Re: ATMing in the September Sky & Telescope

[astrojoe@erols.com]

That scope belongs to John Vogt. It is a 32" F/4. No 36" ever made to
Stellafane yet. It will be back this year along with at least one other
large Dob. John and I were talking the other day and trying to remember
just how that 20" performed. I remember that it was being compared to my
25" and John's 32". Not exactly fair. My memory seems to give it a
performance equal to any other 20" dob in brightness. I just don't
remember how the overall correction was. I was intrigued by the dual
field when viewing at low power.

Joe Castoro


SNIP>

. There was another humongous scope there that
> evening, dubbed the "yard scope" because the mirror was 36" across, and the
> views it gave were simply stupendous. I was one of the last people to look
> through it at the Veil nebula in Cygnus at about 3:30 or so in the morning --
> OOOMYGOD -- pink lace curtains over a pitch-black field with pin-point jewels
> of white and blue -- Now that was fantastic!!!
> 
> I liked the views that night from my little cheesy 8" homemade piece'o'crap
> better that what I saw from most of the other scopes that night. Not that I
> could ever hope to match their engineering knowledge and skills. But that's
> not necessarily the most important thing.
> 
> Guy Brandenburg