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Old 19-11-2007, 10:06 AM
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Dujon
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Dujon is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Blaxland, N.S.W.
Posts: 634
Hello, TK, welcome to the good ship IIS.

All the above advice is good and accurate to the best of my (little) knowledge. One thing that I don't think has been specifically mentioned is that as you increase aperture you also increase the effects of poor seeing.

I have only had my current 'scope for about a year or so and, because of back problems, have not had a chance to use it as often as I would like. Nevertheless I have had the opportunity to view the moon - not too hard - and Jupiter. At this stage I haven't chased Mars around the sky. Given that these (Moon/Jupiter) are both bright objects I have tended to use short focal length eyepieces. You are right, the image zips through the field of view at a fair rate of knots.

The inference here is that you need to ensure that your mount is silky smooth in order to 'follow', at high magnifications, whatever it is that you are observing. My beast is but a 10" (252 mm) Newtonian and I've not had the opportunity to 'look through' a 16" monster. At this stage I've merely mucked around with the mount, but it's still a bit jerky at times - presumably something that would be accentuated with a larger aperture device. Perhaps others could comment on this aspect of a large 'Dob'?

By the way: I found I had to use my moon filter when observing Jupiter and even then found myself blind in my observing eye when looking away from the 'scope.
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