Re: [ATM] Mike Lockwood's Planetary

["Bob Nonnemann" <bob.nonnemann@insightbb.com>]

I have not yet used Mike's planetary scope, but he does use an equatorial
platform on some of his other scopes.  I personally find a platform to be
almost indispensable.  Others like the various "Goto" and tracking systems
for Dobs.  I personally don't like the goto systems that prevent you from
easily panning the scope around.  Your experience may vary -- hit some star
parties and try both systems.  If you enjoy high power observing, you'll
probably want one of these systems.



-----Original Message-----
From: atm-bounces@atmlist.net [mailto:atm-bounces@atmlist.net] On Behalf Of
Jay Kirkland
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 9:04 AM
To: atm@atmlist.net
Subject: [ATM] Mike Lockwood's Planetary

    Since I first saw it on his site, I thought Mike Lockwood's 
planetary was a bit of brilliance in both design and execution, and it 
has just furthered my desire to grind a long focus mirror. But 2 
thoughts came to me when I read the S&T article. 1) Many years ago, 
Richard Berry in Deep Sky Mag said that no matter how well baffled a 
scope, a full-length shroud might still give you that critical extra few 
tenths of a magnification in seeing. If you can possibly just glimpse 
the central star in the Ring with this scope as is, then that would make 
this scope a perfect test bed for the shroud/tenths of a mag theory. 
(Dobson's fav shroud was the weightless mylar space blanket.)
    But what I'm most interested in is my biggest high power stumbling 
block: 2)What do you do to your bearings to make a scope track smoothly 
by hand at 500X? What are you using for bearings, if teflon are they 
ArmorAll'ed, how much force does it take to move the scope in alt and az?
     Great job! Hope you're enjoying Saturn.
    Jay
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