[AZ-Observing] Re: RTMC 2008 activities and weather report
- From: gene lucas <geneluca@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 17:17:41 -0700
It is >possible< for up to 13 merit awards (12 plus the Warren Estes
award) to be given out at RTMC (according to the "unofficial rules"),
but the lack of entries the past few years has had the result you
mention. (I served on the RTMC Merit Awards Committee for about 10
years in the distant past, when we typically had many more entries each
year....)
As I did not tromp around Camp Oakes to discover all the entries this
year, I will take your word for it -- and I may not have paid close
attention to the announcement during the awards ceremony.
I concur with your comments about the venerable and brilliant Bob Pfaff
and Gerry Logan, bright stars in an otherwise meager constellation of
TMs the past few years... Bob has published valuable comments on his
web pages concerning the technique of producing Schmidt corrector
plates. They both manage to surprise and delight each year with newly
fabbed, technically superior designs.
There are, of course, a whole family of solutions for SCT optics,
varying the spacing of the corrector plate. The classic Schmidt Camera
layout (the longest) places the corrector near the Radius of Curvature
of the primary mirror. There is no doubt in my mind that Tom Johnson,
founder of Celestron (and subsequently, Criterion and Meade) chose the
short version SCT design for compactness, which also permits suppporting
the secondary right in front of the corrector plate, but leaves some coma.
Gene Lucas
(17250)
Stan Gorodenski wrote:
>gene lucas wrote:
>
>
>
>>There was not much re: telescope making at RTMC this year. There were
>>only a couple of talks of interest (IMHO), including Roger Ceragioli from the
>>Steward Mirror Lab speaking on Bernhard Schmidt and his optics (the Goff
>>Memorial lecture).
>>
---
>>Only 25 scopes were entered in the merit awards (probably
>>an all-time low), and only two Merit Awards were given. (No Warren
>>Estes Award this year.)
>>
>>You misunderstood, Gene. Normally there are 25 scopes entered and six
>>awards given out. This year there were only six entered and so only two
>>awards were given out. One of them was to Bob Pfaff for his interesting
>>Schmidt-Cassegrain design that eliminated coma. Bob had attended the
>>IAPPP meetings at Big Bear Lake many years ago. That is how I met him.
>>He discovered that if you moved the corrector plate about 15" in front
>>of the secondary, it pretty much did away with coma. According to him,
>>the reason Meade, Celestron, and other telescope makers have not adopted
>>this is that it makes for a longer OTA. Each year he comes up with
>>something new. Him and Gerry Logan, who both come up and camp together,
>>are two real prolific telescope makers with many new ideas..
>>Stan
>>
>>
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