Denkmeier Spectrum 60 PST Upgrade

Just notice that, you can go to Denkmeier website for some more information.

For a $599 upgrade, it is not bad, however, if you take Lunt's into the equation, such "hack" is not a good deal immediately. Of course, PST hacking by end user is still a very promising and viable way, but then it's not really so if you limit yourself to 60mm ONLY.

Of course, not everyone would be happy with a DIY hacking job, especially when you're doing that with a solar telescope. In that case, this latest offering might be attractive still.

Let's see how it works out, I'm sure that it's going to work out well, but considering the price and competiting product, we really need to be go one more step to be success in this complex market.

Items wanted

After selling a number of equipments, now I want the following, and if you happen to have any of them for sales, please contact me:

1. Canon 100mm f2.0
2. Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L
3. TMB Planteary eyepiece 4mm
4. Takahashi FS60C Clamshell only

Equipments come and go!

Goodbye my hacked PST

It was sold eventually. This is a final record about how I packed it and how to use it, this is more like a note for myself so that if I want to make another one in the future, I will know how to do so, and it's also a note for the new owner.

First of all, it is how a fully assembled PST should look like. The etalon is sandwiched between the golden OTA and the black focuser body, the black focuser body also contains the built-in solar finder and the visual back. The visual back is also some sort of blocking filter, but I found that it couldn't be used as an alternative of BF5/BF10.


This is how the etalon should be placed between the adapters. The etalon should be inserted into the focuser of the scaled up telescope, and the other end should be fitted with a BF5, BF10 or BF15 before a camera can be inserted.

Notice that this scaled up setup should be used for imaging only, visual usage could be quite dangerous and it is not recommended. Never risk our eye.


I have packed the PST black body into a pink box fitted with peanuts... this metal block is very strong by itself and it should be safe for transportation.

Next, I have bubble wrapped the etalon with its adapters, the PST visual back, the PST keller and also the 52mm bonus ERF in another box.

Finally, this is the 6.5" ERF, I used it like this... but in order to avoid the screws from being bended during transportation, I have removed those screws and placed in inside a small plastic bag. The recessed locations are used to lock the ring with the OTA...


Since this is the biggest piece of glass, I have packed it, and then surrounded it with some big foam in the hope to give better protection, then the whole monster is bubble warpped further like below.

Everything is then placed in a box filled with peanuts inside a bigger box like below. BTW, I have included a bonus piece of heat absorbing glass in the package, but it is not required for the setup, of course, it might be useful someday if you found your setup too hot? Anyway, it's there and if you found it useless, just throw it away.

The whole package will be shipped via airmail in the post office, the tracking number has been email'ed to the new owner.

And finally, here is a list of summary which one might find useful to use a hacked PST setup:

http://osastrolog.blogspot.com/search/label/pst - this is my adventure with this project
http://oldfield.sinaman.com/star/projects/cerf.html - my log of experiments
http://www.dd1us.de/Downloads/Modification%20of%20a%20Coronado%20PST%200v6.pdf - another very useful document

Last but not least, solar observation or imaging could be very dangerous, so in any case if you have question, don't risk and try to ask first. Irreversible damage could occur and thus, take no risk. Good luck to the new owner and I believe that it's going to receive more sunshine than it was with me, I simply couldn't use this big setup for most of the time from inside my home.

Jogging under the stars

I live in the urban center of Hong Kong. Other than the strong light pollution and air pollution, there are just too many tall buildings around so that the amount of visible sky is very narrow and scattered.

Recently, I have developed a new hobby in night time - jogging. Around an hour after my dinner, I would walk for ~10 minutes to a playground to have some jogging. That playground gives a much wider field of view, and the sky is a little bit darker there as well. While I am jogging, I would look up (guess what, this is a "signature" of amateur astronomer) to see what's in the sky. When the sky is clear, I could identify some constellations. And while I'm jogging slowly, I also notice that the stars are "moving" slowly as well. The stars pattern shift a little bit from night to night, and occassionally due to my schedule, I needed to go out later, but then I would soon notice the difference!

The stars are jogging with me, and they're telling me the time. The time of the day and the time of the year. Stars keep moving and life should keep moving. They know where they're going and I know why I'm jogging too. When we're getting older, we just need a little bit more physical exercise. I would go home after each jogging session and the stars were at their home forever (compared to human lifespan), moving and telling us the history of the universe.

I found that I love all sorts of natural activities at night, camping, hiking and now jogging, guess what, they all originated from my love to the night sky!

20090701 Sun

It's pretty sunny today, solar activities remain low. Seeing 3/10, transparency 8/10. Solarmax 40 with BF10 fitted on Tele Vue Ranger, DMK 31AF03 was used for imaging and the whole setup tracked on a Meade LXD55.

1637 (GMT+8):-


1641 (GMT+8), with 5x Powermate:-


1642 (GMT+8), with 5x Powermate:-

Jupiter in place!

Early this morning at around 4:30am, I could see the Jupiter hanging outside in favourable location from my home window.

But it was pretty cloudy so I guess that it could be hard to take any shot, so I gave up.

The bottomline is, when the sky gets better, I could!

20090630 Sun

I have waited for so long... finally got a short moment of clear sky! The sun looked featureless today, but on close up, we always have something. I told myself, there is no featureless sun indeed... :-)

Telescope: Tele Vue Ranger
Filter: Coronado Solarmax 40 with BF10
Camera: DMK 31AF03.AS
Mount: Meade LXD55
Barlows: Tele Vue 5x Powermate (for close up only)

1559 (GMT+8):-


1604 (GMT+8), close up with 5x barlows, I zoomed in only due to the filament, but I found it is indeed a tiny active area:-


So much fun!

20090629 Waiting for blue sky

Patches of blue sky are around, but just not in the direction of the sun. Telescope was setup but waiting... finally I gave up since the wind was getting strong. I only managed to get the scope roughly focused.

Equipment time:-

1. I pulled out my Ranger to reinforce the connection to the 410 head quick release plate, by removing the original focuser, I also removed its dovetail for mounting, I've yet to find a better way to mount my Ranger. I measured it to be 3" in diameter. Time to hunt for good mounting rings or clamshell.

2. TG-SP II mounted on window frame: this is just a test of concept. I found that the L bracket for locking the window frame pretty suitable for a test, so I mounted the TG-SP II wedge on it, it's simple. Of course, this thin plate is insufficient to support the whole mount plus the telescope, etc.

What I learned from this proof of concept is that, I probably need a thicker plate for this purpose, and I probably need a longer plate so that I could use the 3/8" hole rather than the 1/4" hole. Time to put the mount on the wedge, and this is a test shot:-

Guess what, the whole thing keeps vibrating. And as I can see from this test of concept exercise, I would still need an offset plate in order for the Ranger to reach far enough outside to catch some sunshine during the summer.

That brass gear is part of the undergoing project about motorizing the DEC, I still need to figure out how to mount the motor in a suitable position. By handhelding the motor in the position, I found the small motor is just enough to drive the DEC knob, the bigger motor should be far better but the gear is not big enough so that there is insufficient room for the motor body plus the gear box.

3. TG-SP II project: the newly ordered gears do not match well with my existing one, and none is big enough to allow me to use the big motors. Now, I could:

- fall back to use shaft coupler, but this would cause balance issue
- order some more gears and two more small motors... so I would use all small motors

The first option is cheaper, and the second option is neat but more expensive (need to sink $50 more just for the hardware)... both would need assistance from "the" local folk

--

I have just finished my dinner and saw the moon hanging outside, so I setup my Ranger in the hope to have a look of the moon, and mabe take some snapshots... Unluckily, after I pointed to my target, it was soon covered.

Finally, I got around 100s of cloud free moments...



Ranger at prime focus, DMK 31AF03.AS, everything on Meade LXD55.

And I'm very happy since Registax runs much faster than before, and dual core CPU really allow you to multitask... before that, when I was Registax'ing, I could only turn off my LCD and wait, and now I can still do something else without any noticeable slow down.

Equipment re-organizations

It's cloudy, typhoon comes and goes and that's why I remained silent for so long. Glad that you are still here around reading this.

For some amateur astronomers, after several years in the hobby, we might begin to buy and sell. First of all, our observation habits might change, let say from visual to photographic, from deep sky to solar observation, from highly portable to bigger aperture, etc. That would push you to sell and buy something else. Secondly, we might make wrong buying decision, we would also need to sell. Thirdly, when you reached a certain critical investment, you will not pour too much extra money so that you can control yourself, and in that case, you will also need to sell. And there are far more reasons to buy and sell. Therefore, equipment trading seems part of the life of some amateur astronomers. Yes, if you're a regular visitor to astromart or similar website, you will probably agree with me.

Recently with the change of my life style, I did quite a lot of selling and buying. In terms of astronomy, I'm even more "portable" mind now and I spent far more time on solar imaging than anything else. Basically I know what is my cup of tea right now and thus some equipments which I found useful once upon a time, now I found them less valuable to me. Selling them will give me some cash so that I could buy something else.

Equipment trading could be great in another sense. Somehow when you found the need to sell, you will choose between your gears. Which of them are truely useful to you?

A question which pops up from astronomy forums regularly. It's something like which telescope would you settle if you're allowed to own only one of them? Which single (or up to three) eyepiece you would keep if you're allowed to keep a certain number of them only?

You will not be able to answer these questions in a very real manner unless you're going to do that in real life!

Another source for gears (TG-SP II project)

http://www.surplussales.com/ShaftHardware/ShaftH-11.html

I just ordered a couple of gears from the above surplus supplier. It includes a small one with 1/8" bore which should fit my small 6V 10RPM motor which I might use for motorizing the RA manual knob of my TG-SP II, and it also includes another set of two. For that set, they have 1/4" bore so that one of them could fit the RA manual knob of my TG-SP II, thus working with the first gear as a pair. The second one of the set would be used on a bigger 12V 5RPM motor which I will be using it for motorizing the DEC of my TG-SP II.

Both motors were tested to work with the motor controller box which I've finished yesterday. Adding a ST4 style autoguider jack for this controller box would require a simple pull-up resistor so it's very simple indeed. However, I will not go this step until I've the chance to get a guiding adapter like Shoestring GPUSB or a guiding camera, but then I believe that I won't go this step in short term since I will not go for longer than 200mm.

Someone offered to buy my 9mm Meade reticle, so I will not be doing manual guiding via eyepiece afterward, instead, I will guide manually via my DMK with a CCTV lens by looking at the video output rather than the eyepiece.