At 06:44 AM 10/31/04, Richard wrote:
>Hi John,
>
>Your 14" Celestron doesn't have a drive? Must be a pain to view
>anything if it doesn't. If it does, why not piggyback the OM and
>Tamron on the Celestron and guide through it?
The 14" 'scope isn't mine. It's in the IU-Kokomo observatory:
http://www.kac.johnlind.net/
Unfortunately it doesn't have a piggyback camera mount . . . won't be up
much longer either . . . not worth adding one now. I need to get a fairly
lightweight GEM/RA-drive and polar scope that can hopefully mount to my
heavy duty Bogen (I have an extra center column for it).
Attempted installation of the new 16" Meade that will replace it, the Lunar
eclipse, and having the observatory open for public viewing of the eclipse
was another story . . .
We were supposed to have a new 16" Meade up before the eclipse. A new 6"
Takahashi refractor will also be piggybacked on it (need to get the 16" up
first). That was repeatedly delayed by the school. Sufficient sniveling
by the Physics Department and the fact that a news release had already gone
out announcing the observatory would be open for the eclipse got some
facilities folks reallocated for a couple days . . . just before the
eclipse (typical bureaucracy). In the process of unpacking the remaining
mounting hardware, we found "insurmountable" pier mounting problems with
the pier, custom made equatorial wedge and the Meade 'scope RA drive
base. The 14" and its equatorial wedge had already been dismounted. It
had to get put back on the pier the day of the eclipse. Getting its ~300
pounds of mass hauled up a narrow stairwell and puting it back on the pier
in a few hours without damaging it was an achievement itself . . . still
needs to be polar aligned . . . wasn't important for Lunar viewing by the
public; the Moon would drift even if it were.
Monday evening I need to make some measurements to ensure the rework of the
new equatorial wedge puts the new 'scope in the center of the dome (the
pier is offset). If there's clear enough sky we'll do a rough polar
alignment of the old 14" 'scope to 44' from Polaris toward Cassiopeia . . .
don't know if we'll have enough time to tweak it with North-South and
East-West drift measurements.
-- John Lind
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