ASTRONOMYTECHNOLOGY TODAYYour Complete Guide to Astronomical Equipment

STELLARVUE SV70T • PRIMALUCELAB AIRY APO65FDESIGNING AND CONSTRUCTING A 28-INCH F/3.6 DOB • THE MELIOR APOCHROMAT

• LOOKING BACK SERIES: SEEING AND SOLAR IMAGING

Volume 11 • Issue 3$6.00 US

The Paramount MYT CAPABLE OF EVERY POUND OF ITS RATED CAPACITY

Industry News/NewProducts14 MIRRO-SPHERE

Introduces Stronglight 12 True Serrurier Truss Telescope

16 FOXWOOD ASTRONOMYSolar Eclipse Timer Mobile App

18 ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFICOffers Wrap-around Solar Glasses

20 ASTRONOMY SHOPPEIntroduces New Division: Olde School Optics

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 3

Contents

In This Issue8 EDITOR’S NOTE

Astronomers, Cyclists and Other Extraordinarily Generous Soulsby Gary Parkerson

35 THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNTCapable of Every Pound of Its Rated CapacityBy Dr. James R. Dire

45 STELLARVUE SV70TTruly Stellar PerformanceBy Roy Parish

59 PRIMALUCELAB AIRY APO65FAiring it OutBy Simon Tang

In This Issue69 THE MELIOR APOCHROMAT

A New Refracting Telescope Optical DesignBy Joseph Bietry

79 DESIGNING AND CONSTRUCTING A 28-INCH F/3.6 DOBPart 2: How It Was DoneBy Tony Bryan

90 LOOKING BACK: SEEING AND SOLAR IMAGINGMeasuring Seeing with the AiryLab Solar Scintillation MonitorBy Alexandre Lhoest

Cover Story: Pages 33-41Our cover features Software Bisque’s

MyT. With a unibody design that

weighs just 34 pounds, it is the most

portable of the Paramount series, yet

is capable of a full 50-pound instru-

ment capacity, with a total maximum

payload of 100 pounds, including

counterweights. The background

image of NGC246 was captured by

Dr. James Dire, who shares his

impressions of this remarkable

imaging platform.

43

Contributing Writers ContentsIndustry News/NewProducts

Joe Bietry has been an optical systems designer for over thirty-five years. The major-ity of his career was spent at Eastman Kodak Company designing optical systems fora wide variety of products from consumer cameras to space optics. The last project heworked on at Kodak was a laser-based cinematic digital projector. IMAX purchased theintellectual property and hired the Kodak design team to develop this into a commer-cial projector for their large theaters. After the completion of that project, Joe becamea full-time independent optical-systems design consultant working for a variety ofcompanies. In his spare time, he conducted a survey of known refracting telescopedesigns. From that research, Joe invented the Melior Apochromat and patented thedesign. He, along with two other partners, recently formed the company Quest Opticsto develop this new design into a product.

Dr. James Dire has an M.S. degree in physics from the University of Central Floridaand M.A.and Ph.D. degrees from The Johns Hopkins University, both in planetary sci-ence. He has been a professor of physics astronomy at several colleges and universi-ties. Currently he is the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Kauai CommunityCollege in Hawaii. He has played a key role in several observatory projects includingthe Powell Observatory in Louisburg, KS,which houses a 30-inch (0.75-m) Newtonian;the Naval Academy observatory with an 8-inch (0.20-m) Alvin Clark refractor; and hebuilt the Coast Guard Academy Astronomical Observatory in Stonington, CT, whichhouses a 20 inch (0.51-m) Ritchey–Chrétien Cassegrain telescope.

Alexandre Lhoest spent his youth in Zaire, now renamed as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was enthralled by its clear skies and its well-visible Southern Cross,rendered beautifully so many nights on the African high plateau. After studying inEurope, his interest for astronomy arose again in the early 2000s with the advent of CCD cameras. Already interested in photography, astrophotography has become hismain hobby

Tony Bryan is an amateur astronomer, living in Jasper, Indiana and a member of the EvansvilleAstronomical Society (EAS), based in Evansville, Indiana with observatory facilities located inLynnville, Indiana. He is currently serving as President of the EAS. Tony loves tinkering and isexperienced in woodworking, car restoration, and electronics. His past ATM projects include:design and construction of an electronic telescope/camera clock drive, design and construc-tion of portable power systems, design and construction of a roll-off-roof observatory, designand construction of various camera and telescope mount accessories, rebuild and electron-ics retrofit on a 16-inch Dobsonian, and rebuilding of several telescope drive systems.

22 MOONLITE TELESCOPEACCESSORIES

Introduces NiteCrawler Two-Axis Worm-Drive Rotating Focuser

26 IOPTRONExtends Its Range of Camera Mounts

28 MEADE INSTRUMENTS CORP.EclipseView Series

30 STARLIGHT INSTRUMENTSAnnounces 1.25-inch Feather Touch

4 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Roy Parish lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, with his wife Bonnie and six cats, and is amember of the Shreveport-Bossier Astronomical Society. He is a retired Professor ofClinical Pharmacy in the School of Pharmacy, University of Louisiana, and is still activeas Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine in the LSU School of Medicine inShreveport. He pursued deep-sky astrophotography with film and manual guidingfrom the 1990s until 2012, when he began learning digital imaging. He has exchangedhis pharmacology research career for an astronomy career and is interested in astrom-etry and spectroscopy – always something more to learn.

Simon Tang was born in London, England, and moved to the US in 2006 to follow acareer in TV & Film. He has always had a fascination of space and the sky and decid-ed to take up astronomy. He purchased his first telescope at the beginning of 2016 andsince then, has embarked on a journey of exploration all from the comfort of his ownbackyard.

Gary Parkerson discovered early in his amateur-astronomy career that he was as fascinated by the tools of astronomy as by the amazing celestial objects they reveal –perhaps more so. When not writing about astro-tech, he covers industrial technologyfor a variety of online resources.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 35

I am the observatory director for theKaua`i Educational Association for Science andAstronomy (KEASA). We share our observa-tory complex with Kaua`i Community College.The complex consists of a roll-off-roof obser-vatory, a building with a 10-foot diameter AshDome, and a Sky Shed Pod with three bays.The roll-off-roof observatory, built in 1990, isa 48- by 24-foot (14.6- by 7.3-meter) buildingwhere half of the roof rolls underneath theother half. The half with the permanent roofcontains a classroom for meetings and equip-ment storage.

This observatory originally had a singlepier on a raised deck with a Celestron C14 tel-escope on a homemade mount and pier. Ap-proximately 10 years ago, a second pier wasinstalled for a Celestron C11 on a CGE Promount. The Celestron telescopes have sincebeen replaced with a PlaneWave Instruments17-inch Corrected Dall-Kirkham (CDK)Cassegrain telescope on a Paramount ME IIGerman equatorial mount and a RCOS 12.5-inch Ritchey-Chrétien Cassegrain telescope onan Astro-Physics 1200 German equatorialmount.

Last summer, I expanded the raised deck toallow more elbow room around these large in-struments and added a third pier to hold asmaller 8-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope. I re-purposed the old CGE Pro mount to use withthe 8-inch RC while contemplating whatmount to permanently use on the new pier.The 8-inch RC with the CCD camera,guidescope, guider CCD camera and finder-scope combined weigh just under 50 pounds.So, I needed a mount that could carry this pay-load.

By Dr. James R. Dire

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNTCapable of Every Pound of Its Rated Capacity

Image 1 - The Kaua‘i Community College observatory houses a Discovery 10-inchf/6 Newtonian on a Software Bisque Paramount ME German equatorial mount.

I have had a lot of experience withAstro-Physics and Software Bisque(maker of the Paramount line) mountsover the years. Both are excellent. The10-foot domed observatory I men-tioned above houses a Discovery10-inch f/6 Newtonian (see ATT Volume9, Issue 5) on a Paramount ME mount(Image 1). The mount is 15 years oldand still works like new. We have hadno problems with it (knock on wood!)The Astro-Physics 1200 mount is nearthe same age and also in excellent con-dition. When we bought the 17-inchCDK, we purchased a Paramount MEmount for it. In 2016, we traded up tothe ME II (Image 2).

Selecting a Mount for the New Pier

I could have purchased a Para-mount MX+ or an Astro-Physics 1100for the new pier. They have payload

ratings of 100 pounds and 110pounds, respectively. Normally, I don’tlike to exceed 50 percent of a mount’spayload specifications for serious astro-imaging, but I wanted to keep the costdown and wanted a mount that Icould easily remove and set up on a tri-pod, if I needed to use it at a differentlocation. The MX+ and A-P 1100seemed a bit heavy for that.

I next considered the Astro-Physics Mach 1 and the SoftwareBisque Paramount MyT (Image 3).Both sell for around the same priceand have nearly the same payload rat-ing: 45 pounds for the A-P and 50pounds for the MyT. I decided to gowith the Software Bisque ParamountMyT due to its slightly higher payload,and because it is packaged with theamazing Sky X Professional software.More on the software later.

Setting Up the MyTThe MyT mount came nicely

packed in foam and plastic (Image 4).The software came on a large-capacitythumb drive in the same box. I also or-dered a Bisque pier plate for themount, since I was using my own pier,not one from Bisque. My pier is a 6-

36 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

Image 2 - The Kauai Educational Associa-tion for Science and Astronomy's largest tel-escope is a PlaneWave Instruments 17-inchCorrected Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain tele-scope on a Paramount ME II German equa-torial mount.

Image 3 - The MyT German equatorialmount is the smallest of three Paramountsmade by Software Bisque.

inch Le Seur Astro Pier with an insertadapter for the old C-14 wedge. For-tunately for me, Bisque’s plate comespre-drilled to use with various com-mercial tripods. Three of the Bisqueplate’s holes exactly matched the top ofmy pier adapter (Image 5)!

Once I attached the plate to thepier adapter, I lifted the mount ontothe plate and attached it to the platewith the four supplied hand-turnedscrews. Three of them are shown withthe yellow arrows in Image 6. Sincethe mount only weighs 34 pounds, Irequired no assistance to lift it up. Ithen leveled the mount using levelingbolts at the base of the pier and themount’s built-in bubble level (Image7).

Next, I did a rough polar altitudeadjustment. The mount’s altitude canbe set from 0 to 64 degrees. On theside of the mount are large tic marksand numbers every ten degrees, withsmaller tics every two degrees in be-tween (Image 8). My latitude is 21°59', so I first I moved the horizontalbar (orange arrow Image 6) into theappropriate slot just below my 22° lat-itude mark. Then, using the fine polaraltitude knob, I raised the mount tonear 22 degrees. The final polar align-ment would be done with the tele-scope.

I then attached the counterweightshaft and two 20-pound counter-weights (Image 3). The mount onlycomes with one 20-pound counter-weight, but I had several spare ones forthe Paramount ME mount in thedome (Image 1), which uses the samecounterweights.

The last piece to add to the mountwas the Versa-Plate (Image 9). Four¼-20 bolts hold it to the mount, andit, in turn, holds the telescope’s dove-tail plate. Image 9 shows the 8-inch

RC telescope and piggyback 70-mmApo refractor attached to the Versa-Plate.

Like all Paramount models, theMyT has through-the-mount cablingto an instrument panel (Image 10) lo-cated below the Versa-Plate. The in-strument panel has jacks for AuxPower, two mini-USB ports, autogu-ider, focuser, and 5-volt and 12-voltpower ports. As seen in Image 9, I amusing the two USB ports for the twoCCD cameras and the autoguider port.Since my SBIG ST-2000 CCD camerahas a unique five-pin power cord, Icannot use the supplied power on theinstrument panel for it. So, I have a se-ries of cables running to the telescope(black flex conduit in Image 11) run-ning power up to the CCD camerasand motor focus, and a third USBcable to control the focuser on the RC-8.

Image 11 shows the mount’s Elec-tronics Box and the through-the-mount cabling. The Electronics Boxincludes the mount power switch, USB2.0 cable input, status lights, ports thatcan be used to run power through themount to the Instrument Panel, ahardware park port and a jack for themount’s joystick. Inside the Electron-ics Box is the Bisque MKS 5000 motorcontrol system. I have three thingsplugged into the MyT’s electronics

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 37

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

Image 4 - The Paramount MyT comes nicelypacked in a hefty box.

Image 5 - The Paramount MyT adapter plateinstalled on a six-inch Astro Pier.

box: a USB cable running to the com-puter to control the mount and cam-eras, a Paramount joystick, and the48-volt power supply that comes with

the mount (and uses 110-volt AC).Older Paramounts came with a

real joystick to slew the mount at var-ious speeds in both right ascension and

declination directions. Double click-ing the button on top of the joystickhomes the mount. The new Para-mount MyT instead comes with a very

38 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Image 6 - The yellow arrows show three of the four knobs used to at-tach the mount to the adapter plate. The orange arrow shows the fine-adjustment altitude control.

Image 7 - The mount has a built-in bubble level.

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 39

Image 8 - An altitude scale is etched on thesides of the mount to aid in a rough polaralignment.

Image 9 - The Paramount Versa-Plate boltsto the mount. The Versa-Plate received theLosmandy-style dovetail plate, which holdsthe telescope.

Image 10 - The instrument panel containstwo USB ports, an autoguider port, a focuser port and 5- and 12-volt DC powerjacks.

Image 11 - This view shows the electronicsbox and the through-the-mount cabling thatruns up to the instrument panel.

Image 12 - The completely assembledMyT mount with an 8-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and a 70-mm apo refractor.

Image 13 - There are three telescope suitesinside the KEASA observatory’s roll-off roof:a PlaneWave Instruments 17-inch CorrectedDall-Kirkham (CDK) Cassegrain telescopeon a Paramount ME II German equatorialmount, a RCOS 12.5-inch Ritchey-ChrétienCassegrain telescope on an Astro-Physics1200 German equatorial mount, and an 8-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope on a Para-mount MyT mount.

simple hand controller that has thesame functions. I prefer the joystick, soI am using one from an older Para-mount with the MyT. Software con-trolling the mount can do everythingthe joystick can. The only advantage ofthe joystick is not having to have acomputer within reach of the mountto manually slew it.

Assembling the mount, telescopes,cameras and all the cabling took undertwo hours! Image 12 shows the com-pleted set up. Image 13 shows all threemounts under the KEASA roll-off-roofobservatory: The Paramount MEII,the Astro-Physics 1200 and the Para-mount MyT.

The SkyX Professional Edition

I mentioned earlier that one of theperks about buying a Software Bisquemount is that it comes with the SkyXProfessional Edition (SkyX Pro forshort) software. This amazing softwarehas a planetarium-like chart and cancontrol a telescope mount, imagingstill or video camera, autoguider cam-era, dome or roll-off roof, focuser, andfocuser rotator. Any ASCOM-compli-ant hardware in the above categoriesshould have no problem communicat-ing with the SkyX Pro. The softwarecomes on a thumb drive with Macin-tosh and Windows versions.

Let me start off with the little thatI don't like about the SkyX Pro. Image14 shows a sample of the display afterlaunching the SkyX Pro and centeringthe field on M65. The symbols usedfor galaxies (red spiral icons seen inImage 14), open star clusters, globularstar clusters, planetary nebulae, etc.,do not conform to the normal symbolsseen star atlases such as Norton’s StarAtlas, Millennium Star Atlas, or StarAtlas 2000. That’s why I prefer the

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

charts on Carina Software’s Voyager 4.5.

Voyager 4.5 uses the normal sym-bols plus the size of the symbol on thescreen is proportional to the size of thedeep space object. When zooming inVoyager 4.5, the symbol zooms pro-portionally until it gives way to a pic-ture of the object. In SkyX Pro, the symbols stay the same nonpropor-tional size no matter what the field-of-view scale. The default settings in SkyX Pro have no R.A. or Dec lines ornumbers, nor any constellation infor-mation on the chart screen. But thosecan be turned on!

The good news is, SkyX Pro has asymbol editor to allow users to createdifferent shapes and colors for anychart object. Image 15 show the sym-bol editor where I have just created anew symbol for globular clusters. Inthis image, the sky chart is centered onM22 (Messier numbers turned on inred). There are many globular clusters(circles with crosshairs) in the region,along with open clusters (open circles)and planetary nebulae (green circleswith four spikes coming out of them).

The symbols are not proportionalto the cluster sizes, but at least they arethe symbols I am used to. Zooming indoes not change the symbols size, butat some point the symbol gives way toan image of the object, as it did forM25 in this chart view. Note, I havealso turned on R.A. and Dec lines andlabels, and blue constellation lines. Inthis view, part of the Teapot asterism isvisible. I could have turned on a gam-bit of other labels (star names, NGCnumbers, etc.), but didn’t because atsome point the charts get too clut-tered.

Setting up the hardware withinThe SkyX Pro is pretty simple. Image16 shows, on the left, the different

Image 14 - The default chart screen on the SkyX Professional Edition.

Image 15 - The SkyX Pro has an editor to customize symbols for deep space objects.

Image 16 -The SkyX Pro can controller most telescope instrumentation by selecting the man-ufacturer and model in the appropriate window.

40 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

Image 17 - The SkyX Pro Display menu contains all the various control windows thatcan be made active by checking them.

Image 18 - The SkyX Pro Find window can be used to search for objects, center themin the chart, and slew the telescope to them. Information about the current object isfound in this window.

Image 19 - The Telescope control window can also be used to find objects and slew tothem. The telescope can be slewed or jogged a set amount with the mouse and ar-rows in this window.

types of hardware that can be configured.On the right, I have opened the mountsetup window and scrolled down to SoftwareBisque mounts to select the ParamountMyT. It’s that simple for cameras and otherhardware. Most makes and models of equip-ment can be found in the SkyX Pro!

On Image 17, I have pulled down the Display menu where at the bottom arethe various control and data windows thatcan be opened. Those with check markshave a tab visible on the left side of the window for quick access. Many of the control windows can be configured to haveuser-selected element visible in them. Alsonote the icons along the top of the SkyX Prowindow. There are hundreds of toolbar andicon combinations that can be made visiblethere.

Most-Used Features of TheSkyX Pro

I will now discuss a few of the SkyX Profeatures I use the most. First on Image 18,I have opened the Find window and I foundNGC 1893 in Auriga. Note the five icons inthe row below the green NGC1893. The redtarget-symbol centers NGC 1893 on thechart. The fourth icon in that row, i.e., thegreen target symbol, is used to request aSlew to NGC 1893. The right-most icon isfor Close Loop Slews. When selected, thetelescope will slew to the object, take a pre-determined-length image with the camera,if connected, and then compares the imageto the chart. It then centers the telescope ex-actly onto the object and takes a secondimage to show that the object is now cen-tered. Pretty cool! Below all the Find win-dow icons is a list of information on theselected object.

Image 19 shows the Telescope controlwindow. From this window, you can stillsearch for and find objects, slew to them ordo a closed-loop slew. The four green arrowsallow the mount to be jogged a set distancein R.A or Dec, or just slewed with mouse

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 41

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

clicks at a user-selected speed. Note onthe chart the oval galaxy symbols I cre-ated, which I have color-coded to in-dicate the galaxy type (spiral, elliptical,lenticular or irregular).

The Camera control window isshown in Image 20. There are myriadsettings available for exposing single ora series of images. Filter-wheel controlis also in this window. The Autoguidercontrol is shown in Image 21. Like

most camera-control software, the au-toguider must be calibrated. Guiderimages and a graph of guider errors canbe displayed.

One of the best add-on features inthe SkyX Pro is the T-Point software. T-Point is used to create a mountmodel to improve the accuracy of find-ing targets. A minimum of six stars isrequired for a basic mount model. Ifind that a 20- to 30-star model getsmost objects close to centered on myCCD camera with my 8-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope. For our 17-inchtelescope on the Paramount ME II, wehave a 200-star mount model. Fortu-nately, after six stars are obtained, thesoftware will complete the mountmodel on its own as long as the camerais active.

So how well does the ParamountMyT perform with the maximum pay-load installed? Image 22 is a 90-minuteexposure (nine 10-minute subframes)of NGC246 taken with the R-C8 tele-scope and an SBIG ST-2000XCMCCD camera. An 0.8x focalreducer/field flattener was employedyielding a focal length of 1321 mm.Tracking with the camera’s guide chipwas great, yielding round starsthroughout the field of view. NGC 246is a magnitude-10.4 planetary nebulain the constellation Cetus. The nebulahas a diameter of 4.0 arcminutes.

Image 23 is a two-hour exposureof the spiral galaxy NGC3621 usingthe same equipment, also with 10-minute subframes. This magnitude-9.5galaxy is in the constellation Hydra.

These images show that the Para-mount MyT is indeed a mighty mountfor astro-imaging carrying a payloadclose to 50 pounds. I am quite pleasedwith the performance of this mountand look forward to many years of im-aging with it!

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Image 20 - The Camera control window will control a camera for single images or for a series of images. A filter wheel can also be setup and controlled in this window.

Image 21 - Equally important is the Autoguider window to control the guide camera or guidechip in a two-chip SBIG camera.

42 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

THE PARAMOUNT MYT ROBOTIC TELESCOPE MOUNT

Image 22 - The author took this image of NGC246 with an 8-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and a SBIG ST-2000XCM camera on the Para-mount MyT mount. This guided exposure was 90 minutes using 10-minute subframes.

Image 23 - This image of NGC3621 taken with an 8-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and a SBIG ST-2000XCN camera on the Paramount MyTmount was a combined 120-minute exposure.