darylf96
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 08/28/04
Posts: 1246
Loc: Danville, California
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Orion sells them on line. Don't know the price.
Check them out here
good luck!
Edited by Victor Kennedy (01/02/06 12:27 PM)
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John C8-NGT
member
Reged: 04/12/04
Posts: 50
Loc: Tawas & Davison, MI
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Carl,
I bought a soft sided duffell bag type case on rollers. It has a hard bottom and rollers on one end. I then lined the inside with an eggcrate mattress pad that I cut to fit including both ends. I wouldn't want to drop it down the stairs but other than abuse I think it works great and the price was right when I compared it to the commercial ones.
John
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John
C8-NGT ASGT Mount
C11S-GT on an Atlas EG-G mounted on a Scope Buggy
W/O 80mm Zenith Star 10th. Anniv.
DSI, Orion DSSI
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tpfer001
newbie
Reged: 11/15/05
Posts: 4
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darylf96 and John,
Thanks for you inputs. I really appreciate them.
Carl
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Meade ETX-125
Celestron C-11 ASGT/XLT
Minolta Activa 8x42
Oberwerk 20x80mm Deluxe II
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Quote:
hi,
seems like a good deal for the price paid. Many happy nights with your new scope.
sorry if i missed it, but how much did he pay for it ? (i looked through it twice)
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Is the c11s a bit touchey on collimation?
I am a recent owner of one and it seems to perform fine on the moon, deep sky, but planetary I don't see the detail on mars that I would expect. When I push past 100x the image seems washed out? I am expecting that it is a problem with collimation. But before I began to mess with the scope I thought I would ask the list.
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sixela
Postmaster
Reged: 12/23/04
Posts: 9499
Loc: Boechout, Belgium
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I expect it's more a problem of cool down, but only a star test will reveal it. What does the image of a star *just* out of focus look like?
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400mm f/4.46 David Lukehurst truss Dobsonian on Tom Osypowski equatorial platform
Orion Starblast (114mm f/4 reflector, Alt/Az)
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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As for star test/collimation I am still a newbie. I tried it the other night and results were not much to talk about. The star at 311x just out of focus looked fuzzy on one side "on both sides of focus" so I put my finger on the side of the tube that it looked fuzzy on and tightned the opposite screw. Didn't have a whole lot of luck getting the image spot on as some have described. I probably could have played with it more but decided that it was close so I would stick to pretty good until I could get more information as to what works. Thanks for the help listed below is a description of what mars looks like.
The best description I can give is that at high power 224x the image of mars looks to be a planet with the top "flaming" bottom of sphere looks "shere like" top of sphere has multiple limbs that are unclear at best. I know that this description isn't any good but it's the best I can do. If needed I can supply someone with a shot from my nextimage camera next clear night but I'm still learning how to use it to.
Thanks for the quick reply.
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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Two things have to be present for a truly tight collimation - as Sixela suggests, cool-down is one. The other is excellent seeing conditions.
Cool-down is essential. Rough collimation can be done even with moderate seeing conditions, but final tweaking would have to wait for the rare great night.
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N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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Magician
super member
Reged: 05/26/05
Posts: 143
Loc: Pasadena, CA
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Hi jpritchett,
What you are describing is almost certainly the effects of tube currents in the SCT because it hasn't been given sufficient time to cool down. The 'flare' on one side of the out of focus star image is the rising plume of warm air at the top of the telescope tube. My 8" SCT takes about 1.5 hours to cool down, maybe 2.5 hours to fully stabilise. Your 11 incher will take 3 hours to cool properly I would imagine, and longer to really be stable. For some SCT observers, continually falling temperatures throughout the night mean that the SCT never achieves thermal equilibrium througout the whole night of observing.
Some people have retrofitted their C11's with fans to speed up the cool down time substantially. Here is a link to site that details how to do it:
http://www.rothritter.com/C11_Project/#Section_1
Another important point I should mention is the absolutely critical importance of spot on collimation, especially for planetary viewing. And I don't just mean collimating the out of focus star image so that the rings are centred. That's not enough. You then have to perfectly focus the star and look at the diffraction rings around the star whilst it is in focus, at high power (~400x or more). The first diffraction ring should be unbroken around the whole star. If it is incomplete, the collimation needs very gentle tweaking. Of course, it needs a night of really excellent seeing to finesse the collimation to this level. But it really does make a world of difference for planetary viewing.
Might be a lot to assimilate in one go, but it took me years of owning my SCT before I found out how critical these kind of measures are for getting the best images out of the scope.
Good luck!! 
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mistyridge
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 10/28/05
Posts: 2272
Loc: Loomis, CA -26Mi E of Sacto.
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jpritchett
Welcome to CN. I agree, cool down in the C-11 takes a long time especially if you take the scope out of a warm house into a cold winter night. You canot grab and go with the C-11. I the winter I set mine up in the garage which is close to the outside temp at least 2 hours before use. In warmer months the heat distortions is not a problem unless the night is real cool.
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Mike F
Misty Ridge Observatory
Stellarvue SV115T "WOW"! What a view.
Stellarvue SV70ED
Stellarvue Nighthawk
18" f/4.5 Teeter's, Swayze mirror
12.5" f/5 Astrosky, OWL mirror
15X70 Binos
Mounts: DM-6,M-1,CG-5(ASGT)
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Thanks for the advice I didn't know it would take that long to cool down. I typically keep the scope indoor, and the scope goes from 71F to night temperature lately been around 32F, and have been giving the scope around 1 hour to cool down plus another hour or two for viewing. I probably have not been giving the scope enough time to cool. The 6in Newt that I still have this is more than enough time for cooldown. I may buy a fan or just make one. I think a guy could take a piece of pvc that would fit, and adapt a computer fan to suck the hot air out. I have a couple of dead computers laying around that need to donate their parts to a useful cause. I have seen these for sale, but has anyone here tired to build one?
So far I am going to try the following and see what happens
More time to cool down "probably 3hrs"
Build a fan to aide cool down
Then once I am sure that the scope is good and stable, I'll try to collimate "It may not be needed"
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Magician
super member
Reged: 05/26/05
Posts: 143
Loc: Pasadena, CA
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It would be a mistake to build something that SUCK's the air from the telescope tube - this is as it would force dust into the OTA. What you want to build is the SCT cooler that you can commercially buy for $100 or so that forces FILTERED air into the SCT. They cost less than $10 to build! I saw plans somewhere for it, do a Google search, the link should also be on one of the threads here. Can anyone give an exact pointer?
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Freddy WILLEMS
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 11/13/05
Posts: 928
Loc: Hawaii, Honolulu
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Aloha
 
Great information
Freddy
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Freddy
Meade 14" LX200 GPS UHTC GPS on permanent pier (Time Machine)
Celestron C 14" Peltier cooled for planetary imaging.
Meade 10" LX200 & TITAN 50:1 mount Gemini 'go to'
Meade 127 mm f/9 APO & TITAN 50:1 mount Gemini 'go to'
W/O 102 mm f/7 APO doublet
Orion 80 mm f/7 ED
DFK 21AU04.AS
ToUcam 840 II pro
Canon 10D Unmoddified
Canon 40D waiting to be modded by Hutech
And lots of eyepieces and acc.
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mistyridge
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 10/28/05
Posts: 2272
Loc: Loomis, CA -26Mi E of Sacto.
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My C11 gives a simlar flare on planets, especially Mars due to slow cooldown. I set the scope up in my unheated garage 3 or more hours before observing in the winter. The fan would cetainly speed up cooling.
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Mike F
Misty Ridge Observatory
Stellarvue SV115T "WOW"! What a view.
Stellarvue SV70ED
Stellarvue Nighthawk
18" f/4.5 Teeter's, Swayze mirror
12.5" f/5 Astrosky, OWL mirror
15X70 Binos
Mounts: DM-6,M-1,CG-5(ASGT)
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John C8-NGT
member
Reged: 04/12/04
Posts: 50
Loc: Tawas & Davison, MI
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Here's the link to the homemade scope cooler. I made it and I don't think I even spent $10 and it works great.
http://members.tripod.com/tom_shaull/toms_scope_cooler.htm
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John
C8-NGT ASGT Mount
C11S-GT on an Atlas EG-G mounted on a Scope Buggy
W/O 80mm Zenith Star 10th. Anniv.
DSI, Orion DSSI
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johndavid24
member
Reged: 12/19/05
Posts: 38
Loc: ohio
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Did you use vibration suppression pads under the legs? I won't use my scope(11GPS) without them because they work so well!
Very nice review , IMO you can't have too much info in the review. One more thing, GOTO's are great! The more a GOTO shows you the more one will want to learn what he or she is seeing .
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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I don't use vibration supression pads. Probably will get them but I typically am viewing on the grass "not concrete" don't think I need them.
I have solved almost all of my problems by allowing for a good cooldown "one hour", and collimating after two hours of viewing to ensure that the scope has reached ambient "or pretty darn close". Collimating solved everything that I was wining about. Now if I can just learn to read a star chart better so I can find everything I want to look out. "I keep thinking why didn't I just spend an extra 200 to get the Go To".
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Nocturnal
professor emeritus
Reged: 09/14/05
Posts: 557
Loc: CT, USA
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Give yourself some time to learn a bit about the sky. Pick objects that are easy to locate using the bright constellations. Use a program like Cartes du Ciel to print detailed star charts with finder circles that match your equipment. Install a telrad, rigel or other finder, you'll find those a lot easier to use than finderscopes. Well at least I did 
I just started a few months ago and I'm already getting better at finding stuff with my non computerized C8. Very satisfying! I'm selecting my new scope now and it will be goto capable but I'll still try finding stuff 'by hand', just for the challenge.
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Best,
Sander
C11 on Atlas EQ-Q driven by EQMOD
William Optics M110 With FR-III
DS2090 guide scope
QHY-8, DSI-Pro and DSI cameras
watec 802h video camera with KIWI OSD
Occultations: http://occult.tungstentech.com
Astro stuff: http://www.tungstentech.com
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sixela
Postmaster
Reged: 12/23/04
Posts: 9499
Loc: Boechout, Belgium
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Quote:
I don't use vibration supression pads. Probably will get them but I typically am viewing on the grass "not concrete" don't think I need them.
Do you need them? No. Will you think "why on earth did I not buy them sooner?" once you have them, even if you observe on grass? Yes.
For the record - setting up on concrete vs. grass still makes a difference when you have *two* sets of VSPs isolating the scope from the ground (as I have - one between platform and scope, and one under the platform), at least on a scope that's large enough.
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400mm f/4.46 David Lukehurst truss Dobsonian on Tom Osypowski equatorial platform
Orion Starblast (114mm f/4 reflector, Alt/Az)
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