by Robin Casady
A new Astro-Physics 900 Grand Turismo Omologato arrived while I was out of town. Since I returned, Carmel Valley has had night visits by a thick marine layer.
Last night (Saturday) ASCC had a star party at the MIRA observatory on Chews Ridge. This was my chance to bring first light to the mount. Thursday my cousin got the custom dovetail bar for the 10" Maksutov-Cassegrain back from the anodizer and over-nighted it to me with one of the first post-prototype dovetail saddles.
So, I loaded the Integra hatch-back to the rafters with pieces and parts. To get everything into the car involved at least a thousand trips up and down two flights of stairs, and a packing scheme that would put a Chinese puzzle to shame. I made a long list of everything needed and checked them all off.
At about 7:00 PM I drove the 15 miles of twisting country road and up the six miles of dirt road to the observatory. When I arrived several people were already set up. I picked a good location to the south east of the observatory and hoped the possibly white-hot catalytic converter would not ignite the weeds I parked above.
As no clouds of smoke were apparent I began to set up. I put together the pier and aligned it with the observatory building. The ground was almost level so a slight adjustment to the ground with the toe of a shoe brought the pier almost perfectly level. I set the RA unit of the 900 on the pier and suddenly had a vision of the shelf at home where I had placed the four beautifully crafted thumb screws to attach it to the pier.
Fortunately, MIRA had a drawer of junk that produced an assortment of 1/4-20 bolts and washers. Whew! It wasn't as pretty, nor as convenient, but it worked.
The rest of the setup went without incident. A friend helped hold the counterweight shaft and 45 lbs. of weights horizontal to make it easier to tip the 10" Maksutov-Cassegrain in place. The dovetail saddle worked smoothly.
I took a few quick snapshots before the light faded.
http://www.CarmelCoast.com/temp/900_1stLightB2.jpg
This one is of the dovetail bar and saddle. It is a bit hard to see since black on black in white is a little difficult to shoot in fading light:
http://www.CarmelCoast.com/temp/Dovetail_1stLight.jpg
As I waited for Polaris to show its face I aimed the scope at the sliver Moon. With a 35mm Panoptic most of the illuminated smile fit into the field of view. It was a nice sight in spite of its proximity to the horizon and the slow seeing of the gasses between us.
Then on to Mars. Yup, the dust storms are still raging. I've heard it said that new equipment can bring bad weather, but it didn't realize that this effect could extend to other worlds.
Polar alignment was done by first peering through the empty polar-scope port. Then with a polar scope stolen from a 600EGTO. Finally with a two star alignment on Spica and Vega. Only one iteration was done. Then on to M13.
The outer fringes of M13 appeared at the edge of the field of view. I think I was using a 19mm Panoptic at this time. When centered, it showed well, and was a good start to this beautiful summer evening in the mountains. The Maksutov-Cassegrain shows M13 off well for its 10" aperture.
Deep sky is not my prime interest. I'm more of a lunatic, but it had been a while since I'd had a good look at the objects of summer. I went through a list I put together with InfoGenie & Starry Night. I had an iBook connected to the 900 with a Keyspan USB to serial adapter and cable soldered together that afternoon. I tried a few objects to make sure it worked, and it did. I didn't use it much because it needs a darker red filter over the screen. I used Orion's red goggles to keep from losing dark adaptation, but that is too much hassle. So, I just worked from a printed list.
The Ring Nebula landed well within the field of view of the 19mm Pano. My friend Arthur and I both thought we caught fleeting glimpses of the central star, but it was probably just averted imagination. The Ring showed brightly, even at 370X. The Maksutov-Cassegrain consistently shows all objects better than I've seen them in any other scope of this aperture.
Every time I order something from Astro-Physics I think, "Wow, I'm crazy for ordering a that is this expensive." Then when It arrives the thought is replaced by, "Wow, it sure was a good thing that I went ahead and ordered it."
Epsilon Lyrae was sitting there as though it were saying, "What? Some scopes have trouble splitting this? Pull the other one." Nice crisp stars with miles of black between them.
To my surprise, everything landed easily within the field of view this evening, except M13. When I went back to M13 later, it was again just outside the field with its outer edges showing enough to know which way to move the scope. I had not been that careful with the polar alignment, and I hadn't done any orthogonality tests. I expected to have to calibrate whenever it crossed the meridian. Nope. I never recalibrated.
The rest of the evening was filled with M3, M5, M53, M6, M8, M20, M23, M17, M16, M11, M27, not taking part in an argument on what features were seen on Mars, and lying on a cot looking up at the Milky Way. Oh yes, Comet Linear. Arthur found it with the ShortTube 80 that is being used as a finder scope. Nice view, but not Hyakutake.
At about 1:30 AM the wind started to come up and I went down into my sleeping bag. The 900 was parked and all covered for the night.
In the morning I got up about 8:30 and uncovered the scope. Took it out of park and went to Jupiter. There it was in the field of the 19 Pano. I pumped up the power with a 10mm Ziess, centered it an calibrated. It was pale in the bright mountain daylight, but the bands showed some texture. A quick zip to Saturn and the Cassini was wide enough for two SUV's with cel phones to pass through safely. A friend with a C-13 (also on Saturn) was trying to explain to a new member what contrast meant in regards to telescopes. He came over and looked through my scope and said, "This is contrast."
The 900GTO is a pleasure to use. It is easy to set up, and a joy to use. I was surprised to find all of the screws that required an allen wrench on my 600EGTO are thumb screws on the 900. I don't know if these are changes that came from the AP cap give-away questionnaire, or just differences between the models. I was also surprised by how light the pieces are. The RA unit looks like a lump that would throw out a back, but it was very easy to handle. Milling all those cavities really paid off. I love the way the Dec unit attaches with a dovetail and two thumb screws -- brilliant.
