bconley
super member
Reged: 05/28/08
Posts: 183
Loc: New Boston, New Hampshire
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Is flocking simply either painting the inside of the tube black or adding black material to the inside of the tube? Does it really make a difference in viewing? Is it difficult to do?
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Now the proud owner of an Orion XT10 Intelliscope!
I set a course just east of Lyra
And Northwest of Pegasus
Flew into the light of Deneb
Sailed across the Milky Way
On my ship the Rocinante
Wheeling through the Galaxy
Headed for the heart of Cygnus
Headlong into mystery!
Rush, Cygnus X-1, 1977
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bobmcg
member
Reged: 09/18/07
Posts: 31
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Flocking is some sort of material that has a textured surface that minimizes the reflection of light off the surface. It can be a kind of paint or a paper-like substance. The key idea is to eliminate as far as possible the reflection of light off the walls of the tube. Ordinary black paint or black paper might still reflect light.
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JT5
sage
Reged: 11/08/07
Posts: 271
Loc: Ozarks of Missouri
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If you do not see stray light in your scope reflected from the inner surfaces, don't bother with flocking until you perceive it to be a problem. Done well, it requires dismantling the scope to avoid possible damage to your optics. There are other souces to describe the flocking process. Flocking can either be a painting process with a special flocking paint (a special flat black) or a black felt like material. You can also buy black flocking paper that has an adhesive backing at craft stores.
John
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My wife shares my love of the night skies and tolerates all of my other hobbies.
Televue Pronto
Meade 2045D
Meade ETX-125PE
Meade 12" Lightbridge
Meade, Swan and Televue Lenses (33, 26, 20, 15 & 9mm), Televue Barlow
Catsperch Observing Chair
Member: Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri
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Treehopper
sage
Reged: 07/29/08
Posts: 215
Loc: Upstate NY
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Whew! What a relief! I heard the term "flocking", and all I could think of was shepherds. And I'd hate to see a sheep shoved down an optical tube!
Although a black sheep might work...I'll have to think about this...
CAUTION: This message was written without benefit of coffee. It is sold as-is.
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Tim
Third oak on the right, and straight on 'til morning.
Meade ETX-125PE (NGC7000 Edition)
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
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Dylan Gladstone
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 08/05/07
Posts: 955
Loc: Connecticut, USA
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Quote:
Is flocking simply either painting the inside of the tube black or adding black material to the inside of the tube? Does it really make a difference in viewing? Is it difficult to do?
I think it depends on the scope how much difference you'll see after flocking. My scope has a real "halo problem". If a bright star or planet is just outside the field of view a very bright circular halo appears in the field of view. It's not just a HINT of a halo, it's quite bright. In searching on the problem I ran across a post here from someone who cured the halo by just flocking the inner baffle tube. I really need to get rid of the halo. If the mod also increases contrast, that's a nice bonus.
I suspect the difficulty varies greatly depending on what scope you own and what parts of the scope need flocking. My guess is that a big Newtonian would be the easiest to flock, and a tiny CAT the most difficult.
I was going to flock my scope last night, but I ran out of time. Later I should be able to answer the question "Is it difficult to do?" for a 127mm Mak baffle tube. (I suspect the answer will be "Yes.")
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Orion SkyView Pro 127mm Maksutov
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desertstars
Deja moo
Reged: 11/05/03
Posts: 30043
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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Quote:
Whew! What a relief! I heard the term "flocking", and all I could think of was shepherds. And I'd hate to see a sheep shoved down an optical tube!
Although a black sheep might work...I'll have to think about this...
CAUTION: This message was written without benefit of coffee. It is sold as-is.
Could have been worse. You might have gone with birds and the thread really would gone south in a hurry.
Okay, obviously I need a cup or two myself...
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Tom W.
SVP8 'She turned me into a 3-legged Newt' EQ
Ralph, the All-Purpose 102mm Refractor
Under the Desert Stars
Alcohol and calculus do not mix. Please don't drink and derive.
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John Carruthers
Skiprat
Reged: 02/02/07
Posts: 1705
Loc: Kent, UK
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If you're going to flock I suggest you go the whole way, black out and bright screws or nuts in the tube and any bright edges to castings etc. If you are stripping the optics do the edges of the glass as well but be careful not to obscure any registration marks. One major source of shine I found was the front edge of the chrome eyepiece barrel and a tiny glint from a screw head made a huge difference once removed, it's worth going over everything with a black felt pen.
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Jc
ATM 10" F6.1, 1/25th wave spec (max wavefront error +/- 1/12.6 in zone 4 of 6, sodium light )
6" F7 spec
127mm F9.4 Refractor
10 x 50 bin
ETX80 (finder)
Canon 20D
and a curious mind
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desertstars
Deja moo
Reged: 11/05/03
Posts: 30043
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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I have a friend who has flocked his dob. He was delighted by the result, but when I compared the view through his scope and mine under dark skies (note: my aperture is 2" smaller, so the comparison isn't quite appropriate) I could not see a tremendous difference in the image. At least, not that I would not have expected from a somewhat larger scope. So I've never bothered with flocking, although I believe the location may have served as a sort of equalizer. YMMV, and probably will.
Something I have done, however, is extend the tube of my Newt - so to speak. I obtained and altered a wrap around dew shield (Orion sells them) to fit around the open end of the scope, preventing stray light from bouncing around in the vicinity of the secondary. It makes a modest difference when I observe in my backyard (Tucson has less light pollution that other towns this size, but that hardly makes for "dark" skies), enough to be worth it. Under dark skies it makes no difference at all.
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Tom W.
SVP8 'She turned me into a 3-legged Newt' EQ
Ralph, the All-Purpose 102mm Refractor
Under the Desert Stars
Alcohol and calculus do not mix. Please don't drink and derive.
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star drop
Guilty as Charged
Reged: 02/02/08
Posts: 3286
Loc: Cattaraugus Co., NY
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Quote:
Whew! What a relief! I heard the term "flocking", and all I could think of was shepherds. And I'd hate to see a sheep shoved down an optical tube!
Although a black sheep might work...I'll have to think about this...
CAUTION: This message was written without benefit of coffee. It is sold as-is.
That would result in baa baa'd seeing conditions for sure.
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Ted
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imjeffp
Senior Space Cadet
Reged: 09/30/03
Posts: 4428
Loc: Cedar Park, Texas
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"Flocking" refers to the crowd of people standing around a big dob, hoping to get a look through the eyepiece.
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Blog
ST80 • AT80EDT/LXD650
ETX-90/DS-2000 • 10" LX200 Classic ("The Quarter-Meter Telescope at the Heritage Park Observatory")
SPC900NC • DMK21AF04 • Digital Rebel XT
  
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richard7
sage
Reged: 11/02/07
Posts: 476
Loc: Sacramento
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If I remember correctly, painting the inside is called "blackening" while using coated paper etc is refered to as flocking.
I have an older Meade 60 "Dept store" scope that I learned how to blacken using black ultra-flat camo paint. The trick is to learn how to "dust" it on.
I was quite surprised at how well it worked.
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Richard Trost
Orion 130st, Ioptron e/r80
Meade 10x50, Konusvue 20x80, Zhumell Tachiyon 25x100
Coffee thermos and cup
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smasraum
sage
Reged: 01/13/08
Posts: 492
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This is a link to a great, thorough article on flocking that I found with a quick search. It covers what I suspect is everything important in a brief easy to understand manner.
http://gmpexpress.net/~tomhole/baffling.pdf
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Steve
Houston (Friendswood), TX
 Space Center Houston
8" Zhumell Dob - Woo Hoo!!
Celestron C102 f/5 - Thanks Tim!
21mm, 13mm Hyperion
2.5x TV Powermate
Canon Rebel XT
Nikon 7x35
Bushnell 10x50
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dusty mirrors
member
Reged: 01/27/08
Posts: 20
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i recently installed protostar flocking into my 114mm newtonian. it was quite a pain to do a decent job but the results were outstanding. the bigger the tube, the easier it will be to flock, but the more expensive it will be. it was $15 for the material to do my little scope and i am quite happy with the cost vs. results. if your scope is quite larger then the cost could be problematic.
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redsquash
super member
Reged: 08/05/08
Posts: 105
Loc: JAPAN
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Flocking,?
Its something that happens when you are really bad and you probably deserved it or you may have even paid for it.if you are that way inclined 
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Vixen R130 f/5
powermate 2.5
vixen LVW 5mm ,13mm
Vixen LV 8-24mm zoom
Whats the next lens to complete this set up.please send me a PM if you like
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Holst
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/13/07
Posts: 1318
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
Flocking,?
Its something that happens when you are really bad and you probably deserved it or you may have even paid for it.if you are that way inclined
No, no, no people...don't you know anything?? Flocking is when you get your dob all dressed up with extra frills and lace to go out for a night on the town. Oh - wait - I'm sorry, that would be frocking.
All humor aside, flocking is when you set your dob up in the living room, spray it with white goupy paint, hang lights on it and sing carols around it.  Ba dum dum
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Marya
10" f/5, 1250 FL Hardin Optical dob named "Clifford the Big Red Dob"; *6.0mm Orion Expanse; 7mm Pentax XW; 9.0mm Orion Expanse; 9.0mm Optical plossl; 14mm Meade 4000 UWA, *26mm 1.25" Meade super plossl; 32mm 2" GSO; 2x 2" Powermate; *Swift "Sea Wolf" 10x50 binoculars
(*gifts from very kind and generous CN members! :-)
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firstbase
member
Reged: 07/05/08
Posts: 31
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A little off the topic but someone mentioned black felt tip pen and darkening the sides of the mirror. Have a friend who did that and he had catastrophic results when he cleaned his mirror later. Black marker and cleaning solution = black stains on mirror/coatings.....permanent markers aren't so permanent sometimes...
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Holst
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 03/13/07
Posts: 1318
Loc: Portland, OR
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p.s. the gods of amateur astronomy swear this stuff is the best that can be bought...there was even some sort of scientific comparison done between brand names (including Joanne's fabric's black felt which many use) on reflectivity and shedding (e.g. some black felts are excellent but shed) and this one i seem to recall won. Many on here swear by it:
http://www.fpi-protostar.com/flock.htm
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Marya
10" f/5, 1250 FL Hardin Optical dob named "Clifford the Big Red Dob"; *6.0mm Orion Expanse; 7mm Pentax XW; 9.0mm Orion Expanse; 9.0mm Optical plossl; 14mm Meade 4000 UWA, *26mm 1.25" Meade super plossl; 32mm 2" GSO; 2x 2" Powermate; *Swift "Sea Wolf" 10x50 binoculars
(*gifts from very kind and generous CN members! :-)
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luna-c
journeyman
Reged: 02/21/08
Posts: 7
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Just out of curiosity, why don't the scope manufacturers see fit to flock their scopes at production? If flocking is is an economical way to improve a scope, you would think that their marketing departments would be all over it and using it as a selling point for their products.
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Snickersnee
member
Reged: 08/29/08
Posts: 19
Loc: California
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Because it costs more and the issues of shedding, dust retention, flopping in the tube, etc.
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Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars
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Scott Watson
super member
Reged: 05/26/06
Posts: 177
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Flocking is a specific process, not a generic one. "Flock" is long, thin, usually black, usually polyester fiber. It is applied to a tacky surface with an electro-static flocking gun. The nature of the electric field lines the flock fibers up so that they impact normal to the surface where they stick. The most common example that most people are familiar with is the little rubber shields on the inside and outside of car windows. Flocked surfaces have a velvet like appearance, but are better at rejecting stray light than velvet. Unfortunately, flock tends to fall off flocked surfaces and then lands on mirrors etc. Personally, I think it is overrated as a light absorber.
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