An Air Show of Tele Vues (and other stuff)

The CIAS or Canadian International Air Show hosted at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) has been a yearly pilgrimage for K and I for the last couple of years on Labour Day Monday. Last year we tried a new spot a little closer to the show at the West Arm of Humber Bay Park. The East Arm would be preferred IF we didn't take quite the production with us. But because we have the means to actually photograph the show closer up, we don't have to go near the crazy-crowds at the CNE or pay a mint for parking as is always the case, never mind actually trying to find a parking spot. Our yearly pilgrimage starts fairly early in the morning as we want to get the best possible view from our location...typically we arrive around 9:30am for a 12:30pm start time...that might sound crazy, but it isn't given that you don't know how the crowds will be, even that far away. Not only that, the weather was gloomy for most of the morning leaving us wondering if the show was actually going to be given the green light.

To say we bring a "production" is an understatement. We don't pack light.

Pictured above from right to left, the Tele Vue Pronto and the Tele Vue 76, two Canon 30D's, an older Canon Rebel, two tripods, binculars and lenses, never mind what is not shown, the chairs, a table, food/cooler and the Alinco scanner for listening in.

We did manage to shoot through the Pronto but we mainly kept that as our visual scope and given it's age and era it was made, it is still delivering a wonderful image. Granted it was harder to track some of the aircraft at higher speed, but the view was crisp and bright, as expected. False colour? Yeah, but who cares.

Of course false colour can be a biggy when you photograph so the '76 was called in. Of course that's where the insanity begins.

Think about it. A 480mm Refractor telescope, with a crop conversion to 768mm with a manual focus trying to capture a fast moving object. Crazy. But it can be done with a lot of practice and patience. Don't expect a high success rate either. I would predict that one out of every two photographs will be a flop. One thing that helped was the Orion Field Flattener to help sharpen the image. For whatever reason, I seem to have an easier time focussing the '76 with it. Perhaps it's my eyes going. I don't know. Of course it will help with the edges, that is for sure. Also it's important to keep the shutter speed up as the '76 is working at f/6.3 and given the weather and haze was having an effect, I will find out how many shots suffered from too slow a shutter, if any actually did. Overall I found it fun to work with if not quite challenging. A challenge because not only are you trying to do so much at one time including trying to frame it too look nice, the target is moving and at times moving FAST. As aircraft approached our site, I would switch to my 30D and the 70-200 f/2.8 with the 1.4X telenegative to get a different perspective. Both combinations seem to have worked.

I have a boat load of images to process but check out this first image and I have found what appears to be a smudge on the sensor of my Canon Rebel. Ugh. Anyway, check out this cropped pic, desaturated and a little bit of sepia added of the planes approaching the CN Tower in the background. This was taken with the '76...

Early results look good.

I think it is fair to say that both K and I are fortunate indeed with two very good, reasonably portable, multi-functional refractors that again are proving their worth in some very unique circumstances.

Addendum: The photos are up and are a mixed bag of images where the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 and 1.4X Telenegative and the Tele Vue 76 were employed. Enjoy! M:)

A case for the quick set up...in Winter (or why astronomers should never HIBERNATE!.

Just to summarize:

I have been looking at double stars...like I normally do. Eta Orionis is fab! Go look at it! Mars has been great. This has been a good opposition. Go look at it! Saturn is back, it's great! Go look at it!

So anyway...

But what I want to do is talk about the quick set up. I honestly feel today's amateur short changes himself/herself by imposing a moratorium on winter observing because of the usual excuses...it's too cold, the set up takes too long, it's too cold...blah, blah, blah. The question of portability has more involved in it than "can I lift it"...just like picking the right clothing, picking the right telescope is very important.

Okay so it might sound more like a "Pronto Brag" (thanks SUG!). But whatever you have, the case for the "quick set up" is this. If it takes too long to set up, takes too long to cool down and quite frankly, is too cold to touch in the dead of winter, chances are you have the wrong "winter scope". This assumes you live in a snowy country (what snow? Toronto has had so little this year). If you are observing in Florida, you might want to skip this blog entry.

Any small Refractor, SCT/CAT, 6"-8" Dob or Reflector that can be mounted to a sturdy, portable AZ mount (or EQ if not too big) is desirable. In my case, the Tele Vue Pronto which can be converted to so many different types of observing, it's been a great scope in the quicky set up (assuming I remember to convert it to the right dovetail--side note to that is I merged the universal dovetail to the TV balance plate--that worked!).

How fast is the Pronto up? Well, under 10 minutes. I would hazard a guess that I could set up the Pronto in five minutes with heaters and e/p's ready to go. Simple AZ mounting, no motors, no polar alignment, no elaborate GO-TO alignment. Set up fast, to be taken down fast. Oh and the big thing. Short cool down time. Less than 30 minutes on average. You don't know how important that is till you drag out the monster aperture and it cools down after you want to go home.

So whatever you do, the quick set up adds to your winter enjoyment. While you don't have the aperture to work with, or perhaps the elaborate, imaging set up, the old argument, "the best telescope is the one you use most often", comes into play. It's far more important that the astronomer is "out looking through equipment" rather than "looking at equipment"....

SP Mount to make a comeback?

Well that was a short retirement...

I said earlier that the Super Polaris mount was to retire gracefully which really meant to be used only as a back up. Well maybe retire was not the right word. Given the convoluted mess that the two mounts, the CG-5 and the SP mount create because they use two different saddle plates, it became necessary to standardized the saddles just in case both the C102 and Pronto go out without having to take two different plates out. The SP saddle was upgraded with an ADM Super Polaris Saddle. I outfitted the Pronto with a simple Vixen style universal dovetail which nicely fits into the ADM SP Saddle. The C102 has been given a standard Synta eight inch dovetail which is also the Vixen standard. My original dovetail for the Pronto did not work right. Two screws got in the way of the ADM adapter and it had to be simplified. Just two screws and two washers now. It looks much better.

The combination works and is now seamless without accidentally forgeting a plate or forgeting the tools to switch things around.