[AZ-Observing] Re: SBIG Camera

  • From: Stan Gorodenski <stanlep@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:40:03 -0700

Thanks, Jon and everyone else who responded, although I was beyond 
mechanical problems like you describe when I posted my message. Today I 
had more extensive discussions with SBIG about the problem. Based on the 
error messages I was getting and that they were able to reproduce it is 
their opinion that the filter wheel is not communicating with the 
camera. They suspect a loose-broken connection somewhere, which has 
happened before. It is being shipped to them tomorrow for repair.

As an aside, on Monday I received a 35mm Panoptic. When Bill Van Orden 
brought his Panoptics to my star party earlier this year I discovered 
that they are very  excellent eyepieces and had a better image than my 
old 1976-1977 vintage Meade 32 mm Erfle that has a 65 degree apparent 
field of view. Some may think this is obvious, but this Meade eyepiece 
is a very good eyepiece, even compared to many others today. The 35 mm 
Panoptic is better, but not much, if one does not object to a little 
star distortion very close to the edge of the field of view. As a result 
of getting the Panoptic and now having stars that stayed sharp all the 
way to the edge of the field, I discovered that the Meade 2" diagonal 
that came with the 16" LX200R is not as good as it could be. I observed 
that starting about 2/3 of the distance from the center of the field of 
view the star image would start getting distorted and enlarged going 
toward the north edge of the field of view. The other directions had 
sharp star images all the way across. When I rotated the diagonal 180 
degrees, then the north edge was good, but now the south edge had the 
problem. The Panoptic allowed me to discover this, but it also made me 
spend more money today, rats, to replace the diagonal with a Televue. I 
am told it should arrive tomorrow. This seems a little quick, but if it 
does arrive I will be testing it tomorrow night. I have heard that 
Televue and AstroPhysics are the only two manufacturers that use a 
different type of process to coat the diagonal giving much better 
transmission of reflected light.
Stan

Jon Christensen wrote:

>I don't own an SBIG camera that filter wheel will fit anymore but when I had 
>that problem once it turned out that a filter wasn't screwed in tightly 
>enough and hit something inside the wheel. I tightened the heck out of it 
>and all was well...
>
>
>Jon Christensen
>
>  
>
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