I think I was the one who posted the suggestion to use these dive weight bags. To make their use even easier, I purchased some aluminum rod of the proper diameter to slide and lock the weights onto, s

Don’t recall the hotel name, but we were in Cabo. The hotel was the southernmost one on Baja, with beaches on both sides of the peninsula. A great experience. I tried to see the next Saros 136 eclipse

Strange – the one I made from Schedule 80 PVC is a good fit in the sense that the shaft slides in and out with a little “whoosh” of air, but not even close to getting stuck. - Barry Dr. Barry Megdal P

Reposting from a few months ago: I posted this long ago when I was using a 1200 as a “portable” mount. Since then I have a 1600 mount in an observatory. But I recently received the very impressive Mac

I know others have had good luck with unguided imaging, but we just got the first clear and stable night in Southern California in what seems like months, so I was able to try out my latest APPM model

Yes – that is a 6-foot slide rule on the wall. Couldn’t resist buying it years ago at a garage sale. These used to hang on the blackboard in my high school chemistry class so they could teach us how t

I used to program the IBM 1620 at the neighboring junior college when I was in high school – unique thing about that machine was that internal storage was in decimal (BCD) rather than standard binary…

I was referring to the idea of putting the shaft end cap onto the mount for storage.

Great Idea!

I believe the question was about the safety stop that screws into the end of the shaft, and that is small and I keep it with other accessories. The case does have a screw-on PVC pipe cap that seals th

I keep the end cap with other small accessories in a small box. - Barry

The purpose is both – to protect the beautiful look of the counterweight shaft during transportation, as well as keeping it from damaging the vehicle or other equipment. Barry Nice! Is this to protect

I posted this long ago when I was using a 1200 as a “portable” mount. Since then I have a 1600 mount in an observatory. But I recently received the very impressive Mach 2 which I intend to transport o

I would suggest running whatever devices are sharing the same power (perhaps main and guide camera and focuser (and maybe dew heater depending if the controller you use generates noise) from a RigRunn

Just a general comment about USB and cold weather. It turns that that low-cost USB gear (whether cards in the back of PCs or hubs, etc.) often use ceramic resonators rather than quartz crystals to pro

Sorry again – that of course should have said “listed on Astromart”, not Ebay. - Barry Dr. Barry Megdal President Shb Instruments, Inc. 19215 Parthenia St. Suite A Northridge, CA 91324 www.shbinstrume

Sorry for the previous blank email. All this talk of 130EDF Field Flattener made me look in my AP accessories drawer, and I have one I no longer need. It is listed on EBay in the Refractor classifieds

The comments other have made about CFZ (Critical Focus Zone) are very relevant. You need to find out what the step size of your focuser means in actual linear distance (e.g. microns), to see if the va

Interesting comment about a reflection – can you provide more detail? Thanks - Barry Dr. Barry Megdal President Shb Instruments, Inc. 19215 Parthenia St. Suite A Northridge, CA 91324 www.shbinstrument

Finally had a night with decent (not great – 2”) seeing, and this is part of a run with my 1.6 meter focal length very long refractor (AP206). 1600 mount with encoders. Large APPM model I did back in