Mars offers a surprisingly good view

I had a rare, and I do mean rare, break in the weather Wednesday night that permitted another peek at mighty Mars. Now I must admit, Mars doesn’t do much for me. I can recall the opposition in 2003 with great fondness, but other then that, it really is only a quick peak object for me. I had one opportunity a few weeks back to take a look at the planet, and I do recall how surprised I was at how much the polar cap popped into view. But alas, I only stayed on it for a few moments and packed up my ETX-LS, somewhat disappointed overall in the observing session since the seeing seemed poor for that night.

Now we come to Wednesday, and I decided that the weather was not going to hold up much and not worth the effort of driving to my normal observing spot to setup the ETX-LS and all the “extras” that are needed to setup a computerized GOTO telescope. I thus declined that endeavor, and instead took out my beloved Orion 6″ Intelliscope dob for the quick peek fix I was looking for. Having buildings, trees, and a streetlight filling most of my view around my apartment, I had one small break, just above me at the Zenith, that permits me to view Mars. I took the scope outside to permit it to cool down, and after about 30 minutes, went of to see what the night held in store for me. I was also exited to test out the new Meade 8.8 and 14mm UWA eyepieces I had. It’s been almost two months since they arrived, and only 2 extremely brief and disappointing occasions to test them out. Tonight was going to be brief, I knew that since the satellite photos showed the high clouds coming my way, but at least it seemed like some steady air.

I was pleasantly surprised when the small but sharp image of Mars came into focus with the 14mm. Indeed an 82 degree eyepiece is like looking into space through a port-hole. Confident that the nights seeing permitted higher power, I popped in the 8.8mm UWA. Snap to focus, and there was Mars, crisp and clean, with noticeable detail. The mare was very easy to make out, and the polar cap seemed to extend further then I had recalled from my previous view. The mare located just south of the polar cap took up nearly half of the hemisphere, with a disconnect at the equator, before a slightly dimmer mare took over, and this one seemed to extend almost the entire southern hemisphere of the planet, with a slight break just about mid-way. A wonderful view.

For just about an hour, I swapped in different eyepieces and barlow combination’s, but I rested on the 8.8 UWA and my trusty 12.5 PL, both provided nice views. The 8.8 barlowed gave me about 277x magnification, and a nice image scale, but I lost out a bit on the contrast with the dimmer view. The 12.5 PL barlowed seemed to show the most detail in moments of steady air, but most of the time I spent with just the 8.8mm. Its sharp image and generous field of view were something that I was not use to having before, and I took in the view for as long as I could, before those pesky high clouds rubbed out most of the image.

I really came to appreciate Mars that evening. I also came to appreciate how nice it is to have a 82 degree eyepiece for a dobsonian, since it permitted more time to view the object before I had to nudge the scope and center in the object back in the field of view. I’m looking forward to better weather, not only to further test out the new Meade eyepieces, which by last nights indication are going to be wonderful, but also to revisit the Red Planet to tease out more detail. I miss Jupiter, but thankful that Mars can offer some intriguing sights as well when the seeing permits.

Meade ETX-LS Review – Part 3 – Computerized mount and final thoughts

This is the final part of my three part review of the Meade ETX-LS. Part one focused on my initial impressions, which included my opinion on the physical characteristics and the initial GOTO capabilities of the ETX-LS. Part two focused on the optical performance of the ETX-LS. For this final part, I’ll give you my summary of the overall experience of using the GOTO mount with its unique alignment and multimedia capabilities. Finally I’ll wrap up with my final thoughts on the ETX-LS itself.

Automatic alignment, how did it work?

Meade really came out with an innovative approach to alignment of an astronomical telescope. We all remember the original LX200 and of course the revolutionary ETX-90, the scope that arguably changed the face of amateur astronomy. So what makes the Meade ETX-LS so unique? The fact that it can align itself, without the need for the end-user to search for alignment stars, center and continue the step a second time until a successful alignment is achieved. It accomplishes this with 2 key features; GPS and the Eclipse CCD. Now GPS is nothing new to telescopes, its been around for a few years at least. But what sets the ETX-LS apart is the incorporation of the innovative Eclipse CCD camera to the bottom of the OTA and using this in conjunction with the GPS. Let me review how the scope performs its typical alignment process so you can understand how they all work together.

Once the scope is turned on, your greeted by the “Astronomer Inside”. The “Astronomy Inside” gives you a brief introduction to the ETX-LS, and almost literally informs you each step of the way during the alignment process. First up is raising the OTA horizontal, and acquiring the GPS, so that the telescope has its location and time. From its acquisition of position and time, it can then find level, find north, and then it proceeds to do the two star alignment, all by its lonesome self. It performs this alignment by literally pointing the telescope in the general vicinity of the first alignment star, and takes an exposure of the sky with the Eclipse CCD I mentioned earlier. Using software and image processing, it can then determine how far off the alignment star is by comparing the image to where the telescope is actually pointing. It then makes the necessary physical corrections, and repeats imaging until the alignment star is completely centered. Once the first star is aligned, it repeats those steps on the second alignment star. Once it has acquired and processed the images of this second alignment star, the scope is ready for use. It is really something to watch, and a thrill when you walk up to the eyepiece to view your first object, without ever touching the telescope other than to turn it on and to tell it the first object you wish to view. Once aligned, I found that objects were consistently placed within the field of view of the included 26mm eyepiece, with the exception on a few occasions of Jupiter. When I chose Jupiter as my very first target a couple of evenings, it placed it just outside the field of view. I later found that choosing a deep-sky target first, and performing a sync function when its centered will improve the GOTO accuracy quite a bit. I recall an evening that I used the ETX-LS to observing double-stars, and each and every time, for about 15 targets, the ETX-LS placed them all almost dead center in the field of view of my 12.5mm PL eyepiece.

The time for the whole alignment process to complete varied somewhat during my observing sessions. On a few impressive occasions, I was viewing my first targets within 10 minutes from turning the telescope on. On most occasions, I was observing within 10-15 minutes. But then there were the occasions that the GPS signal was not received, and on those occasions, I was observing within 10-20 minutes, depending on how fast I manually entered my location and time. On all the locations that I experienced the GPS issue where it could not find a satellite, I simply entered my location, date, time and then allowed the normal automatic alignment process to proceed normally. Now most of you know that the GPS has been the main issue with the ETX-LS, and I have certainly had my share of experiencing this inconvenience. However, its vital that you understand that the GPS will NOT prevent you from using the ETX-LS, as I have read within other posts and even some other reviews. Yes, I know, the fully automatic alignment process is the main feature of the telescope, but like I said in part one of my review, at least you have the reassurance in the fact that you can enter location, date and time manually and still get to observing even with the GPS or the CCD not working. You can even accomplish this by performing a fully manual alignment process without any automatic alignment of the CCD imaging. I have used that feature 2 times for the purpose of testing and it worked fine. I would also suspect that there are going to be times when using the automatic alignment process is simply not applicable. I can foresee moments when there are significant light sources, such as during an outreach session near a shopping plaza or such, that will pose too much glare for the ETX-LS and the Eclipse CCD camera to overcome in order to get a successful exposure of the sky for it to pick up the alignment stars. It’s those moments that the manual alignment is simply more practical. Now back to the GPS issues.

I experienced a 50% success rate on the GPS, so of my ten observing sessions, five had GPS and five did not. Of the five that did not get a successful GPS, two of those sites were completely unique sites, meaning I had never traveled to those sites before to observe. One was in Maryland, and the other local to my home in middle Tennessee. I wish that there was some way for you to know if you have a strong GPS signal or not when you initially turn the telescope on. Currently you get almost no indication of GPS satellite signal, in fact, all I have seen was “Acquiring satellites = 0″. It simply disappears when you have a successful satellite link. Maybe this is a factor or not, but all of my observing sessions with the ETX-LS were in cold weather, so I’d be interested to know if during the spring and summer months the intermittent GPS issues still occur. I have to post updates during the warmer weather in the months ahead and let you know if anything changes with the GPS failure rates or not.

It’s also worthy to note that I updated the firmware to 1.2 as soon as the scope arrived, but the GPS issues still occurred. I did however notice that this firmware appeared to improve the speed of the GPS acquisition when it was successfully located. Meade has since introduced firmware 1.3, but I have not had the opportunity to test if this update would improve the GPS acquisition or not. It’s also important to note that folks that have had the GPS issues and have had to engage Meade support have all commented extremely favorably on how Meade has resolved the problems, in some instances replacing the entire telescope.  Meade seems very eager to resolve them quickly, as they should.

AutoStar and the AutoStar Suite

The AutoStar Suite is included with the ETX-LS, and includes a planetarium software, drivers to control the ETX-LS via a USB interface, and the AutoStar Update program, to facilitate updating the ETX-LS firmware.  I know this is not really part of the ETX-LS, but worth mentioning I think. I would really love to see Meade update its AutoStar Suite software, it has a very early 90’s feel to it. It’s certainly usable, but its user interface is somewhat difficult to utilize and thus could use some improvements in my opinion. The AutoStar Suite also permits the telescope to be controlled by your computer via a USB cable. I tested this feature one night and it worked fine. I also tested controlling the ETX-LS with AstroPlanner and Cartes Du Ciel, and both worked as well. I was really excited to find a program that permits the interfacing of the ETX-LS or any other AutoStar telescope with Stellarium, but I had some issues with this and need to do further researching, after all it is an open-source program. The AutoStar Update program wasn’t bad, I was able to update to v1.2 firmware from USB cable fairly easy. However, I still have not been able to load a custom observing tour, that’s getting a bit frustrating since it seems like such a wonderful feature. I’ll have to continue to research this issue, and get back to you.

Using the AutoStar controller on the ETX-LS is very straight forward. The display was bright and readable even in cold weather, although you do need to play around a bit with tilting the controller to get the optimum viewing angle. I wish you didn’t have to go through so many keystrokes and menu’s sometimes to select your objects, but it was at least an intuitive menu. I also wish it had a dedicated Double-Star list that you could view based on constellations. The closest feature that I found was the “Walk the Stars” feature in the Constellations sub-menu. This feature was a blast to use. Selecting a constellation of your choice, you can scroll through the stars of a particular constellation. They are not necessarily double-stars however, but basically stars of interest, such as the constellations brightest or best multiple and double-stars, so some additional scrolling is necessary. Using this feature, I chanced upon what is now one of my favorite multiple-stars, Sigma Orionis. As someone that is increasingly interested in double-stars, you can see how having the ability to upload a custom observing tour for double-stars would be a great feature, so hopefully I can get that working and report back to you.

The Astronomer Inside

One of the most exciting aspects of the ETX-LS is its multimedia capability. The “Astronomer Inside” feature was informative and downright fun and interesting to use. I can recall one evening during an outreach program that someone had asked how many satellites Jupiter had. I knew it was a lot, but I could not recall the exact number. I hit the media button on my AutoStar controller, and through the speaker the “Astronomer Inside” ran down a number of facts on our largest planet, and guess what, one of the first facts was the number of discovered satellites. I really think the  folks that came up to view through the ETX-LS enjoyed the informative presentations, and so did I. It was then I wished I had the 3.5 inch display that Meade recently introduced, it would have added to the experience for those at the eyepiece. That was a memorable night, I talked with many people and they really got a kick out of the ETX-LS. The views were great, and the media descriptions it had available for almost all of the objects we viewed were very informative. I could talk to people in line and answer questions, help those at the eyepiece and at the same time have the ability to play a description of the object from the ETX-LS. I’ve been into astronomy since 1993, and even I found it useful and interesting to use.

Final Thoughts

If someone was to ask me to describe, in one word, my experience thus far with the ETX-LS, the word would be fun, even considering the intermittent GPS issues. The GPS issues have certainly tarnished the reputation a bit on the ETX-LS, but I can see over the last couple of months from forum posts that Meade seems to have made some significant changes that appear to resolve or at least diminish the GPS issues for the most part. I don’t think the newer models will experience the same issues, Meade has too much riding on this feature.

The automatic alignment and “Astronomer Inside” features may not be everyone, it really depends on your budget for a new telescope, your experience level and some personal preferences on how you observe. For instance, if your a solitary observer and a walking astronomy encyclopedia, then the multimedia capabilities are probably not up your alley. For me, the multimedia features are a very nice addition to a telescope. Also note that the telescope is not designed with long-exposure astrophotography in mind, although it can do limited astrophotography, so your money could be put towards an instrument more specialized for that purpose.

I’m very happy with its GOTO accuracy, and it’s absolutely a thrill to watch the scope automatically align itself. I’m reassured by its versatility of being able to manually enter location and time or even do a fully manually alignment of the telescope if the situation calls for it. Optically, I’m very happy with the ETX-LS as well, and hope to do a future comparison of it to a competitors 6″ model. The AutoStar has some nice capabilities, in particular the “Best of” tours and “Walking the Stars”. The “Astronomer Inside” is not a gimmick, but a real fun element to the ETX-LS, and I hope to one day add the external display to get the full multimedia capability of this innovative feature. The AutoStar Suite is in need of changes, but it’s still useful and its very cool to control the telescope from the computer, however other programs work much better. Meade needs to resolve the inability to upload custom tours to the ETX-LS via the AutoStar Updater program, this is a great feature that I would love to use in the future.

The ETX-LS is one fun telescope, yet it is still a serious instrument for amateurs as well. It has lots of potential and I’m looking forward to sharing many nights with this telescope, and even more so sharing its unique capabilities with others.

Big blob and faint fuzzies. I wonder if they got it?

I traveled to visit family this Thanksgiving Holiday, like most folks I suppose. Since I decided to drive, I decided to bring along the ETX-LS. I thought it would be great to have my family take a look through the scope, since I knew they probably have never looked through a telescope before.

Saturday night was clear, but Thursday and Friday were both extremely windy days in Maryland, so my expectation level for the seeing was low. After dinner and socializing, it was about 8pm, and I took the scope out in the brisk weather to allow whomever was willing to take a look at the Moon, Jupiter, and some other deep-sky targets of my choosing. Jupiter at this time was not optimal for viewing, being low in the southwest, but I decided to give it a try anyway. I knew that they would at least get to see the North and South Equatorial cloud bands, moons etc. Well, the final focused image proved to me that this was too high of an expectation, because the seeing was so horrible, that not even the cloud bands could be completely resolved. You had a single, dark fuzzy line, and below that a hint of another fuzzy line as the planet danced in the eyepiece. I was a bit shocked to say the least, I have NEVER in all my years NOT been able to at least discern cloud bands on Jupiter. A huge let down overcame me, as I asked my sister to take a look through the eyepiece. As she walked up, I told her not to expect much, because unfortunatly the image was horrilbe. I wanted so much to show them what all this astronomy stuff was all about. I mean they call me all the time, they have a fair idea that astronomy is something that I really love, and spend allot of time doing it, almost every clear night. But circumstances worked against me this night, and I could tell as she stepped away from the eyepiece, that in her mind she was thinking “He spends his time and money looking at this stuff?”. In reality, she stepped back and said that she expected the image to be much better. I told her I agreed, and explained how the atmosphere, and how low Jupiter was at the time, was effecting the image. I recalled for her a memorable night a month or so back in Tennessee that permitted me to see about 7 belts and bands on Jupiter. I felt as if I was speaking for all amateur astronomers, trying to convince the skeptics that we REALLY do see some extremely cool things. Why else would we spend thousands of dollars and all night outside in 30 degree weather, to view blobs or faint fuzzies? Reality check, I guess we really do I though, now moving on.

Being that Jupiter was a huge let down, I turned the telescope to the Moon. Of course the Moon is an impressive site in any telescope, and I’m glad that they all seemed to have enjoyed the view. But Jupiter would have and should have been the object that stole the show, I was still very disappointed. I turned the scope to Albireo, also very low, but they did get to see the different colors stars may have. Next was M2, a fuzzy ball to them, but I explained that the fuzzy ball was the combined light of about 100,000 stars reaching their eyes, and that was kind of cool to them. An NGC planetary that was small and washed out in the light of the nearly full moon, I let the ETX-LS explain that one, they got a huge kick that the telescope “talks”. Then we went to the open clusters M36/37/38 to top off the night. I went back to Jupiter just in case, for a small possibility the seeing had improved, and it was not meant to be.

I couldn’t help but feel like my one opportunity to share and spark interest in my love of the night sky with my closest family members, an opportunity that is extremely rare, had slipped away forever. I wondered if they really realize just how cool it is, well to us astronomer’s it’s cool, that at the eyepiece this night their eyes caught photons that traveled millions of light-years and from 100’s of thousands of star’s, or their eyes gazed upon the donut of light that was once part of a much larger star, or that the twinkling speckle of stars in the eyepiece all formed from the same huge cloud of gas and dust, and are forever bound together by their common gravity. Some folks don’t get it, and that’s o.k.. I hope my sister, brother-in-law and uncle walked away from the eyepiece with something more then what they had walked up to the eyepiece with. When you open your mind to the incomprehensible vastness of space, and realize that in that moment you are at the eyepiece, that very moment that your eyes are registering the dribble of photons from those incredibly distant and gargantuan objects, that the same stuff that makes you a human is the same stuff that makes that star a star. “We are made of star stuff” as Carl Sagan once said.

We have a natural curiosity us humans, and it’s from that curiosity that we as amateur astronomer’s see the beauty in those faint-fuzzies, big blogs, swirling mists, and twinkling points of light. It’s the beauty of first comprehending the object in our mind that only enhances the beauty in our eyes that we see at the eyepiece, and that’s what drives us to share those views with others. Hopefully, they got it.

Meade ETX-LS Review – Part 2 – Optics

This is a summary of the optical performance of the Meade ETX-LS, and second part of a 3 part review I’m dedicating to the Meade ETX-LS.

Part one focused on my initial impressions, which included my opinion on the physical characteristics and the initial go to capabilities of the ETX-LS. For the purpose of this review, I am going to give you my impression of the scope’s optics, and my experiences with this telescope that I had during my 8 observing sessions so far under the stars.

Of the 8 observing sessions I have had with the ETX-LS, 4 of them included a side-by-side comparison to my excellent Orion 6″ Intelliscope Dobsonian, on a variety of objects. Due to personal considerations and sky conditions, a true dark-sky site was not used for these observing sessions.

So, how did it perform?

It appears the ETX-LS arrived in good shape, and as collimated about as good as it can be based my initial star test. Inside and outside focus did not quite match during my first star test, however from what I read this may or may not affect optical performance when you’re talking about the focused image, it only means a degree spherical aberration of the optics, caused by either under or over correction. I want to come back and revisit this, since I tested this without ensuring it reached thermal equilibrium, so currents may affect this result as well.

ACF – The visual impression of the ACF optics were nothing to blow me away, but stars were pin-points and very nice for a SCT. Stars seemed to hold up very well under different magnifications too, and better than I can recall to my 8″ SCT, so this may indeed be an effect of the ACF optics, not really sure. I really need an opportunity to compare the ETX-LS ACF optics to a similar aperture non-ACF SCT optic, I just haven’t had that opportunity yet. When viewing stars close to the edge of the field of view, I wasn’t surprised by anything, there was still some sea-gull effects, but using a variety of eyepiece designs, wide-angle vs plossl for instance, reduced those effects. Were stars pin-points all the way to the edge of the field of view? Depends on eyepiece. Were stars more pin-point overall? Yes.

Bottom line on ACF, there may indeed be a slight visual difference, it did appear that stars were less “bloated” to me then I recall from SCT views in general, and it did appear more pin-point. So are the ACF optics worth it for the “slight” difference? Yes, if it were me I’d spring the extra cash for ACF anytime, just to have the piece of mind that I have the best possible optics.

Jupiter – The ETX-LS obviously needs more cool down time then the Newtonian, but when cool down was achieved, there were sharp views at the eyepiece yielding nice detail when the seeing permitted.  One night in particular, I had 7 belts/bands visible in moments of good seeing, a fantastic view indeed in the ETX-LS. The separation of the North and South components of the South Equatorial Belt was a bit more clear to make out in the Newtonian then in the ETX-LS, but we are talking about a larger central obstruction in the SCT compared to a Newtonian, so not bad at all in my opinion. The North Polar Region had darker tinge to it in ETX-LS vs the Newtonian, and thus stood out a bit more in the ETX-LS. One thing I didn’t quite like, and perhaps this is what is affecting my overall opinion here, is the color of the planet. In the Newtonian, whites of the zones were a bright white, and the belts were a light tan color. In the ETX-LS, Jupiter was not as bright, and the whites were more off-white, and the tans were a darker tan. You would think that darker tans would help with detail, but it didn’t since they were offset by the off-white of the zones. Whether or not this is an effect of the f10 of the ETX-LS vs the f8 of the Newtonian, I don’t know. I kept neutral by ensuring I swapped out the same eyepieces back and forth, and utilized mainly a 18mm in the ETX-LS and an 15mm in the dob, to give 98x and 102x respectively.  I have researched and asked for opinions on this within the forums, and no clear consensus has yet to be found. I suspect that its a combination of the SCT larger central obstruction, a bit of light loss do to a non-dielectric diagonal, and perhaps simply an effect of more optical surfaces on the SCT. I think its only fair to say that I only noticed this as a result of the side-by-side nature of my review, and if the Newtonian wasn’t present, I would never notice any thing at all besides a sharp, well detailed view of Jupiter. Comparing to the Newtonian however, I still have to say there was sharper views on the Newtonian then in the ETX-LS, as far as Jupiter goes. Detail was about the same, but the sharpness of that detail, and how it was a tad bit easier to see in the Newtonian then in ETX-LS pushed it ahead of the LS.  Still, very, very good views were achieved in the ETX-LS.  I just don’t have an explanation on the difference in the brightness, and that’s kind of driving this details-oriented person a bit crazy as I seek an explanation. It could be the coatings, or a combination of both focal length and central obstruction. I guess I’m reserved to think it was probably a combination of all the previous possibilities, but I think its safe to say that its nothing that is wrong with ETX-LS,  it’s just the difference  you will notice from a SCT to a Newtonian.

Moon – The difference in color or brightness, as described above, proved to be the only factor with this target. Mare stood out nicely, and the bright ejecta blankets of craters were clearly contrasted against the Lunar surface. I pumped up magnifications in both scopes, and I could not see any detail in one that wasn’t present in the other. One thing I noticed here in the ETX-LS, was apparent presences of more “floaters” in a given eyepiece then in the dob. I noticed this as well on Jupiter, using the 12.5mm between the scopes would present more of a floaters issue in the ETX-LS then in the dob. This is not a ding against the ETX-LS optically, it seems to be a cause of the longer focal length of the f10 scope vs an f8, but thought I would throw that out there. I prefer the brightness of the Newtonian, but again, it was the same amount of detail in both scopes and it was great that I could track the Moon with medium to high power.

Deep Sky – From my suburban site, my deep-sky targets consisted of the following, with a brief impression.

M31 – Andromeda Galaxy was bright and nicely framed, about mid-way in the field of view of the 26mm PL. Switching to a 18 mm SWA, M31 filled the whole eyepiece. I noticed stars were very pin-point in the ETX-LS, and the sky background was a bit darker, but not by much. I preferred the low power view of this, and using a 40mm PL in the ETX-LS, gave me a view of M31, M110 all in the same field of view.

M57 – Ring Nebula – The go to put this object just about center in my field of view using the 26mm PL. The image was great in both scopes, I really could not see any thing in the dob that I couldn’t see the ETX-LS or vice versa. Again, a slightly darker background in the ETX-LS, but I really couldn’t make out if there were any contrast gained on the nebula itself.

Double Cluster – A great site in the 40mm. Star and more stars. Go to put this object almost center of FOV as well of 26mm, I put in the 40mm to take in the whole view. It’s hard not to have a great view of this object, and the ETX-LS had both clusters within the field of view. I can’t wait to view this with a nice 2″ eyepiece and 2″ diagonal in the ETX-LS.

M42 – The Great Orion Nebula – Excellent view in the ETX-LS. The nebula looked slightly different in the ETX-LS vs the dob, with the ETX-LS having a bit more detail in the nebula itself, wisps were a tad more defined, but the dob had permitted the nebula to have more contrast at its edges. Trapezium stars were easier to make out and thus sharper, then the dob. In fact, E and F were clearer to see in the ETX then in the dob.

M2 – This was a bit of a surprise, it was quite bright and I thought I could see just a bit more resolution on the fringes in the ETX-LS then in the Newtonian. This globular was very good even from this suburban observing location, its one I will have to visit with my friends 10″ LX200 next time we are out at our dark sky site.

NGC 7009 and 7662- These small, bright planetary nebula were easy in either scope. I actually prefer the narrower field of view in the ETX-LS on these planetary nebula.

Double Stars/Multiple Stars

Epsilon Lyra – The ETX-LS, once I switch out the included 1.25 prism diagonal with my 2″ GSO Mirror diagonal, held its own very nicely against the newtonian. A lovely view. Being that it has a larger central obstruction then the dob, I could see that the ETX-LS had larger diffraction rings around the airy disk that made for a bit less black between the stars then did the dob.

Theta Orionis – I touched on this earlier, but this was better in the ETX-LS then in the Newtonian. F was simply easier to pick out, and E was clearer in the ETX-LS then in the dob. That impressed me.

Sigma Orionis – Fantastic multiple star in Orion, dead center in the ETX-LS. Wonderful colors, nice pin-points. Oh how I’m looking forward to double-stars with the ETX-LS. I synchronized the Autostar on a couple of different objects, and one this was done, I was placing double-stars in the center field of view of a 15mm eyepiece with a great feature call “Walk the Stars” in the Autostar. I went through 6 other doubles, and all were dead center of the 15mm eyepiece. That impressed and delighted me, since double-stars are becoming my favorite observing targets.

Summary

The ETX-LS is going to be one fun telescope. The views it gave were very good to excellent, and I’m very happy with it optically. When you combine very good optics with the go to and automatic alignment functions of the ETX-LS,  you have a great combination and a well rounded telescope.

But speaking of go to, how has it performed with the automatic alignments? Well, that’s next up in part 3, the final installment of this review, so please be sure to check back. 

AstronomyCast is an AstronomyBlast!

I’ve been listening to Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay on AstronomyCast for a long time now, kind of surprised I haven’t blogged about it sooner. They have a great chemistry between them. Fraser asks the tough, thought provoking questions most of us want to know about the subject matter for that episode. Dr. Pamela Gay gives her explanations in manner that is easy to follow, well most of the time, sometimes the subject matter is just simply tough to follow for the “average” human. Fortunately the cool and calm voice of Dr. Pamela Gay seems to tackle each episode with a super-human level of confidence and a deep knowledge of the subject matter, and leaves me wanting for more. The episodes are diverse, they can discuss neutron stars one episode, and then a fun Q & A the next. The variety is something I really enjoy, a mix of the science of astronomy with the fun aspects of astronomy, like when they discussed telescopes and gave some personal insight on their dream scopes. They make learning about astronomy fun and interesting, and that’s awesome!

AstronomyCast is my companion during my walk’s, long trips, or just chillin out on that cloudy night. Listening to them is almost like listening to two old friends, two friends you need to look up and take a listen to for yourself.

www.astronomycast.com – Offical website for AstronomyCast
www.starstryder.com – Dr. Pamela Gay’s Official Website
www.universetoday.com – Fraser Cain is the publisher for this wonderful site

Prism Diagonal, you are the weakest link, goodbye!

Most if not all manufactures include a 1.25 Prism diagonal these days with new scopes, its almost a gimme, and its been that way for a long time. In a nutshell, if your going to rate one scope vs another, especially of different optical designs, you must give the telescope with most optical surfaces quality accessories. For example, if comparing a SCT to a reflector, the reflector has the “less glass” of the two, I mean your going from 2 mirrors to the eyepiece. The other scope is a SCT, so the light is going through and reflecting off more optical surfaces until it gets to my eyepiece. In my experience, prism diagonals just don’t perform on par with mirror diagonals, and detract from the quality optics possible on a SCT, thus the explosion of mirror diagonals lately, especially dielectric.

If you want the best detail possible, the best performance possible, put in the best possible mirror diagonal your money can buy. Leaving in the prism diagonal, your tying one hand behind the SCT’s back, and that’s just not a fair fight. You wind up testing not the scopes optics, but its weakest link, and that’s usually these cheap prism diagonals. Now the eyepieces on most new scopes are of decent quality, and it is easy to swap the eyepieces between the two scopes, but not the case with the diagonals. The other night this fact became evident. The Double Double was a clean split in the reflector, in the SCT, it was barely split, more figure 8 at best. A quick swap of the prism diagonal with a 2″ GSO Mirror diagonal (non-Dielectric), permitted the SCT to be on level ground, and indeed it held its own quite nicely.

So why do most manufactures include these less then ideal prism diagonals? Well we know the answer really, cost. It’s cheaper I’m sure then a quality mirror diagonal. And the second reason? Well, to get you to buy their more expensive accessories of course. Personally, I think they should simply not include a diagonal if its going to be a prism diagonal. Perhaps I’m being too picky, and ok, I see where you could have an issue with having to buy yet another accessory to get your scope under the stars, but what matters most is what’s at the eyepiece, and a prism diagonal is no longer at mine.

Orion becomes a heavy hitter in the realm of astrophotography with new releases

Astrophotography is huge today. Manufactures have been releasing scopes optimized for imaging for awhile now, and although I’m not into astrophotography, I still enjoy reading up on CCD cameras, optimized astrophotography rigs, and other imaging accessories. This month Orion Telescopes released a new lineup of astrophotography cameras, and its impressive.

First up, is their first ever entry into adaptive optics, the SteadyStar. Now for those the do not know what adaptive optics is, let me try and explain it. Basically, its an electronic device that counters the atmospheric turbulence that plagues Earth bound observers. This is one of the main reasons they launched Hubble, to get above this problem. Now adaptive optics for large professional observatories has been based on motors that actually bend the mirror cells to compensate for the atmospheric turbulence, and used a laser to read and thus adjust for that. The product from Orion differs considerably from that design, but shares the same goal. It uses a off-axis guide mirror to read a guide star, and connecting to a computerized mount, acutally moves the mount to compensate for the atmospheric turbulence. It is listed as having the fastest capability of any adaptive optics guider out there today, up to 40 corrections per second. SBIG has offered an adaptive optics for some time, the AO Series, but it actually uses a tip/tilt mechanism for CCD itself. I’m not yet into astrophotography, but these are certainly exciting times if you are.

Next up are the new Parsec Digital Cameras from Orion. Sporting a very large 8.4 million pixel size Kodak CCD detector, it’s a moderately priced, high performance camera. With the addition of the Parsec cameras, Orion now has a full lineup of CCD’s, which include the reasonably priced entry level StarShoot Solar System Color Imager III ($189.95) and StarShoot DeepSpace II CCD Camera ($299.95), to the capable StarShoot Pro ($1399.95) and new Parsec (2599.95).

What a great time for the astro-imager! I sure would love to have in-depth reviews of any of these models, if you all know of any out there, please send me the links.

Meade ETX-LS Review – Part one – First impressions and First Light

I was excited to see the 2 brown cartons at my door last week, I knew it was the Meade ETX-LS. My scope had arrived, and of course, right on cue, the cold weather and clouds. Patiently waiting for a break in the weather, permitted me to review the Autostar Suite and the manual, yes, I actually read the manual, since this is my first computerized, fully goto telescope. This is part one of a detailed review of the Meade ETX-LS. This part one will focus on the scopes physical characteristics, such as weight, its fit and finish, overall operation, and my initial night out to test the goto capabilities. For those of you that may not be familiar with the Meade ETX-LS, and why it’s really another breakthrough from Meade Telescopes for the astronomical world, let me highlight its main features.

The Meade ETX-LS is a 6″ Schmidt Cassegrain Optic. Mine also has the optional ACF (Advance Coma Free) optics with UHTC coatings (Ultra High Transmission Coatings). ACF is designed by Meade to enhance the scopes optical performance by improving the sharpness of the image and flatness of the field of view. It is said to thus perform optically on par with the way more expensive Ritchey-Chretian or RC optical design. I’ll go into that at a later time, since I want to focus this post on just physical characteristics and goto capability. The most important feature of the ETX-LS however is the LightSwitch Technology. It permits the scope to be setup, turned on, and with the use of its internal ECLIPSE CCD camera and on board GPS, the scope will level itself and find north, something Meade calls Level North Technology or LNT, and alight itself to the night sky with out ANY user intervention. To say the least I was excited about this feature, and it represents another breakthrough for Meade in astronomical telescope design for amateur astronomers of any level.

Another feature worth mentioning is the “Astronomer Inside”. The ETX-LS has multimedia capabilities. It has a speaker, and when you turn the scope on,  the “Astronomer Inside” announcer comes on and tells you what the scope is doing, and what step the alignment process is in. In addition, when you have the telescope aligned, and you choose a variety of astronomical objects, it will give you some details and interesting facts on the object. I thought this would be a bit “cheesy” for me, since I’ve been in astronomy for almost 15 years. However, it was a great feature, and I did learn some things about the objects that I didn’t know. What a great scope for outreach! But more on that another time, back to part one of this review process.

How did the scope arrive?  - For the purpose of being as thorough as possible, I’ll briefly cover the scopes shipping carton to assure everyone it can arrive in good shape. First thing struck me as the size of the thing. It was much bigger then I expected. The shipping box was of decent quality, and the scope seemed very safe in a completely foam lined interior (see pics). It doubles quite nicely as an interim carry case, until I decide I need a more heavy duty one with wheels, to make transport easier.

Overall Physical Impression Fit and Finish – There were no noticable blemishes, and I really like the light blue, non-glossy textured finish of the ETX-LS OTA.

Mount – Big. Much bigger then I thought. I understand some of the posts out there that talked about the large size of the gears and how impressive it was for a 6″ OTA. It seems sturdy. I don’t like the placement of what appears to be the handle area, at the very top of the fork arm, but its adequate for lifting the scope with my left and, and using the right, grab the bottom of the base. Its light enough, just bigger then I though. It’s covered in a typical dark plastic, but it certainly feels beefy. The weight of the scope is very manageable.  When the mount is in its cardboard box for transport, it is bulky and you can’t fit it through a door long ways, but again, it’s not very heavy. 

Tripod – At first, after seeing the scopes mount and how large it was, I was suspicious of the tripod and how it would hold up. Field use shows its adequate for visual work, and being small and light, it’s a plus for transporting. It has 3 spring-loaded screws on the base of the tripod, with the center raised to assist in placing the mount on the tripod head, with just a slight twist, I hear a click, and I can now screw the spring-loaded bolts up so they grab into the telescope base. A piece of cake. There is a plastic wedge that you screw up to strengthen the tripod legs, and it has 3 pre-drilled holes to hold eyepieces. So the tripod is ok, I would suspect adding dampening pads would help, but damping time with the legs almost extended is about 4-6 seconds. The tripod itself is ultra light and very small, so very manageable.

Electronics/Goto – My very first recommendation. Get a PowerTank or external power supply if your going to run the scope in cold weather, well especially cold weather, but most likely get a PowerTank period. My first try out, a night into the 30’s, the scope had problems aligning, so I used manual alignment. However the batteries ran out in less than 45 minutes. The very next day, I took it out during the day time to test the GPS again, and within 2 minutes, it found GPS and started the alignment process. The motors were humming much more confidently as well. Obviously, it didn’t do the star alignment process, the “Astronomer Inside” kindly informed me that it was too bright outside to view astronomical objects, but I was confident now on the notion that the scope running off of batteries in cold weather is just not going to perform w/o an external power supply. A few nights later I borrowed a friends DC power cord he uses for his LX200 and with my new Celestron Powertank, the small one, setup the telescope for its second round of tests. This time, the scope came to life and moved around rejuvenated by running off the PowerTank. It gave a brief introduction to the alignment process, and started to find GPS. Within 15 minutes, it had found its GPS, found home, found level, found north, and proceeded to find 2 alignment stars, after which I choose M31, and bada bing, it was there in the field of view of the included 26mm eyepiece. Very cool!

For the remainder of the evening I familiarized myself with the Autostar interface, and for each object the scope slewed quickly and confidently, and placed them all within the field of view of the included Meade Series 4000 26mm Plossl eyepiece. Here’s the list I viewed within the 4 hours I was out with the ETX-LS.

• M31, 32, 110, 52, 2, 27, 15, 57
• Double-Double
• Double-Cluster
• Jupiter
• NGC 6826, 7009, 7662, 225, 457

The Meade ETX-LS has had some initial issues with firmware to overcome, but I’m confident that Meade has addressed those with v1.2 (mine) because the scope worked as advertised. It remains to be seen if that alignment is consistent however, so check back often, since this is the first installment of a series of posts I’m going to devote to reviewing the Meade ETX-LS. My next posts are going to continue to focus on the usability of the goto functions, and much much more information on the optical performance of the scope. It’s not a fair assessment in my opinion to judge optics based on a single nights observations, being that seeing conditions can really cause havoc. But I have a 6″ f8 dobsonian that has excellent optics IMO, so side by side comparisons are whats planned next, and for a variety of objects, so please check back for more details.

It arrived!

Tripod spreader

Tripod fully extended

Tripod base

Safe and sound

Easy to follow directions for setup

Accessories

Spring loaded screws to lock mount to base of tripod

Red dot finder & SSD Card

Looking good, but how is it looking through? Check back soon!

Battery compartment, but get a PowerTank!

Observing report – Random doubles and fabulous Jupiter

This report is from a few nights of observing the last week of September. I proceeded to view the following targets.

Jupiter -  A quick glimpse of the gas giant hinted that tonight would have some very nice seeing. Jupiter showed detail well, 4 bands clearly visible so far. Wanting to ensure the scope was acclimated to the outside temperature before I do any further observing, I decided to hunt down some various targets in the area.
Uranus – This was clearly visible as a disk like dot of light w/my 18mm @ 68x. You knew you were viewing a planet, but very tiny dot indeed. The last time I viewed Uranus was back in 1996 with my 8″ SCT, so it brought back some memories. Tonight it seemed to have a color similar to egg shell, a bluish creamy color.
Neptune – Much more difficult to discern its disk then Uranus was. Pumping the power up to 136x (18mm w/2x Barlow) didn’t really help out to much. I wondered if I was indeed seeing the planet or not, but there was a hint at a disk like appearance. Jury still out on that one.

Decided that I would check out the feature in the Intelliscope to find some doubles, I happened to be in Capricornus, so in uncharted waters I went.

CAP Alpha – Wide separated double, with components being golden (primary), bluish and white secondary’s. Nice contrast of colors!
Dapith (Star name) – A white primary with a blue secondary.
I was pleastantly surprised so far with the colored doubles, this was some real fun! Simply hitting the up arrow on the Intelliscope scrolled through doubles in the neighborhood, a nice feature I chanced upon.
CAP Omicron – White primary with a yellow secondary, and a blue secondary to that star. I love doubles/multiples with color variations.
CAP Pi – This was almost in the same field of view as Omicron. It was a very, very tight double, requiring me to use a barlow to ensure separation. It had a white primary and a white secondary.
44 CAS – Could not confirm. Rich star field, Intelliscope was not dead on tonight, with the other preceding doubles requiring some searching to find.
CAS Epa – Very nice multiple star, with a golden primary and a bluish secondary.
AQR Zeta – A very, very tight double. Both components appeared white.

Jupiter – WOW!!!!!!!!! 5-6 cloud belts/bands now visible. This has to be the best Jupiter view I have yet to see.
NEB – Could see 3 dark elongations along ridge with equatorial band. Festoon from NEB into the EB visible.
NTeB – Very clear tonight, nice color
NTrZ – Detail visible in this zone as well
SEB – Had great double parallel lines in this belt.
STeB – Visible
SSTeB – Visible
SPR – hint of this thick belt because of some color I could discern. Noted darkening S of SSTeZ.

Some other random targets I decided to try even with bright moon.
M57 – The Ring Nebula
M52 – Open Cluster in CAS
M34 – OC
M31 – Nice view with a 40mm @ 30x
M110 – Satellite to M31.
M32 – Never really sure if I see this or not.
Moon – The white rims of craters seemed to “pop” tonight. Ejecta rays for Tycho, Copernicous very bright. Messier A  and B very prominent as well with their rays, I see why it can be described as a comet like appearance. Proclus was awesome! Distinct wedge shape to this ejecta blanket.

This night is one I will long remember for its seeing, and simply the variety of objects that I viewed with such stunning detail.

Meade introduces NEW LT-6

Very excited for Meade telescopes. They just announced their new LT-6. Its a 6″ SCT on a similar mount to their LightSwitch model, but without the automatic alignment and price point of that model. You can get the OPTIONAL ACF optics ($999 Standard vs $1099 for ACF). Thats very nice indeed Meade. In addtion, you of course get the Autostar feature, which I have recently seen up close with a friends LX200 and it leaves me drooling. This model will also include the Easy Align, you simply level the scope, find North, and the Easy Align will pick two stars to align for you. Once they are in the viewfinder, you simply center the objects and viola, your off to 30,000 more objects of your choosing.

I was excited for the ETX-LS when it came out, still excited at the possibilites of that scope. They have some teething issues with it, but I have read recently on posts that some of the newer firmware is helping with those issues. I’m sure Meade will get them resolved. The addition of the LT-6 will certainly give a boost to Meade, definitely another scope on my wish list to try out and should be on yours.