"Can you recommend a proper diagonal/barlow/eyepiece combo for an 8" SCT?" Sure. I would use your favorite wide-view "moon" eyepiece. Something with a 20 arcminute or wider field of view. That makes it feasible to hand-track and will cleanly resolve details at the required scale. If you've never hand-tracked satellites with a telescope before, try chasing some airplanes first. Also, align your telescope's mounting so that you are mostly slewing in one dimension --makes it much easier. Think of the satellite's path across the sky as an approximation to a great circle. Point one axis of the scope's mounting towards the pole of the great circle. Then you can easily glide along the predicted path making only minor adjustments in the perpendicular dimension. In the simplest case of a pass through the zenith, just set the scope up as an alt-az mounting. Also make sure your finder scope is perfectly aligned. -Frank E. Reed Chicago, IL ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Feb 17 2000 - 18:49:00 PST