Re: Stellafane posts, anyone?

Anyone hear anything about the conference this year? Couldn't make it
due to a previous committment...


My wife and I arrived Saturday morning, and did the usual stuff. By
evening, it looked like a storm was rolling in and a lot of folks lit out
like it was a hurricane or worse! It never did rain. Around 10:30 I walked
over to the observing area just downhill of the McGregor Observatory to see
what I could see.

There weren't many folks left, and I looked through a couple of scopes at
some targets in Sagittarius. I wandered about, and came upon a guy with a
little dob. I asked him what size the mirror was, and he said 4", and
off-axis. This caught my attention, and when I asked him for more info he
said that he was Dan MacShane of DGMOptics. Well, I spent almost 3 hours
observing through that little newtonian, and trying out different filters -
as astro filters seem to be where Dan is devoting most of his development
time. I had a great time, and really enjoyed the fine performance of the
4". We chased holes in the clouds, and sometimes lost the target before we
could both get a look. Epsilon Lyra split beautifully at 80x, blah blah
blah. Great optics. I also was impressed with his filters, and he
mentioned that they were favourably reviewed by Phil Harrington in Astronomy
Magazine. He handed me one to blink M31, and I was surprised to find that
it did substantially enhance the view. His nebula filter really lit up the
M57, but did not kill the stars. I would like to compare them side-by-side
with Lumicon's.

I had a great night observing with Dan, and felt that I was amply rewarded
for not chickening out like my friends! Oh, and a young guy observing with
us asked why Dan bothered to make the off-axis mirrors round as opposed to
leaving them pie shaped. Good question, no?

Dennis


.

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