Testing the TK Tar Baby

[TinselKoala]

TK,

If you had to choose but one telescope for "all around use", and as a purchase suggestion, which way would you go?


PW

The eternal question... with the eternal answer:  "It depends...."

What's your budget, do you intend to do AP, do you have a place to keep it set up or are you going to be completely portable, etc.

I considered all these factors and chose the Meade ETX125, and never regretted it for a moment. Meade has had some quality issues in the past, mostly cleared now, and I would not recommend the ETX125 to someone who wasn't a "tinkerer". You, though... I think you'd be able to finetune the mount. The Meade optics are legendary and the ETX125 is excellent indeed and for the price you can't beat it. The mount can be used either in its native alt-az mode or set up as polar-equatorial for long exposure AP and it really is portable, it packs into a big suitcase and the tripod. But... it's f/15 with a very narrow FOV.
For someone who isn't a tinkerer and just wants a goto scope that works and who isn't intending to do long exposure AP, one of the Celestron SCTs in the 6-8 inch range would be excellent. Get the biggest scope you will actually use. My employer owns a 14 inch Celestron on a Losmandy mount... and in the seven years I've known him it hasn't been set up at night even once. It takes two people half a day to set it up and align it, we did practice in the shop bay, but never took it outside. What a shame.

The 9.25 is the largest scope I can handle by myself. If you have the money and do intend to do AP, a German equatorial mount is a must, and Celestron has some reasonable ones as well as higher-end models. The EdgeHD design does what it claims to do, I get very flat fields out to the very edge of the image frame with no flattener needed, in contrast to the M90, which does benefit from the TV flattener/reducer.
If I had to do it over again I'd still get the EdgeHD, but I'd get the heavier CGEM DX or whatever they call it... the same basic CGEM mount but beefier and on a better tripod.

However.... sometimes the wide field of the refractor is nice. With the included 23 mm eyepiece, the disk of Luna nearly exactly fills the field of the reflector; the stated FOV is half a degree. But Andromeda, for instance, is THREE degrees wide, and the reflector sees right through it. The pleiades.... the reflector gives a great view of the individual stars but to see "the Pleiades" you need the wider field. Even using a 36 mm EP in the reflector I can't get the who thoughle asterism into the frame. However.... looking at Luna with an f/10 or f/15 (like the ETX125) is almost like being there, you feel so close. But the best views of the whole disk are better in the M90 because of its incredible crispness (really good glass in those lenses) and the roominess of the wider field.

Seriously... you need two telescopes and a third for guiding, but one mount will do if it's the right one.

Just recently Meade and Celestron both have made some very interesting additions to their lines. I especially like the new Meade convertible mount. It's pricey but looks great and the Meade software has some nice features that the Celestron does not, like the ability to enter in two-line orbital parameters of... anything in orbit, and the mount will track it. The Celestrons only will track sidereally or at the lunar rate and only in RA unless guided, while the Meades can track any which way if the two-line orbit parameters are in it. The Celestrons can actually do it too but only under the control of external software.

So... What's the biggest scope you will actually lug outside on a clear night and set up and align? For me it was the 9.25 and at first when it arrived I was seriously intimidated. At that time I lived in a basement and it took seven round trips on the stairs to get set up. One night as I was coming down with the counterweight bag in one hand and the battery bag in the other, I slipped on the stairs and landed right on my coccyx, broke that sucker good. It still hurts even now.

[TinselKoala]

"And I do NOT, like the rest of you, comment on any personal level at all."

Hold your nose and look at the way she "summarises" a few posts from the old thread. Have you ever seen anything so pitiful?
http://newlightondarkenergy.blogspot.com/

[TinselKoala]

Come on Rosemary, you coward. What is the phase relationship in this screenshot, and was YOUR load heating at the time?

Two simple questions. A single sentence of seven words can answer it totally and unequivocally.

[TinselKoala]

You state as a FACT that the current is flowing through Q2 and the function generator resulting in a negative voltage.  I will entirely disabuse you of that opinion when we do our demonstration.  And I assure you that we will show you PRECISELY the same negative voltage with the use of a 555 switch.  And then you CANNOT use the excuse of the function generator enabling any current flowing through it.  Again.  Because we will show precisely the same results with the use of both the function generator and the 555 switch.  So.  No, is the short answer.  You must certainly have NOT enabled my 'better understanding' from your discussions.  If I were to understand your thinking I would first need to ignore the evidence.

This is hilarious.

1: in the first two sentences she is asserting that  there is no current "resulting in a negative voltage". Yet she sets her FG at full negative offset. How could there NOT be a negative voltage at the gate?

2: In the third sentence she says there IS a negative voltage and that a 555 "switch" will produce PRECISELY the same negative voltage. THis may be the first true thing she's said in a good while. Especially since I HAVE ALREADY SHOWN THIS, many days ago.... and further, she's going to wind up using "my" circuit for the timer, with the possible substitution of cap and resistor values and maybe a diode or two.
(When you turn on the overhead light, which part is the "switch"? Your fingers, or the thing in the wall that you flip? The mosfets are the "switch", Rosemary... the 555 timer circuit is just your "fingers" on the switch. It sends a switching SIGNAL to your mosfet switch.)

3: If the function generator isn't in the circuit, that's right, you "CANNOT use the excuse of the function generator enabling any current flowing through it." You CAN, however, use the "excuse" that there is current flowing through the 555 timer into the rest of the circuit. Because... there is.

4: Just like I have shown "precisely the same results" using 1) the function generator 2) the 555 timer, two different ways at least, and 3) straight DC current.

5: So. No is indeed the short answer. Rosemary remains wilfully ignorant and refuses to do the very simple test of putting an ammeter inline with the timer's connection to the circuit. Because that would force her to FACE the evidence that she has been ignoring, wilfully, all this time.

Thrash and flail about, Rosemary. Like a landed fish out of water...... there's nothing you can do to change reality.

Note that anyone can repeat my demonstrations and do everything I have shown or "claimed" for themselves, easily. And if they can't, they can simply ASK ME for help or explanations.  There is no sleight of hand, no concealment of data, not even fancy unobtainable equipment. (That is one of the points I hope I'm making here.).

Is the same true for Ainslie? Of course not. What you get when you build her circuit faithfully and test it faithfully is ordinary performance, and when you report that, she will turn on you with dripping fangs and mendacity, but never an explanation of what you've done wrong, and then it becomes clear that, not only does she not understand her subject matter, she can't process logical chains of reasoning and refuses to be guided in a Socratic dialog... since she, by default, knows everything she needs to know already. Like calculus, for example.

Any child with a scope and a function generator and a soldering iron (and basic math skills) could do it, and there is NO weird "theory" involved other than QED and the Standard Model. So.... what I do and show is universally understandable, you don't even have to speak English, just algebra. But of course if your worldview is obstructed by the beam in your own eye, the tiny motes of truth in the eyes of others are nothing to be concerned about.

I'm considering making the following famous quotation my "signature" on this forum:

RA:

Correctly it is one Joule per second - but since 1 watt = 1 Joule and since 1 Joule = 1 watt per second - then AS I'VE EXPLAINED EARLIER - the terms are INTERCHANGEABLE.

Got that, Bubba?

Yet another arrogant Ainslie error, ridiculous in its magnitude; so ridiculous that some people couldn't even believe it wasn't just a simple typo ...  until it was shown that she repeats it over and over again, and still has not corrected and retracted it.

[TinselKoala]

Ah, it's a wonderful world isn't it? You are so very certain that you are right that you won't actually TEST, you will only SHOW by demonstration. And you will show data that anybody can reproduce, and that many people HAVE reproduced. Yet, in your hands the results are "overunity" but in the hands of others, using the same circuitry getting the same results.... according to you they are in error and faking somehow and don't know what they are doing and are using broken equipment....... because the same results in THEIR hands don't yield a confirmation of your "theory". Which, by the way, is neither a thesis nor a theory; at best it's a hand-waving conjecture that demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of the topic, yet again.

There were no manipulations of anything during the Ainslie demo video, other than setting up a different condition altogether. This is like showing the backside of a person's head and assuring us that he is very handsome indeed, just look at these hairs. But you NEVER turn the chair around to show the handsome face at all. And now here's a different person, also the back of his head, also claimed to be very handsome.  And look... here is another view of the back of his head, taken with a different camera but at exactly the same angle. See... that proves he's handsome, you can't argue with TWO images of the back of a head, can you?



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RA:

Correctly it is one Joule per second - but since 1 watt = 1 Joule and since 1 Joule = 1 watt per second - then AS I'VE EXPLAINED EARLIER - the terms are INTERCHANGEABLE.

Got that, Bubba?
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