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Post by jamesling1000 on Mar 15, 2011 22:11:49 GMT -5
Hi All. I attach another photo shot taken , which you can clearly see a few other telescopes being setup behind the Istar-optical 8" refractor. We have an 5" AP on losmandy mount (on the right) , one WO 98 on the Mach 1 mount, an 8" VMC, as well as the 5" APO from China retailing at US$1K (on the left) I have taken a short video clip on the Istar, but has not download into Utube......., and once this is done , I'll show the link here. Just a little comment on the Istar 8" performance in this trip, as what Ales has told me about this scope on the saturn, yes, the resolution as seen on saturn, my C8 can never beats it....... REgards James Ling Attachments:
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Post by jamesling1000 on Mar 20, 2011 11:08:17 GMT -5
Hi everyone. Have another short video to share with all of you on the ISTAR-OPTICAL 8" refractor during my recent March star gazing trip. www.flickr.com/photos/james_ling/REgards James Ling
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Post by lesliehess on Mar 22, 2011 17:27:26 GMT -5
Beautiful scope thank you for sharing this information. I love the moon video James. I have the f12 Istar 8 inch lens. Saturn detail is splendid without filters. I am still waiting for a night with good conditions.
Regards, Les
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Post by jamesling1000 on Mar 23, 2011 5:52:52 GMT -5
Beautiful scope thank you for sharing this information. I love the moon video James. I have the f12 Istar 8 inch lens. Saturn detail is splendid without filters. I am still waiting for a night with good conditions. Regards, Les Hi Les. Thanks for your comment. And I am very sure your 8" F12 will even performed much better than my F9. Although it is very difficult to handle such a long scope, as I found that F9 is the max that my losmandy can handle. I think everyone in this forum would like to see your photo or video of the saturn . Hi Everyone. Is a pity that this march trip, my losmandy digital drive burnt when I powered it up, and I could not use a higher magnification to track saturn above 300X. I actually did shot the video of saturn with a 2X barlow, but is still too small. As I have just repaired my burnt losmandy drive unit, I'm looking forward for this coming April trip, and hopefully I can bring back photos and video of saturn for all of you, that is shot from the ISTAR. Regards James Ling
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Post by jamesling1000 on Apr 12, 2011 2:45:32 GMT -5
HI All.
Just a little update on my last weekend star gazing trip to Punggai, Malaysia.
This time , we only have 23 participants, mainly for those university students that miss the last trip which we capped it at 54 participants.
The sky condition is good on Friday night, and when we reached the place, is around 12am midnight.
This time I brought along an orion 10" dew shield , and it really helps when I used the scope from 1am till 3.30am.
My G11 losmandy digital drive works well this time, and I am able to use the 4.8mm Nagler to give a max power of 375, and the view is still sharp and crisp. I have to admit that I've never seen my C8 going beyond 300X, with such a sharp and crisp view. But when I use a 2X barlow , with my 7.5mm eye-piece, to give the power of 480X, the view is softer but still visible, not fuzzy.
The view from omega century although is not outstanding due to that patch of sky is slightly hazy, but still shows lots of details....
This time, around 4am in the morning, I managed to see the part of the milky way that stretch between Scorpio and Sagittarius.
I do hope when I go back again in coming May, I have more things to share with all of you....
Regards
James Ling
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Post by Watcher3 on Apr 12, 2011 6:22:59 GMT -5
Very nice James! Looks like the scope is performing nicely. I would love to see how it performs on DSO's if you get it to a very dark sight. Keep the reports coming. I like to imagine what it will be like when I can finally have a really big scope! Joe
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Post by jamesling1000 on Apr 14, 2011 1:46:52 GMT -5
Hi Joe.
The place that we selected is mainly to cater for university and college students to participate in the star gazing activities, and we have quite a number of working class adults like myself , who will bring along our equipment , traveling all the way from our small light polluted country to another big neighboring country, which has darker sky.
We want to ensure all the facilities, which include all meals and lodging are well taken care of, as such we have to choose places like chalets, which are not very dark. And this is done once every one or two months, which depends on the season.
I am quite happy using this scope, for the last couple of months , at this chalet, and especially for this particular one is so easy to clean the lenses from both sides....................
REgards
james Ling
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Post by jamesling1000 on Apr 26, 2011 23:27:10 GMT -5
Hi All.
This is the 3rd utube that and friend and myself have downloaded into utube.....
This short video clip is with regards to the recent March 2011 Punggai trip, whereby 54 participants attended the star gazing trip...
I hope more such video will feature ISTAR-OPTICAL telescopes , for those who are interested in ISTAR-OPTICAL products....
REgards
James Ling
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Post by borispider on Apr 27, 2011 6:57:23 GMT -5
What a great video, James. Is it common for ppl to line up and take pics through the ep like that? I've been to a couple of outreach programs here and never experienced that before. What was your target? Saturn? Moon? Sun(didn't see a filter)?
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Post by Mike on Apr 27, 2011 12:32:11 GMT -5
LOVE the video James. Keep them coming! Now I can look up Punggai and see where you were. I'm guessing you were looking at the moon? And, I guess that was you cleaning the backside of the objective?
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Post by jamesling1000 on Apr 27, 2011 23:21:43 GMT -5
Hi borispider and All.
Yes, this video was shot around 6pm, our region the time is one hour in advance, so will be around 5pm , in your region.
At that time, before the sunset, we can see the 1st quarter moon, in the sky.... , thus the participants, not only are looking through the EP, but also using their camera to snap the photo. But when the night sky is out, all of them retook pictures of the moon again as you know the contrast of the moon gets sharper and sharper ......
Some participants also managed to capture the photo shot of Saturn, later in the evening, although it is very small.
Hi Mike and All.
Yes, the still photo shot appearing at the end of the video clip is taken by one of our participant, in the morning, when I clean the optics of this refractor. This is my first cleaning of the scope's lens, as it has been kept at this chalet, since last year October. The amazing thing with this passive cooling refractor, is that you are able to clean the inner side of the len without removing it from the len cells. But when come to dew buildup, the five oval holes must be covered during observation, which I use the orion 10" flexible dew shield.
REgards
James Ling
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Post by jamesling1000 on Apr 29, 2011 6:01:20 GMT -5
Hi Everyone........ I have one big news to announce to all of you with regards to ISTAR-OPTICAL..................... STAR-OPTICAL has been awarded by Astronomy magazine for their Perseus AT210-9 , under the refractors category, for the 2011 star product designation. And this will be published in the coming Sep astronomy issue, hitting the newsstand in August 2nd.I am very sure Ales, will announce the details soon, and definitely he will plan for a celebration, as this is a a great achievement for Istar. REgards James Ling Attachments:
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Post by borispider on Apr 29, 2011 6:44:01 GMT -5
Congratz Istar !!! edited because some of the smilies are messed up.
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Post by jamesling1000 on May 4, 2011 21:33:16 GMT -5
Hi All. I've informed Ales, from ISTAR-OPTICAL , that I will announce his recent award by Astronomy magazine for their Perseus AT210-9 , under the refractors category, for the 2011 star product designation. And he has just replied me that he would very much like to know the link here, which I will send to him. Perhaps Ales will say something to all of us , in this forum..... I think Ales, will even be more happy when , in future, whenever I post video clip into utube with regards to his 8" refractor, I will add in the phrase " AWARD WINNING ...... " Regards James Ling Attachments:
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Post by istar optical on May 5, 2011 6:26:14 GMT -5
Hi All. I've informed Ales, from ISTAR-OPTICAL , that I will announce his recent award by Astronomy magazine for their Perseus AT210-9 , under the refractors category, for the 2011 star product designation. And he has just replied me that he would very much like to know the link here, which I will send to him. Perhaps Ales will say something to all of us , in this forum..... I think Ales, will even be more happy when , in future, whenever I post video clip into utube with regards to his 8" refractor, I will add in the phrase " AWARD WINNING ...... " Regards James Ling Hello James and everyone at the Istar Scope Club. Personally I was more than pleasantly surprised about winning this award for our Perseus AT 210-9 and we are working hard on improving this model further so the next production run will have detachable front part with lens (the one with large vent holes for passive cooling, the one which most people mistake with dew shield...) so transporting this scope will be much easier and assembly should not take longer than two to three minutes without totally loosing collimation. When we get at least three pre-orders on this new improved model, we will start with the production. We are also going to offer Phoenix WFT 210-6 which is a very fast version of this 8" Perseus. Regarding our Lanthanum triplets, we ran into some problems with centering the lenses and coating, we are re-testing 160 F12 and by next week we should finish the 140 F12 Lanthanum triplets. If tests on 140 F12 are all OK, we will offer these for pre-orders. New improved production version of 160 F12 should become available by end of August or September, now we are working on 177 F8 NEW version of visual APO (also suitable for photography with only slight bluish halo around bright stars), the previous glass did not work for us well, the new version should be much better. Well, stay in touch everyone, talk to you soon, best regards, Ales Istar Optical, owner
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