You might have read about our research in the news and seen it on ABC and channel 9 recently. We work on the insect rubber resilin and our group was the first to produce some synthetic versions of it in the lab...a first for CSIRO Livestock Industries and a first for Australia too!
Anyway here is the first light report I wrote to Andrew (astro_south) unedited:-
"here is goes. had the dob out from 9.30pm till about 10.30pm. did not have much time to cool the primary mirror but it was surprisingly good at high power. looked at m42 and the trap, m78 and m46 as i have restricted access to the skies from my yard with all those pesky trees (we actually went and got some outdoor tiles make a platform for observing
will have to do something about those damn trees (and those freaking mozzies). no glob access (what a bummer as the one in lupus was at zenith and in the dob hole!). skies to the north and south are all blocked by trees. i only have access to objects rising from the east to zenith. all eyepieces came to focus with and without the barlow including the 20mm widescan III (which was nice). collimation looked spot on as stars were tight pinpricks of light at higer power. at low power i detect some spiking reminiscent of astigmatism much like in the C6 and the orion 80ST and i suspect that it is my eyes. i only have this problem with the 24.5mm meade SWA (and the 32mm super plossl before that). the 20mm expanse and the 20mm widescan gave night tight pinpoints so i doubt that it is a collimation issue. i tried the following eyepieces in the dob (did not get to try all the eyepieces in my kit out)....the 24.5mm SWA, the 20mm expanse, the 20mm widescan III, the 9mm expanse clone as well as the supplied gs super plossl's. the 26mm (very nice eyepiece this one with very good contrast and sharp pinpoint stars to the edge). the 9mm plossl was very good as well although it was very tight in the eye relieve department. will have to try my 15mm expanse and the 6mm radian in this at some stage. also used the DGM optics VHT and the NBP filters. i tend to like the VHT filter better as it gives a good balance between bright stars and nebulosity. i find it hard to believe that this is a broadband filter as it behaves more like a narrowband with the views it gives. the NBP again was a little bit on the dark and contrasty side. will have to compare more with the UHC which i believe will give a slightly brighter image.
on to the dob views. m42 was magnificient even without the filters. the outstretched wings and the stupendous trap (all 6 resolved easily even at low powers....who needs averted vision with the extra aperture). nice greens and blues. no pastel colors yet as this will have to wait till i get the dob to a dark sky. m78 was also very pretty and very nicely enhanced by the VHT filter (i am beginning to like this filter very much
also there are so many extra stars in m46 in canis major. talk about a field full of stars...WOW.
so the verdict...money well spent. i can foresee myself spending some quality time under dark skies probing even deeper than before.....bring forth the abell's and hickson's....
darren
p/s: on the downside, i will have to do something about the sticky azimuth bearings. maybe some milk jug washers of more teflon pieces."
Anyone know where to get virgin teflon
Darren
p/s: Piccy's are coming. Wifey took the digital cam with her to work today so no chance to download
Also we decided not to get the rafractor as it was on a very insubstantial mount and was shakey as hell. In any case i will have my brilliant Orion 80ST.