only noticed with a “close-up” view of one section.

Ethos eyepieces are designed to keep planet size and shapes uniform across the entire field. This is done by correcting for “angular magnification” distortion as described

TELE VUE ETHOS in the book “Telescope Optics” by Rutten and van Venrooij. Although the pincushion or “fishbowl” effect is detectable because of the very wide field of view, it is much smaller than in some other eyepieces such as the 31-mm Nagler or 35-mm Panoptic.

Eye relief is something that I should mention; considering the parameters of these eyepieces, the eye relief is quite good. I don’t wear glasses, and I found I could just take in the entire FOV in all the Ethos before the view started to “black out” a bit. There is a roll down eyeguard (similar to that on the 31-mm Nagler), which could be utilized for those with eyeglasses. Eye relief seems nearly identical in the entire Ethos line, and indeed, they are all listed at 15-mm on Tele Vue’s website.

That seemed about right to me, and I found the eye relief to be satisfactory. The Ethos also accept the Tele Vue Dioptrix, which can compensate for astigmatism in one’s eyes.

I was also curious to see how well the Ethos barlowed. With my 2.5X Powermate (which technically isn’t a barlow), they performed flawlessly; exactly as if I was using just

the eyepiece, but of course with more magnification. Yet I was also impressed at how well the Ethos works even with inexpensive “shorty” type barlows. There was no vignetting, and the 15-mm eye relief is just short enough so that even a shorty barlow doesn’t make the Ethos uncomfortable; it seems that Tele Vue thought of everything!

The 13-mm, 10-mm, 8-mm, and 6-mm Ethos can all be used in either 1.25-inch or 2inch format. To use in 2-inch format, a setscrew must be removed. I like the idea of staying in the 2-inch format; I’ve often found myself searching for the 2/1.25-inch adapter in the dark when changing eyepieces. The 2inch barrel also feels more securely attached in my focusers, and requires a bit less outward travel. There is also a safety undercut to keep it in the focuser even more securely. Like all Tele Vue products, the build quality is exceptional in every regard.

The 6-mm and 8-mm Ethos are parfocal with each other, and with all Tele Vue 1.25inch Plossls, Panoptics, Radians and Nagler Type 6 eyepieces, when used with the 2-inch

- 1.25-inch Tele Vue “High-Hat” adapter (ACR-2125, ASF-8125). The 10-mm and 13-mm are parfocal with each other, and the 17-mm and 21-mm are essentially parfocal with the 31-mm Nagler Type5.

The Ethos are also much lighter in weight than they look, though they are physically large. With the high level of correction, I’d suspect that there must be some exotic glass inside, and likely have aspherical lens elements incorporated into the design. There certainly doesn’t seem to be 8 or more elements in each of these eyepieces, but I haven’t found any specifications on exactly how many elements there are in the Ethos. In any case, none of the eyepieces caused any balance problems in my big Dob, or weighed down my small refractor. They just got out of the way and allowed me to observe. Speaking of size and weight, the 13-mm, 10-mm, 8-mm, and 6-mm can all be used in a binoviewer.

The coatings are positively exquisite.

When viewed at an angle, I could see a touch of green and violet, but looking at the lenses straight on, they almost seemed to disappear.

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39

TELE VUE ETHOS ETHOS SPECIFICATIONS 21mm 13mm Focal Length: 21mm 13mm Apparent Field: 100° 100º Eye Relief: 15mm 15mm Effective Field Stop Diameter: 36.2mm 22.3mm Barrel Size: 2" 2"/11/4" Weight: 2.25 lb 1.3lbs.

(All accept DIOPTRX eyesight astigmatism corrector) Through the scope at night, there is no glare, reflections, or ghosting. I spent a good deal of time comparing my 16-mm T5 Nagler to the 17-mm Ethos, as well as the 8-mm and 10mm Ethos to my 9-mm T6 Nagler. I’d read much about the newer coatings and glass in the Ethos and differences compared to Naglers, so I decided to do my own comparison.

Indeed, the Ethos coatings have some different characteristics than Naglers. Stars appear slightly whiter, but star color is still easily seen (even through my somewhat color challenged eyes). The vibrant whites and cooler view

17mm 17mm 100° 15mm 29.6mm 2" 1.55 lbs

don’t obscure fine details; rather, it makes them easier to distinguish. When viewing low contrast features on Jupiter’s disk one night, I felt that the views through the Ethos were ever so slightly better than that through the Naglers and other eyepieces I was using. Objects with low contrast simply stand out slightly better through the Ethos. When I compared the 6-mm Ethos to a 6-mm wide-field (brand not mentioned to protect the innocent), I was shocked at the difference. Some say that widefield eyepieces aren’t meant for planetary observing; those people need to try an Ethos!

10mm 10mm 100° 15mm 17.7mm 2"/11/4" 17.7 oz

6mm 6mm 100° 15mm 10.4mm 2"/11/4" 15.5 oz

I spent a few more moonless nights observing through an 80-mm f/6 “ED” refractor. While this telescope has great optics, it does show a touch of color, so I didn’t evaluate that when viewing through this scope.

Through the refractor, I noticed a vague touch of field curvature if I REALLY looked for it.

This was seen through all of the Ethos, and when comparing it to the Naglers, I noticed that the slight field curvature in the Ethos was in the last 10 or so degrees closest to the field stop. With the Naglers narrower AFOV, it wasn’t seen in them at all. Still, I really had to

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TELE VUE ETHOS look for it in the Ethos. At first glance, stars looked sharp at the edge when compared to those in the center of field: upon closer observation, I found just a slight tweak of the fine focus knob brought them into true focus.

Ethos are flat-field eyepieces and because they show more true field of view at a given magnification some might see field curvature in a telescope that other narrower eyepieces won’t show. In my Paracorr corrected Dob stars were sharply focused to the edge of the field.

In my 80-mm f/6 refractor, I did notice a touch of field curvature, most notably with the longer focal length Ethos. I’ve also noticed that as I’ve gotten older, my eyes don’t accommodate for field curvature like they used to. So some observer’s eyes may be able to accommodate for it better than mine do.

One thought I had when comparing the Ethos with my current eyepiece arsenal is how one could get by with fewer eyepieces when using the Ethos exclusively. The price of the Tele Vue Ethos has been a topic of discussion, but if you’re only buying 3 eyepieces instead of

6, the price isn’t much of a factor to consider.

It reminds me of the time I bought a telescope and got a half dozen eyepieces (with a free case!) for an extra hundred bucks. I quickly learned that quality was better than quantity when it comes to eyepieces, because many of the cheap plossls I got for “such a deal” were nearly unusable. The Ethos can’t be compared to such eyepieces, of course, but even compared to Naglers, one could certainly get by with fewer eyepieces in their case.

In conclusion, I think it’s obvious that the bar has been raised immensely, and likely to a similar extent that Tele Vue raised it when they released the very first Nagler so many years ago. It really is a complete sensory overload the first time to see that 100 degree AFOV, and every time thereafter when you switch back to an Ethos after using a narrower field eyepiece. Correction is nearly perfect in any scope, and Ethos even work well as planetary eyepieces. With the introduction of the 21-mm, Dob owners, especially those in light polluted skies, will appreciate the smaller exit

pupil and wide TFOV. The wider AFOV of the Ethos allow the observer to use more magnification while still maintaining a wide TFOV. With the parameters of these eyepieces, the Ethos are positively revolutionary in terms of design and weight. If you like wide-field eyepieces, you really have GOT to own the Ethos; it’s not just wide-field, super-wide, or ultra-wide; it’s something we might need a new name to describe (hyperultramegawide?). Or we could just agree with Tele Vue and simply call it “The Majesty Factor”. I’m here to tell you that it’s a real phenomenon.

As I was wrapping up my review on the Ethos line, I got the news that I’d be receiving the new 21mm Ethos as well. Though I ended up not having quite as much time with it under the stars as the rest of the Ethos, I probably could’ve squeezed it into the article.

However, I feel that it’s such a special eyepiece that it deserves its entirely own article and review. So look for a comprehensive write-up of the brand new 21mm Ethos in the next issue of Astronomy Technology Today.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

41

The Pod People More Than Pods Piers and Adapters from SkyShed

By Dave Snay

I’m sure I’m not the only astronomer that still operates on a tripod without benefit of an observatory, meaning I have to setup and take down my equipment for every session. I have a regular old shed that used to house my motorcycle (before I crashed and wrecked it) that I use to store all my astro gear. When I’m observing or imaging, I setup right in front of its open doors.

This works well because the house and the shed both work as wind blocks for the prevailing wind patterns and it leaves everything North, East and Southeast visible.

South is also relatively obstruction free, but that’s where the city is so I don’t shoot in that direction.

Well, I finally got tired of setting up my rig from scratch nearly every time I wanted to use my system, so I contacted the folks at SkyShed to see if they had anything I could

use with my equatorial mount. After a few email exchanges with Wayne Parker, owner of SkyShed we were ready to get started. My project required a new adapter plate to accommodate my Orion Sirius mount, which is the same as Meade’s LXD series as Image 1 well as any CG5 compatible mount.

Wayne and I worked out the details based on pictures of my tripod head and the base of my mount along with measurements for all the critical points of contact. It would have been easier for them if I could have sent them the top of my tripod, but I was holding

out hope for some clear skies to use while I waited for the adapter. Of course, they never materialized. Wayne then took over and worked with his machinist to produce the amazingly solid adapter shown in Image 1.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

43

THE POD PEOPLE MORE THAN PODS

Image 2

Image 3

Image 2 shows both plates from the side. The leveling bolts are pretty standard. I haven’t adjusted them downward yet in this picture, but they ended up just high enough above the lower plate to leave room for my hand to insert the center bolt for the mount.

Notice the bolts beneath the lower of the two plates. Unlike other piers I’ve seen

SkyWatcher Telescopes

and read about, you don’t need to worry about polar alignment when installing the pier. These three bolts hold the plates to the pier by simply pressing against the top of the pier. Loosen them and you can rotate the entire plate assembly 360 degree. This is brilliant engineering; simplicity of design and ease of use in one package! My pier is

42-inches tall and apparently made of heavy duty rolled steel. Mine is black, but you have several color options because these are painted. Anodizing the whole thing would be a nice option, but that would probably be cost prohibitive.

Beware, this sucker is HEAVY! The UPS guy was very unhappy when he had to

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THE POD PEOPLE MORE THAN PODS

Image 4

load it back in his truck because he delivered it to the wrong house. You should have heard the bang when he dropped it in the back of his truck! I’m glad it wasn’t a telescope being treated that way.

Because the pier is painted, it is susceptible to scratches if used the way I intend. I’ll just keep a little bit of touch up paint around

Image 5

to apply when necessary to prevent any surface rust from marring the finish. If you’re installing this in an observatory or better yet, one of Wayne’s Pods, you’ll have no issues.

The lower of the two adapter plates fits nicely on top of the pier, with only a small amount of room between it and the outer rim of the pier. This means that the adjust-

ment bolts used to attach the plate to the pier are short and will not flex. The leveling bolts are stainless steel and big enough that only the biggest, strongest and most aggressive of us will be able to damage them. You will likely need to provide a new central mounting bolt to connect your mount to the pier. A quick trip to the hardware store

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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THE POD PEOPLE MORE THAN PODS

Image 6

with my original bolt and I was ready to go.

When you order your pier from SkyShed, you’ll receive a set of instructions for installation. If you follow them even a little, you’ll end up with a solid and level installation. They come with text and pic-

tures of Wayne doing the install of one of their piers in some desolate field. Because his instructions really leave nothing unexplained, I’ll only show you the highlights of my installation process. If you have any questions along the way, Wayne and the staff

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Image 7

at SkyShed are quite capable and more than happy to help.

Installation Digging the hole for the base was much harder than I expected. I’ve done this before when I built an addition for a previous house, but I don’t remember it being this much work. The ground in West Boylston must be harder than my previous house. It can’t be that I’m getting older, can it? That’s me getting down and dirty in Image 3.

When I was done digging the hole, 4feet deep per New England frost line standards, I decided to cover it up because there was no way I was going to do any more work that day. I was just too tired to mix all that concrete (it stinks to get old and infirm). It turns out my timing was perfect.

Within minutes of covering the hole, a thunderstorm rolled in. If I hadn’t covered the hole, it would have filled with water in short order. I took Image 4 about 30 minutes after I finished digging the hole. You probably can’t tell from this picture, but within a few moments every pocket in the cover was filled with water. Timing really is everything!

While it was raining, I made a template that I would use to hold the mounting bolts

THE POD PEOPLE MORE THAN PODS for the pier in place while the concrete dried.

I took two pieces of 1/2-inch plywood and screwed them together. Then I traced an outline of the bolt pattern from the base of the pier onto the template, drilled out the holes and attached the J-Bolts to the template. Wayne’s instructions demonstrate this with a solid piece of wood, but I made do with what I had on hand.

Once the rain stopped I was able to get down to the business of filling the hole with concrete. I simply mixed it one bag at a time in a wheel barrow, dumped it into the tube, tamped it to remove any air pockets and went on to the next bag. You can see the filled tube with the mounting bolts inserted and supported in Image 5. The pieces of wood you see are there to hold the bolts as close to level as possible. Without them, the bolts and template would tend to settle unevenly.

With the concrete complete, including at least 24 hours of drying time, it was time to install the pier. Leave one set of nuts and washers in place, lower the pier on top of them, place washers on top of the bolts and screw on the top set of nuts. I leveled the whole thing by simply placing a level on top of the pier parallel with the leveling bolts (remove the plates from the top first) and adjusted the bottom set of nuts until everything was level in one direction. Then I repeated the process in the other direction.

Tighten down the top set of screws and you’re ready to install the plates.

Reattach the plates to the pier and level the top plate using the three leveling bolts that connect the two plates. Use the lower screws to make adjustments and the top ones to secure the connection, as in Image 6. Repeat the process aligning the level with each pair of bolts and you are done and ready to install your equipment and enjoy the night sky.

I decided to make use of the extra concrete I had bought and made the top foot of the base square. For some reason I just like the look of a square base better than the round one. It’s completely unnecessary, but I like it. It also let me make use of some pavers I had laying around from an old garden bed we used to maintain.

You’ll notice that I’ve taken things one step further and installed electrical and data connections to the side of the pier (Image

7). I used electrical conduit and PVC corners and then attached it to the pier with plastic zip ties. Now I don’t have to worry about tripping over wires in the dark. It also speeds the setup process a little bit. If you decide to go this route, remember to mark one of the data cables before you install them or you’ll have to figure out which ends go together later through trial and error.

The image at the beginning of the article shows the old and new setups side by side. The new one sure does look like it means business, doesn’t it? I know, I know.

The imaging scopes aren’t the same in both pictures. But that’s not the point. Actually, the one in the “after” picture is heavier than the one in the “before” picture.

I usually don’t leave my equipment, other than the mount, installed overnight unless I’m expecting a string of clear nights.

This means I have to setup my system from scratch pretty often. I’ve done that many times and have gotten pretty quick, but it still takes the better part of an hour until the time I’m ready to start locating the evening’s imaging object or the first visual target of the evening. It takes me about 1/2 hour to set up the tripod and assemble all the parts on top (assuming I haven’t disassembled the piggyback connection). Then it’s about another 1/4 hour to perform a reasonably accurate polar alignment. After that I can usually perform a 2 star alignment in roughly 5 minutes, for a total of 50 minutes from start to finish.

With the pier configuration, I can be ready to go in less than 15 minutes because I can leave the mount in place all the time. All I need to do is slide the telescopes into the dovetail mount, connect the wires, power up and I’m polar aligned and ready to go. This is going to make a big difference in the amount of nights I use my equipment.

Stable Relationships Obviously, the pier is going to be far more stable than any tripod. When I use the tripod configuration I have to be careful about moving around close to it when I’m imaging. If I walk normally within a couple feet of the tripod the image will suffer from vibrations. If I tap lightly on the leg, the current exposure is ruined. If I’m observing visually, it takes 3-5 seconds for the image to

settle down if I’m using moderate magnification.

I can walk any way I like right next to the pier with absolutely no impact on the image or the view presented by the telescope. I tried rapping the pier to see if there was any impact. I don’t recommend this test unless you like sore knuckles.

If you’re in the market for a permanent pier I highly recommend you put the SkyShed products at the top of your short list. Not only will you find their products to be exceptionally well made, you’ll also find Wayne a pleasure to work with, even if you’ve got a mount not yet supported.

I know I enjoyed working with him, and I’m not easy to please. In fact, you could say I’m typically a customer service nightmare.

You can find more information about all their products online at http://skyshedpod.com. Visit their site and have a look at their products and customer testimonials.

You owe it to yourself to view their “Redneck” wind testing video. It will give a little insight to the durability of their products.

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The 100-mm Garret Optical Binocular Telescope System These Big Boys Model GT100-45 Will Change the

By Richard Harris

It seems in these days of super sensitive cameras and large aperture telescopes the binoculars take a back seat for astronomers.

Most of us have a small set laying around but they rarely get used because we all know the golden rule of “aperture wins� in astronomy and binoculars are just one of those pieces of equipment that, unless they are really good or really big, lose our interest in our quest for just the right equipment to view the Heavens.

But the people at Garrett Optical are

Way You Think About Binoculars! out to change the way we think about binoculars with their introduction of the 100-mm f/5.3 Binocular Telescope system.

The new 100-mm f/5.3 binocular set is worlds away from most any other binoculars you might be used to seeing. Actually the larger binocular sets such as these are thought of more as two individual telescopes sitting beside each other in permanent side by side mounting.

Throw out those old ideas of fixed

magnifications, and set ocular sizes. This binocular telescope set features standard helical 1.25-inch eyepiece focusers and a finder scope dovetail mounting block.

There is a lot about this set of binos to talk about!

What's in the Box? The set comes off as really polished right out of the box (Image 1). One of the reasons for this is Garrett Optical hand collimates and adjusts the binos before

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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100-MM GARRET OPTICAL BINOCULAR SYSTEM

Image 1

they even ship them to you. You'll get the 100-mm binocular telescope set, along with 23-mm (57° AFOV) and 13-mm (60° AFOV) focal length eyepieces (in a set), yielding 23x and 41x magnifications.

There is also an attached Vixen style finder scope base for attaching your own finder scope or the multiple red illuminated finder as offered by Garrett Optical – a $49 option at time of purchase. A form fitted case, and a 2 year warranty polish off the overall package.

field BaK4 optical glass objective lenses and look fantastic. There is a bolted on handle on top which is nice to have on such large binoculars and helps when mounting them to your tripod. The weight of the set with the eyepieces and red illuminated finder attached is just over 13 lbs which is considerably less than some competitors. The white paint is glossy and smooth and I couldn't help but retract and detract the dew shield extensions a few times for grins – they held in place nicely

This might also be a good time to mention that the entire process of ordering, receiving, and questions after receiving the binos was five stars.

Initial Impressions?

The first glance out of the box is wow.

Two 100-mm coated objected lenses stare you in the face and look as though they belong in a Disney movie with a creature named “Wally” (Image 2). But these are not robot eyes, they are large aperture, rich

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100-MM GARRET OPTICAL BINOCULAR SYSTEM

Image 2

even when pointed straight up. The overall feel of the binoculars is very rugged, and you can't help but want to put them on a tripod right away and start viewing.

Using the Binoculars I opted to get the series 5000 tripod from Garrett Optical to mount the binos (Image 3). There are also mounting screw holes on each side of the tubes in case you want to use a fork type mount. The tripod system came with a Vixen style dovetail plate which we mounted to the bottom side of our set and sliding that into the safety locking dovetail on the tripod was a breeze. You simply slide the plate into the place and when you hear a “click” (which is a small brass safety switch) you know the binoculars won't fall away while you are tightening the dovetail hold down.

First views were in the daytime doing a little birding and terrestrial viewing. I'm not an avid bird viewer but the magnification and contrast of the optics were very

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100-MM GARRET OPTICAL BINOCULAR SYSTEM

Image 3

good. I switched around eyepieces a few times between the two given sets provided and was amazed at how clear things looked.

I left the binoculars set up and awaited nightfall.

The first night out I set up in my driveway where I had a clear view to the eastern sky – which was now in full bloom with late summer deep sky objects. I had in the 23-mm eyepieces and first panned around to M31 which was just about 55 degrees up in my location. Right from the start I noticed that the viewing angle was comfortable even though the binoculars were pointed at a steeper viewing angle.

This was because the built-in helical focusers are tilted at a 45 degree angle – so I only had to tilt my head into the eyepieces slightly. This in combination with the extra tall series 5000 tripod made for an incredibly comfortable view. I felt like I could just walk up and look in to the

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Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Universe. I'm used to hunkering over a Newtonian scope or an end mounted fork mounted OTA sitting on a wedge where you sometimes have to kneel down at such angles.

M31 was on grand display. The stars were all flat to the edge of the view and I could take in all of the galaxy because the wide field of view and short focal length. I then set my sites on a brighter object, which was the planet Jupiter, which appeared very bright with the 23-mm eyepieces so I switched to the higher powered 13-mm eyepieces to bring the planet and it's moons more into focus. I was able to make out the cloud bands easily on the planet which was surprising for such fast optics. The finder scope was really helping now, as I switched the view to overhead to gaze at M57, the Ring Nebulae. The ring wasn't a disappointment either and seeing it in stereo-vision was more than spectacular. I kept moving around the sky to different objects and as great as the view was coming from the well collimated optics, I kept thinking about how comfortable it was to use the set.

Tripod and Mount Considerations The overall experience using the Garrett Optical combination was very pleasant. But I wanted to make mention that even though the binoculars are light in weight for their class, you are still going to need a substantial mount to make the viewing experience as pleasant as mine was.

These aren't the kind of binoculars you hold in your hand! When I first received

them I had attempted to use a Bogen heavy duty tripod I already owned as a grab-an-go alt-az mount for the large set. But that proved to be a bit of a challenge because of the lack of good clamping lockdowns and large enough handles to move the binos around. That's when I opted to order the series 5000 tripod and head– and I'm glad I did! The tripod only costs a couple hundred dollars and was well worth it to support such a finely crafted set of binoculars.

The series 5000 unit is extremely heavy duty and has everything needed for using large binos under the night sky. Even in the dark I could find the levers and knobs just fine and the extra long extension handles moving the binos around came in handy.

Final Thoughts I really liked these binoculars and would recommend the Garrett Optical system to anyone looking for a large binocular set. The binoculars cost $999 at the time of this writing and is an astonishing value.

The kit includes everything you need minus the mount and I would dare to say this might be the last set of astronomical binoculars you'll ever buy. Make sure you either have a very heavy duty tripod or just spend the $200 for the series 5000 tripod from Garrett as well, like I said before it'll be money well spent.

After using the set for a while it's dawned on me that I've basically got 2 side by side finely crafted telescopes so I plan to noodle some with mounting them on an equatorial mount and experiment with some astrophotography. What better setup to have than a visually stunning set of optics that can also be used in an imaging guide-scope combo! I'll save the results of that for a later article.

Editors Note – Richard has created a video of his review on the ScopeTrader YouTube channel to allow readers to get a first hand look at the entire setup. To view the video go to YouTube.com/user/ ScopeTrader or search for ScopeTrader in the YouTube search box.

The Binocular Photon Machine

Military High Tech for Astronomy

By Mark Vanderaar

Dark skies, telescope aperture, and careful selection of filters and eyepieces are our best friends when observing deep-sky objects (DSOs). Not much else is available. So when a product comes along that offers another way to easily enhance the DSO viewing experience, it is definitely worth a look.

In this case, the product is called The Binocular Photon Machine (BIPH), and is offered by Night Vision Astronomy (www.nightvisionastronomy.com).

The BIPH has generated a buzz across the amateur astronomy community with the opportunity of being able to see detail in objects that were previously only visible photographically.

How is this possible? At the heart of the BIPH is an image intensifier vacuum tube that roughly speaking, “amplifies” the incoming light many thousands of times over.

More precisely, an image intensifier first converts the meager number of ancient, welltraveled photons from the object to electrons through the use of a device called a photocathode. This is much like night vision goggles or camcorders with night vision enhanced viewfinders. The ones used in the BIPH are military grade that are provided by the military and are a generation 3 quality which produce a much cleaner image.

These electrons enter a Micro-Channel Plate (MCP). The MCP resembles a bunch of tiny, short soda straws. Each straw represents a tiny part of the image, similar to a pixel. More “straws” means higher sharpness in the resulting image. As each electron hits the side wall of an MCP “straw” multiple secondary electrons are released. In turn these electrons hit the side again creating even more electrons and so on. This process greatly amplifies the signal Finally, the relatively massive number of electrons is slammed into a phosphor monochrome (green in this case) screen creating photons that are visible to the observer. So, basically what you have is a small number of photons (at various wavelengths) coming in to the BIPH and a much larger number (at a single wavelength) coming out, resulting in a brighter, more detailed image. This is all done in real-time! The BIPH uses what is called generation 3 image intensifier tubes. These are really the first tubes suitable for visual astronomy applications.

Night vision devices gather existing ambient light (starlight, moonlight or infra-red light) through the front lens. This light, which is made up of photons goes into a photocathode tube that changes the photons to electrons. The electrons are then amplified to

a much greater number through an electrical and chemical process. The electrons are then hurled against a phosphorus screen that changes the amplified electrons back into visible light that you see through the eyepiece.

The image will now be a clear green-hued amplified re-creation of the scene you were observing.

The BIPH embeds the intensifier tube between a front lens and a panoramic eyepiece system. The panoramic eyepiece allows both eyes to be used. The BIPH is extremely simple to use. It has just one power switch, no complicated settings, no wires, and no tracking needed. It is intended to be used just like a regular 2-inch eyepiece, just plug it into your focuser and turn the power switch.

No additional eyepiece is needed, all requisite optics are part of the package.

The panoramic eyepiece is probably even simpler to use than a binoviewer in that no interpupillary distance or dual focus adjustment is needed.

Available accessories include an H-alpha filter (pretty much a necessity for observing nebula), a focal reducer, and a barlow. Various star diagonals and power/filter slides from Denkmeier Optical are also sold as accessories. Also available are SLR camera lens attachment kits. These allow the BIPH to be Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE a little power with a claimed battery life of about 40 hours. It weighs (with batteries installed) in at about 38.4 ounces, which puts it in the same ballpark as a binoviewer with “light” eyepieces. Some telescopes may need additional counterweights.

Workmanship of the unit is professional looking and top notch. One area that could be improved is the battery pack that Image 1 - The BIPH ready for observing in the Richland is held in place with a Astronomical Society's 31-inch f/7 Newtonian. bracket that is in turn connected to a camera lens. The result is a held in place with a Velcro strip. This arrangebinocular-like handheld system that can be ment can loosen, and if you aren’t careful, can used for wide-field views of the night sky. leave the battery pack dangling by its wires.

The BIPH is powered by two AA batteries So how well does this gizmo work? What mounted on the top of the unit. It sips only can you see that you couldn’t before? First off,

54 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

in some ways, the BIPH can be thought of as a substitute for a larger aperture telescope.

Night Vision Astronomy says it provides the equivalent of a tripling in aperture. For example, a 6-inch aperture telescope would perform like an 18-inch and an 18-inch like a 54-inch! In practice, this type of gain is only a rough guide. It really ends up being dependent on the type of object, the scope, and the observing conditions.

Since receiving my BIPH in March of 2009, I have used it primarily in three telescopes, all Newtonian reflectors. This includes my personal 6-inch f/4.5 and 18-inch f/4.5, as well as the Richland Astronomical Society’s (www.wro.org) 31-inch f/7 telescope. I have not used the BIPH in a refractor or catadioptric optical systems. The main proprietor of Night Vision Astronomy, Doug Baum, recommends using fast scopes to get the best performance from the BIPH. In slower scopes, a focal reducer can be used increase the effective speed. Those interested in using a BIPH on refractors or cats should contact Doug to discuss the

THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE possibilities.

First off, the BIPH provides a very colorful image, unfortunately the color is limited to just one…green. Since the human eye has the most sensitivity near wavelengths that we perceive as green, it was chosen by the designers as the color for the phosphor screen.

This is a bit artificial looking at first, but after a while I tend to forget about the green and sometimes (especially when using the Halpha filter), I could swear the image starts to look white.

The sharpness of objects looks just about as good as with eyepieces. Stars are pretty close to pinpoints. The exception is that really bright stars tend to have what looks like a halo surrounding them. There is also a scintillation effect that is barely noticeable without a filter, but more noticeable when the H-alpha filter is used. The scintillation looks like tiny starburst going off in the amount of a couple per second. After looking for a bit, my mind tends to tune the scintillation completely out. It has been said that the BIPH provides a magnification close to that of a 40-

mm eyepiece, though I have not tried to measure it. It doesn’t have a particularly wide field of view, but it doesn’t really “look” narrow, maybe due to the fact that one is looking at a phosphor screen and not really through an eyepiece. Also due to the phosphor screen, eye Image 2 - The BIPH in a 18-inch AstroSystem’s Telekit relief is not an issue. You can edge-on galaxies, dim galaxies, and galaxy put your face right up to the eye guard or clusters. It performs less well on face-on even stand a couple feet back! galaxies. Planetary Nebula are a mixed bag Overall, my experience has been that the and some experimenting is needed as to BIPH performs best on emission nebula whether to use a H-alpha filter or not. The (using the H-alpha filter), globular clusters, performance is also sensitive to transparency

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE conditions. The less transparent the sky is, the brighter the background appears. The exception to this is when using an H-alpha filter. In this case, details in nebula are visible even when some cloud cover or haze is present. For example, I have been able to see significant detail in M17 (the Swan Nebula) even with the naked eye I couldn’t see the stars that make up the teapot in Sagittarius.

Also, the BIPH is very sensitive to ambient light, including red lights. If you don’t have real good (and opaque) light shrouds and light shields this can be a real problem.

The first time we tried the BIPH on the 31inch all we saw was a bright green background with very few stars. I thought the BIPH was malfunctioning or the f/7 focal length of the 31-inch was too long to use effectively. However, it turned out that a couple of pretty dim red lights in the observatory were the culprit. We turned these off and boom, the fun began.

One of the first objects we looked at in the 31-inch f/7 scope was M82, the Cigar Galaxy. It is an impressive object in most

Image 3

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THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE scopes, but the combination of 31-inch of aperture and the BIPH make it truly stunning. Slewing the galaxy into view of the BIPH reminded me of finding a huge battleship in a periscope. The monster of a galaxy just floated into the field of view complete with tons of detail in both the dark lanes and puffy bright areas. I guess the star-forming areas and dark clouds radiate a lot of red/infrared energy. Truly a breathtaking view!

Recently at the 2009 Hidden Hollow Star Party a number of experienced observers got a chance to look at NGC891, a relatively large and dim edge on galaxy with a dark lane through the middle. Almost to a person, most folks said it was the best view of that galaxy they ever had. Interestingly though, a minority of people just didn’t really like the view. Though they admitted they could see more detail, they felt the green color and scintillation just made it appear too artificial.

Other memorable views so far in the 31inch have been the experience of losing count of globular clusters in the Andromeda Galaxy,

seeing two stars within the Ring Nebula, observing wispy detail in the extra-galactic nebula NGC 604 (part of the Triangulum Galaxy), and seeing detail in the two closely interacting galaxies in Stephen’s Quintet.

With my 18-inch scope, a couple of cool observations stand out. The Great Orion Nebula is simply stunning. First off, the nebula appears so bright and detailed that the trapezium stars start to fade into the nebulosity.

In the rest of the nebula, the amount of detail and contrast was indescribable. M42 is pretty incredible in a normal eyepiece, but the BIPH takes it to a whole new level. The Virgo and Perseus Galaxy Clusters also respond well to the BIPH. Globular clusters are significantly brightened by the BIPH. For example, in one evening, I was able to view 9 of the 11 Terzan Globular Clusters.

With my 6-inch travel Dobsonian, the BIPH, and an H-alpha filter I have been able to view the Horsehead Nebula, no averted vision needed.

As mentioned earlier, the BIPH can also be used with an SLR camera lens, making for

a night vision enhanced binocular. Besides watching nocturnal animals and pretending to be a special ops soldier, it’s great to point this thing skyward. It’s really neat to have a scale perspective for the bright nebula. Seeing treetops, the Lagoon Nebula, and the Trifid Nebula, globular clusters, fainter nebula, and countless stars all in one field of view is pretty neat. Image 3 is a picture (courtesy John Paladini) taken through the BIPH eyepiece using a DSLR. It is a photo of the North American Nebula, Pelican Nebula and Butterfly Nebula all in the same FOV. A 50-mm SLR lens attached to the BIPH was used. For a range of other customer experiences, check out Night Vision Astronomy’s web site quotes tab. There is also a yahoo group that can be accessed via the web site.

Since BIPH is easy to use and the images suitably bright, it is a great tool for public outreach. Often, first time observers at these events can sometimes struggle with looking through an eyepiece, especially at deep-sky objects. This is not the case with the BIPH.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE

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Almost always, I know by the reaction of the individual whether the object has drifted out of view. I hear the nearly universal “Wow!!” if the object is visible, if not…it’s time for repointing! With the H-alpha filter, the BIPH can also be used with nebula even on moonlit nights. So if the public event happens to fall on a moonlit night, the BIPH allows additional objects for people to see that would have been difficult otherwise.

Largely as a result of using some of the latest military technology, the BIPH is by no measure inexpensive. Specifically, the price is driven by the cost of the generation 3 image intensifying tubes. Currently, the BIPH is priced at $3,299 (100% clean used Military Spec tube) or $3,995 (New tube system). This price includes the BIPH, a nice Pelican case, and a personalized lasercut case badge. More information about which version (used or new tube) to get is provided on the web site. I opted for the used tube for both price and performance reasons. To date, Night Vision Astronomy manufactures the BIPH in batches that they call production runs. They wait until they have enough individual orders to justify a manufacturing turn. This can result in a multi-month lead time on the product. In the future, if there turns out to be sufficient demand for the system, they will likely start to carry them in stock.

In summary, the enhanced and deeper view that the BIPH provides has strongly influenced my observing habits. My guess is that I use it a bit over half my observing time. However, I will always appreciate the direct view of real photons through the eyepiece, something the BIPH can’t replace.

To me, visual observing can compared to a quiet and intricate classical music composition. The more you listen, the more you appreciate subtle details. After a looking at an object using the BIPH, I feel more like the universe is a big, bright, in-your-face place!

All in all, my purchase of the BIPH was money well spent. It has given me and others views we would never have hope to see.

It’ll be a great tool for years to come.

THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE

How Night Vision Works As previously described in Mark’s article, night vision devices gather existing ambient light (starlight, moonlight or infra-red light) through the front lens.

This light, which is made up of photons goes into a photocathode tube that changes the photons to electrons. The electrons are then amplified to a much greater number through an electrical and chemical process. The electrons are then hurled against a phosphorus screen that changes the amplified electrons back into visible light that you see through the eyepiece. The image will now be a clear green-hued amplified re-creation of the scene you were observing. A night vision phosphor screen is purposefully colored green because the human eye can differentiate more shades of green than other phosphor colors.

A Night Vision Device (NVD) can be a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation unit. What this stands for is what type of light intensifier tube is used for that particular device. The light intensifier tube is the heart and soul of an NVD. BIPH utilize the 3rd generation tubes.

1st generation is currently the most popular type of night vision in the world.

Utilizing the basic principles described earlier, a 1st generation will amplify the existing light several thousand times let-

How Night Vision Works - 1 - Front Lens, 2 – Photocathode, 3 – Micro-channel Plate, 4 High Voltage Power Supply, 5 - Phosphorus Screen 6 - Eyepiece

ting you clearly see in the dark. These units provide a bright and sharp image at a low cost, which is perfect, whether you are boating, observing wildlife, or providing security for home. The following may be noticed when looking through a 1st generation unit: A slight highpitched whine when the unit is on; the image seen may be slightly blurry around the edges which is known as geometric distortion; and when you turn a 1st generation off it may glow green for some time.

2nd generation is primarily used by

law enforcement or for professional applications. This is because the cost of a 2nd generation unit is approximately $500 to $1000 more then a 1st generation. The main difference between a 1st and a 2nd generation unit is the addition of a microchannel plate, commonly referred to as a MCP. The MCP works as an electron amplifier and is placed directly behind the photocathode. The MCP consists of millions of short parallel glass tubes. When the electrons pass through these short tubes, thousands more electrons are released. This extra process allows 2nd gen-

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THE BINOCULAR PHOTON MACHINE

eration units to amplify the light many more times than 1st generation giving a brighter and sharper image.

The primary difference between 2nd and 3rd generation is the photocathode.

2nd generation uses a multi alkali photocathode while 3rd generation uses gallium arsenide providing a significant increase in photoresponse and tube life. Other differences in performance are image tube resolution, tube gain and signal to noise ratio. By adding gallium arsenide to the photocathode, a brighter and sharper image was achieved over the 2nd generation. Additionally, the Micro Channel Plate in the generation 3 is coated with an ion barrier film for increased tube life.

The image intensifier (light intensi-

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60 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

fier tube) is completely self-contained with an integral high-voltage power supply. Equipped with automatic brightness control, this power supply provides constant output image brightness as light levels increase. It also provides bright-source protection to guard the tube against exposure to high levels of light.

The 3rd generation photocathode is very sensitive to low radiation levels of visible and, especially, near infrared light. It also provides very high signal-to-noise ratio for extended detection ranges at very low light levels. The 6-micron channel spacing in the Micro Channel Plate provides exceptional resolution. The MCP has a thin ion-barrier film that preserves photocathode sensitivity during opera-

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tion, thereby greatly extending the life of generation 3 tubes.

Looking through a night vision device, a user may notice black spots on the screen. A night vision device is similar to a television screen and attracts dust and dirt. Typically these spots can be cleaned.

However, this may also be a spot in the tube itself. This is normal. Most tubes will have some spots in them. These black spots will not affect the performance or reliability of the night vision device, however, dark spots will be a distraction if they are large enough or located close to the center of the field of view.

Night Vision Astronomy hand selects 100% clean used tubes for the BIPH and also offers new tubes. While the new tubes are not guaranteed to be clear of dark spots, Night Vision Astronomy uses New Tube Military Specifications for selecting tubes. Dark spot locations are marked in zone 1 (center of field of view), zone 2 or zone 3 which is the outer edge of the field. New Tube Military Specifications allow for 1 spot in zone 2 and another spot in zone 3 that is between 0.006" - .009" and they also allow for 2 spots in zone 2 and 2 spots in zone 3 that are between 0.003" - 0.006". While new tubes are allowed to contain dark spots within military specifications, it does not mean that every new tube Night Vision Astronomy uses has those dark spots. Every tube is different. If the new tube has dark spots, they are within military specifications.

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Removing the Affects of Residual Bulk Image (RBI) at the Sierra Stars Observatory

By Rich Williams

I bought one of the very first ProLine PL09000 CCD cameras with the Kodak KAF-09000 CCD chip manufactured by Finger Lakes Instrumentation (FLI) back in October, 2006. The FLI PL09000 had the best large-area, high-quantum efficiency front-illuminated CCD chip to fit the specifications and our needs for our Sierra Stars Observatory 0.61-meter f/10 Classical Cassegrain telescope.

A 6,100mm (6.1 meter!) focal length telescope produces a large image scale, which requires relatively large pixels to achieve a pixel resolution that does not grossly oversample the image data. The pixel size of the KAF-09000 is 12 microns, which gives a pixel resolution of 0.4 arc-seconds. This pixel resolution oversamples even the best of seeing conditions at our site and we bin the pixels 2x2 to achieve an effective pixel resolution of 0.8 arc-seconds.

This has the added benefit of quadrupling the effective well depth compared to unbinned pixels.

The KAF-09000 chip has a matrix of 3,056 x 3,056 pixels (1,528 x 1,528 pixels binned 2x2). This big CCD chip is 36.7mm x 36.7mm square and even at the large image scale of the 0.61-meter telescope provides a field of view of over 20 x 20 arc-minutes. The chip’s combination of pixel size, area, high-quantum efficiency, and cost made it an ideal choice for our needs at the time and it is in my opinion still the best choice available today.

Another reason for choosing the FLI ProLine camera is that I believe it offered the best cooling in the market. According to the specifications the camera is capable of cooling up to -65C below the ambient temperature depending on the size of the CCD chip. Our camera is consistently capable of maintaining stable temperatures of -60C below the ambient temperature. Also FLI’s technician, Jim Moronski, worked closely with us (even evenings and during the weekend!) to develop the Linux driver we would need for the camera to work with

our observatory control software.

The Discovery of RBI on Images Taken with the SSO Telescope The FLI camera has very low noise in both bias and thermal calibration frames and together with the excellent flat field technique I developed produces very clean, high-quality data. Even so occasionally I would see strange faint persistent ghosts or “smudges” when greatly stretching images searching for faint asteroids or processing images to bring out the faintest and subtlest details in some object for my image gallery.

These affects were intermittent and variable. Because of the care I take in producing the best possible calibration frames I was pretty sure that they were not a cause of the problem. I figured that it must be something inherent in the chip.

My hunch proved to be correct. I read a post by Richard Crisp on the FLI user group forum about his work on Residual Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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REMOVING THE AFFECTS OF RESIDUAL BULK IMAGE (RBI)

Image 1 is a 60-second image of Vega taken with the Sierra Stars Observatory telescope using the FLI PL09000 camera. Even at the fastest exposure times the camera can take (0.01 seconds) Vega is too bright to image without over exposing.

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Image 2 is a 60-second dark frame (shutter closed) taken immediately after the image in Image 1. The ghost image of Vega is clearly visible and pronounced. This artifact would appear in some form in subsequently taken images.

REMOVING THE AFFECTS OF RESIDUAL BULK IMAGE (RBI) The technical description of what causes RBI is rather longer and is best explained by the references at the end of this article.

The good news is that there is a solution for eliminating RBI. If you flood all of the pixels to their maximum well depth (65k+ ADU for the KAF-09000 chip) with a bright light and then flush the pixels by running one or more bias images, you can completely elimiImage 3 is a 60-second dark frame taken immediately after taking another 60-second image of Vega and running the RBIFlush routine nate the RBI residbefore taking the image. The effect of RBI is completely eliminated. ing in the chip. FLI acted quickly on Bulk Image (RBI) affects in CCD chips. He this information and were one of the first explained that RBI was a characteristic of companies to develop a technique to elimcertain types of the new front-illuminated inate the RBI affects in their cameras that CCDs – one of which was the KAF-09000 contain chips susceptible to RBI. Their sochip. In simple terms an RBI is a ghost lution was to add a diode to the cameras to image of a bright area of a previously taken flood the chip with light making some image that is carried over and appears in firmware changes to accommodate this subsequent images. The latent images are change. In addition they created a software caused by electrons trapped in the chip that routine called RBIFlush that sets programcan take time to “bleed off.” The time it mable times for illuminating the diode and takes depends on the temperature of the for setting the number of bias frames to chip. The cooler the chip the fewer electrons flush the electrons from the chip. are trapped and the faster they dissipate.

The compromise for adding this very

important feature is that it adds a few to several seconds of time between images.

However, the FLI Proline cameras have remarkably fast download times and the overall time with the RBI feature implemented is still faster than many camera’s download times for similarly large mega pixel chips.

I bought the SSO ProLine camera before FLI developed the RBI feature and made it a standard feature of their cameras.

I called Greg Torrance at FLI in late spring and asked him if we could update our camera to add the RBI capability. He said that yes they could, but it would require me to send in the camera to do the upgrade and that they would turn it around quickly. Because our camera runs on a Linux-based control system we also needed to have a new Linux driver to run the RBI routine on our system. Once again Jim Moronski at FLI acted quickly and developed and recompiled the RBIFlush code to run on Linux. Steve Ohmert, who does all the Linux programming for SSON projects, developed code to integrate the new RBIFlush routine into our observatory control system.

A quick turnaround to upgrade our camera was very important as our observatory would be down during this time. Because the SSON Rigel telescope in the Winer Observatory in southern Arizona is down from late June into early September for the southwestern U.S. monsoon season, this would mean that SSON would not be able to serve its customers while the SSO camera was being retrofitted. My plan was to wait until Rigel was back up and running so at least one of our observatories was avail-

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REMOVING THE AFFECTS OF RESIDUAL BULK IMAGE (RBI) able to our customers for their projects. Up until then no one seems to have noticed or complained about any affects caused by RBI on our SSO telescope so I figured we could wait until Rigel was back in operation to send in the camera.

Then I received an email from Rob Matson asking me about some artifacts/ smudges in his recent images he got from schedules he ran on our SSO telescope. Rob uses SSON extensively for his asteroid discovery work. Because our SSO telescope is capable of detecting and getting astrometry data of objects 20+ magnitude in 120-second exposures, he is very successful and has discovered 10 new asteroids in the past several months. I checked his images from the night in question and checked what other images were run before his images ran. I found that before Rob’s jobs ran another job in the schedule ran twelve 300-second images of a field with very bright stars, many of which were greatly bloomed. The “smudges” in Rob’s images aligned with positions of the

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brightest stars in the previous images. I knew this was caused from RBI and the repeated exposures reinforced the effect. I emailed Rob to tell him what I found.

Now that RBI was affecting our SSON customers I felt I couldn’t wait until September to upgrade the camera. I called Greg at FLI and arranged to send the camera to their shop during the time around the full moon in July when it would least affect our customers. The turnaround time from sending in the camera and getting it back on the telescope was less than a week. The programming work that Jim and Steve did worked flawlessly the first time I tried imaging with the camera on the sky! After running his first jobs on our SSO telescope with the RBIFlush routine implemented, Rob emailed me to tell me his data was very clean with no hint of RBI. Results of Eliminating RBI on the SSO Telescope The best way to see what a difference

eliminating the affects of RBI has on image quality is to compare images (See Images 1, 2, 3) of a bright object taken with and without using RBIFlush. I used Vega as a test image to clearly demonstrate the effect of RBI. While it is unlikely that anyone will take such long exposures of Vega longer exposures of much dimmer objects can still produce similar RBI ghosts.

For more information about RBI there are several links to point you to more technical information about Residual Bulk Image.

Listed are three here: 1) http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/ residual_bulk_image_ccd_orig_page.htm, 2) http://www.ptbmagazine.com/ features/2009/feat1_0409.html 3) http://www.physics.pdx.edu/~d4eb/ ccd/RevScInstr_73_2002_2028.pdf I’ll be glad to answer any further questions on the subject. You can contact me using the Sierra Stars Observatory Network website at www.sierrastars.com.

SkyVoyager and SkyFi How Astronomy Came to the iPhone: a Personal Story

By Tim DeBenedictis

There was an unusual stretch of warm, clear nights this past January in northern California. During the midst of what should have been our rainy season, a few friends and I took advantage of the unseasonably pleasant weather to observe the winter constellations. I personally hadn’t laid eyes on the Orion Nebula since the 90s, and it was time to check out this and other winter sights again.

I’d brought along my Meade LX-200, my 15-inch MacBook Pro, and copy of Voyager 4.5 to do the driving. (Note: I’m also the principal developer of Voyager these days.) Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I’d tripped over the serial cable connecting my scope to the computer, somehow damaging my USB-serial adapter to the point

where the computer and scope refused to talk to each other again.

Luckily, I had my iPhone with me. I’d been working on an iPhone astronomy app; at this point, it was barely more than a database that could spit back some coordinates when given an object’s name. But that was enough to get us observing again. We could at least manually tell the scope where to point, now that we had the coordinates of the things we wanted to see. The missing piece was a means of actually controlling the telescope with the iPhone. (Punching in all those RAs and Decs on the LX-200's hand controller sure got tedious!)

One of my friends that night, happened to be a software engineer at a well-known Bay Area electronic design firm. “Tim,” he

said, “I could build you a low-cost wirelessto-serial adapter that would let you control that scope with your phone.” I was skeptical, at first, but the more we talked, the more I was convinced that he might just be able to pull it off.

Later that night, my friend and I serendipitously managed to identify a dim red star skimming the trees along the southern horizon. It turned out to be Canopus.

(Canopus! From the latitude of San Francisco!) I took it as sign that the impossible might someday be made real.

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SKYVOYAGER AND SKYFI Bill was a skilled programmer, author of the astronomy freeware program Where is M 13?, and an avid observer. He’d recently endured a family tragedy, during the midst of which his startup company had closed. And he wrote to us offering his services, wondering if we might have some work available.

While we didn’t have the resources to hire a full-time employee, I sorely needed the help on the iPhone project - so I decided to take his offer. It paid off handsomely. By mid-April, we had an iPhone application that, despite some rough edges, worked well enough to show at the NEAF symposium outside New York City.

Left: Closeup of the Summer Triangle and Milky Way. Right: Wide-field view of the Eastern horizon.

Hard Times Bring the Unexpected By the beginning of March, 2009, the recession had started to get really scary. As we watched the Dow sink below 8,000; then 7,000; then 6,500, our project became a motivator for us - it was something positive to focus on, as the world around us appeared to be coming apart at the seams. Even nontechnical friends began to take an interest, as all of the possible uses for the device we were building became apparent. The iPhone app generated a lot of interest as well, as mo-

bile computing - and Apple’s platforms in particular - seemed to be the one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy sea of dismal economic news.

I’d made some progress on my iPhone app, and my friend had completed some proof-of-concept experiments on his WiFito-serial box. But it was clear to both of us that we had a lot more work ahead than we’d bargained for.

Serendipity struck again, in the form of an out-of-the-blue email from Bill Tschumy, one of our “power users” at Carina Software.

Astronomy on the iPhone Done Right We called the iPhone application SkyVoyager - a nod to the venerable Voyager desktop software upon which much of its code was based. Getting Voyager’s 15-yearold code base to run on the iPhone proved challenging. Apple required us to rewrite much of our code in its ideosyncratic Objective-C language. Moreover, the iPhone and its “phone-free” counterpart, the iPod Touch, have roughly the computing horsepower of a desktop PC from the mid-1990s - a far cry from the 2+ GHz multi-core CPUs I’m used to having at my disposal.

(For those new to Apple’s mobile platforms, think of the iPod Touch as the iPhone without the phone - it has the high-resolution multi-touch screen, the WiFi internet capability, and can run all the apps; but does not

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SKYVOYAGER AND SKYFI

Left: SkyVoyager's database information for the Hercules Cluster.

Right: Scope control interface, pointing the telescope at M 13.

make phone calls, nor incur any monthly billing charges.)

Despite the hardware limitations, we managed to get all of the following into SkyVoyager: • Every major planet and moon in the solar system (counting Pluto, which we “grand fathered” in despite its demotion in 2006); • Several hundred asteroids, comets, and satellites; including the ability to down load new orbit data from the Minor

Planet Center and Celestrak.com; • 312,800 stars to roughly 10th magnitude, with data from the SKYMAP, Hipparcos, Washington Double Star, and GCVS catalogs; • 32,000 deep sky objects to mag. 15; including the entire NGC and IC catalogs; • Axel Mellinger’s all-sky Milky Way panorama; • 382 Solar System images, deep sky object photographs, and constellation

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SKYVOYAGER AND SKYFI prints, all nicely formatted to fill the iPhone's screen; • More than 1,000 descriptive essays of various astronomical objects and topics; including the illustrated introduction to basic astronomical concepts from the SkyGazer desktop software that we bundle with Benjamin Cummings' college astronomy textbooks.

SkyVoyager became a complete astronomy field reference, small enough to fit in your pocket, yet containing far more data

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than the Peterson Field Guide or Norton’s Star Atlas. Unlike a printed atlas, SkyVoyager has the ability to dynamically display the sky from anywhere on Earth, at any time in the current or previous century, with sub-arc-second precision and colorful detail.

In early June, I took a week away from six months of frenetic work to rejuvenate on the remote southern coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. One especially satisfying moment on that trip was watching the full Moon rise over the Pacific, not far from brilliant Alpha and

Beta Centauri, and the Southern Cross - all exactly as predicted, and depicted, by SkyVoyager running on my iPhone.

Apple finally released SkyVoyager for sale on the iPhone app store the day we got back from Hawaii. As of this writing, it has yet to receive anything less than a 5-star review. I can't thank Bill Tschumy enough for taking the chance to write to us at what must have been a tremendously difficult time - and for delivering fantastically inspired work in the weeks after.

SKYVOYAGER AND SKYFI

SkyVoyager with SkyFi in use at the telescope.

The Development of SkyFi SkyVoyager has one more ability which, as of this writing, is also unique among iPhone astronomy applications: it can control (most) GoTo telescopes. In order to do this, it needs some way to relay commands from the iPhone or iPod’s WiFi to the serial port on the telescope. SkyFi is that relay.

Early on in the development of SkyFi, we looked at the other WiFi-to-serial adapters available on the market. Most of

them were designed for industrial applications, and hence difficult to use, and/or prohibitively expensive. None of them were battery-powered, and therefore not appropriate for field use.

We also considered bluetooth. While bluetooth was intended to be the wireless successor to serial communication, bluetooth devices have a reputation for being notoriously flaky, and requiring difficult-to-configure drivers. Bluetooth hardware is not standard across most laptops

or mobile devices; WiFi, on the other hand, has been near-universal for many years.

Bluetooth doesn't have the range or bandwidth that WiFi allows. WiFi uses standard TCP/IP networking protocols; since TCP/IP is the language of the Internet, our solution potentially allows a telescope to be remote-controlled over the internet - something bluetooth was never designed for. The final nail in the coffin for bluetooth was that at the time we started developing SkyVoyager, Apple’s iPhone OS did not allow 3rd-party applications to access the iPhone’s built-in bluetooth hardware. It simply wasn’t an option for us.

We managed to get our first SkyFi prototype working in April, after a long night involving many cups of coffee. We were successfully issuing GoTo commands to my Meade ETX telescope from my iPhone, and watching the scope FOV bull’s-eye indicator march across the screen. It was quite a relief, since I was scheduled to get on a plane to New York City for NEAF the next morning.

As with all complex technical projects, you don’t always get everything right the first time. Our biggest hurdle turned out to be the FCC. Despite its low-power transmission, our first prototype just didn’t ... quite ... pass. The redesign which resulted from our initial failure turned out to have much better range, greater bandwidth, and flew past FCC noise testing requirements.

The redesign also gave us a chance to in-

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SKYVOYAGER AND SKYFI clude some niceties that we’d left out of the original prototype, such as a two-color status LED, and a much more compact RJ-11style serial connector.

SkyFi, Materialized By the time you read this, our revised SkyFi adapter should be well into the advanced production phase. Here is an overview of the product that has taken shape.

• SkyFi is very compact, barely larger than an iPhone. It can be easily attached to your telescope’s mount or tripod; a strip of double-sided Velcro is included for that purpose.

• SkyFi accepts four AA batteries, and has a typical battery life of 8 to 12 hours under continuous use. SkyFi can also be powered from an external source, like a car battery or a wall socket. Power adapters for both AC (120V, 60Hz) wall socket input and DC (9-12V,

70 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

1.2A) cigarette-lighter socket input are available.

• Once powered on, SkyFi creates its own 802.11 wireless network. By default, this is an open wireless network called “SkyFi”, but you can rename it and password-protect it later on. Join this network from your iPhone, laptop, or other computer, and - voila! - you’re ready to use SkyFi. As long as your computer or iPhone gets its IP address

by DHCP, no additional network configuration is required.

• You can use SkyFi with your WiFienabled laptop or desktop computer, as well as with an iPhone. Our Voyager 4.5 software, running on a Mac or PC can also talk to your telescope wirelessly, using the computer’s built-in WiFi. The final revision of SkyFi is innovative enough to have received provisional patent protection (and as of this writing, a utility patent is also pending).

The Future, and the Dream Something notably apparent at many star parties is that most of the attendees are middle-aged or retired. Amateur astronomy is need of fresh faces. I find that young people today are just as fascinated by the night sky and the cosmic questions that it inspires as any generation before – yet people today don’t seem to go out and actually look at the stars as often as they did even a generation ago. Perhaps it’s because we tend to live in increasingly light-polluted cities; perhaps two decades of computer-generated animations have jaded our appreciation of reality; but whatever the case, amateur astronomy today seems to have become the pursuit of a grayer generation.

At the same time, as mobile computing has become an increasingly prevalent part of our daily lives, people have become increasingly attached to their phones. We use them dozens of times a day, creating an attachment which becomes unexpectedly personal.

Whether you are in iPhone user, or an Android person, or a Palm user, or a Blackberry user, is almost a character trait. Mobile devices have made the world an increasingly connected place, and will only become smarter – and more ubiquitous – in the future.

My greatest hope is that products like SkyVoyager and SkyFi help bridge to gap between these two opposing trends. By putting a complete guide to the night in the pockets of millions of people, we hope to spread awareness - and enjoyment - about the universe in which we live. Every night, a countless number of people look up and ask, “what’s that?” SkyVoyager, and smart phones in general, give them the ability to answer that question, using a device which is ubiquitously available, and intimately familiar.

Will this vision actually come to pass? I don’t know. It will take time. But maybe not that much time - only six months ago we were standing on a hilltop, wondering how we could see the stars better, using just what we had in our pockets.

ASTRO TIPS tips, tricks and novel solutions

Laptop Dew Shield/Storage Box

By Wes Atchison I was looking for a cardboard box to use as a dew shield for my then new laptop. I ask my wife if we had any boxes that would work.

She suggested a plastic storage box she had recently purchased but found to be too large for her application.

The box turned out to be a great dew shield but also a storage container for those astronomical accessories that we all tend to find necessary for an observing/imaging session. It also serves as a light shield so you are a good neighbor at star parties. I do use a red acrylic plastic sheet to cover the laptop display but the box helps any stray light from bothering others. The storage box I use is made by Rubbermaid. It measures 27-inxh x 19-inch x 17-inch approximately. Choose the box size to fit your laptop size. The storage box was purchased at Target but many places sell similar boxes.

The storage box does not have a flat surface inside so I added a thin piece of fiber board for the laptop and mouse to set on when used as a dew shield. Fiberboard can be purchased at any place that sells building materi-

Submit Your Astro Tip! Astronomy Technology Today regularly features tips, tricks, and other novel solutions. To submit your tip, trick, or novel solution, email the following information: • A Microsoft Word document detailing your tip, trick or novel solution. • A hi-resolution digital image in jpeg format (if available).

Please send your information to tips@astronomytechnologytoday.com

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als. There are two versions of fiberboard, one with holes for use as a peg board for hangers to be installed and the other with no holes.

I use a miniature mouse and a 15-inch laptop. Placement of the laptop to one side so the space for the mouse can be adjusted to fit your needs. The storage box is held to my scope operating table with bungee cords wrapped around and connected to the table legs and supports. The lip of the storage box is placed over the edge of the table to keep it from sliding backward. I decided not to cut holes for cables in the storage box so it could still be used for storage and to keep dust off items inside. The cables for the laptop are placed around the lip of the box and under the edge so the fiber board bottom (see picture). This helps hold the cables in place.

I added a stick-on red LED flashlight to the top of the storage box with Velcro to illuminate the keyboard. During the day I remove the flashlight since the heat of the sun tends to cause the adhesive on the Velcro to

give way. I do not have a permanent telescope setup so when I put my equipment in the back yard it is similar to doing so at a star party. I leave the scope and table with the storage box setup. During the day I install the lid on storage box to keep dust out. I usually remove my laptop so that I can process images taken the night before.

The heat produced by the laptop and trapped by the storage box keeps everything inside dry. When observing/imaging sessions are over I remove the laptop and place the storage box lid over the front of the box to keep moisture and dust out of the box.

I find this an inexpensive, multiple use approach to a dew shield and storage container. As a storage container the box helps me keep astronomy items organized and during travel reduces damage to these items. Another unexpected benefit is that I get to the observing site with everything in the box.

I hope this helps stir thoughts for others in the search for a dew shield for laptops.

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