Great point. Let's not forget Lowell's infamous canals. And I'm still trying to decide why I believed I saw the chevron pattern of Venus with my little 8 inch, years ago. It was either an exceptional situation with just the right kind of cloud cover to cut down on glare (I was looking through clouds then) combined with a freakish condition in Venus' atmosphere, or I convinced myself I saw shapes that I did not, or some optical trick. But it sure looked real! -- Joe
One word of caution. High power also brings out the defects in the eyeball. You have to be very careful about what you see, and whether it is an artifact or not. Please look up Hershel's use of high power, and his reports of moon creatures. (A famous hoax)
Brent
--- Jim Gibson <xajax99@yahoo.com> wrote:
Question for Rich Tenny (or anyone else)
I saw the new Televue products (41mm eyepiece etc) you mentioned last night at SLAS at:
http://www.televue.com/WSP2003/NewProdsJan2003/New_at_WSP2003.htm
I donít currently have any hi-power stuff like the 3.5mm or the 2.5mm Nagler. I ran this little program at: http://www.csgnetwork.com/telescopemagcalc.html for a 12î mirror with an f7 focal length and a 2.5mm eyepiece. One of the calculations states that for this setup the ìMaximum Useful Magnificationî is 600x; however, the 2.5mm would provide 853x. I also recall from a previous conversation we had that someone told you in reference to the Mars opposition that it could take all of the power you could crank. How does all this square? Does the Maximum Useful Magnification mean that everything over 600x (in this case) will go soft? If (big if) I bought a 2.5mm Nagler, could I use it for anything else? I am thinking that such power would only be good for bright planets.
Jim Gibson
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Joe Bauman science & military reporter Deseret News bau@desnews.com (801) 237-2169