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Very sad to hear. I attended several of his talks, a really friendly and welcoming bear of a man. He'd always reply to you if you emailed him.

Looking more complete each time I drop by on the thread Michael. This will be a major upgrade on your first one of course.

Yes, Paul. I remember now. I will add his name to my post. Thank you 🙂 I am over most of my jet lag, so have remembered something else from the visit. I won't add this to the post because it is sad. Al took me aside and showed me a wall displaying his optical patent certificates. He was understandably proud but concluded that conversation by saying we don't file patents anymore because people copy the designs anyway, and the info in a patent only makes it easier for them to do so. Steve

If you've got the equipment at hand you'll generally get a result, I did it on my first attempt with a 60mm refractor, barlow, but I was using a 224mc camera, its a popular plantery camera and doesn't cost much, in fact it's very cheap now compared to its original price.

Don't use a kit lens for AP, get a few good fixed primes. Samyang specifically ED lenses are usually decent and fairly affordable. The 14mm is a very popular widefield lens (note you'll struggle to use it if any stray light sources are nearby due to the curvature of the front lens). Sigma Arts are usually good but expensive. Vintage lenses also work within their limits.

yeah i agree, but before i do i need to make sure i buy the correct bits and peices that will work first time for my gear. jupiter is visible for a little while after dark from where i am, but for now im gonna try and concentrate on maximising hours on something. Until june ish, when i think stellarium is telling me m31 is back. ngc4889 "thousand galaxies" is interesting atm. who wouldn't want a pic containing 1000 galaxies?

To be honest I'd just go out and do it, no amount of reading makes up for hands on experience. I've never read into the technicalities of any of it. It is however not a good time to image the planets at this moment in time, they're too low or set early/rise in the morning.

I believe that would have been the late Paul Dellechiaie, who sadly passed away in June 2022. Paul worked with Tele Vue from 1985 until the time of his passing.

I've had the pleasure of meeting with Al and David Nagler a few times and they stand out as equipment designers who know their trade. You dont see many other designers or manufacturers attending star parties and actually 'standing by' their products.

Ditto. The Tele Vue 85 APO is winking at me, particularly after seeing Al use one to demonstrate the edge-to-edge sharpness of an eyepiece. They have multiple ways of testing an eyepiece, including the usual optical resolution charts. But Al's favourite methods are less techie and more DIY. I.e., a row of ball bearings that, when illuminated with a high contrast light, provide specular highlights across the field, enabling multiple airy discs to be observed. And shiny aluminium filings sprinkled and glued onto a black surface to simulate stars. I remember something else I should have included in my post: the Ethos was David's project, not Al's. David wanted to take the Tele Vue 'Spacewalk' philosophy ('ethos') to the next level with an even wider field. When David showed Al his initial drawings for a new Ethos eyepiece, Al said he thought the design might be too ambitious. But later, when progress was made and demonstrated to Al, he was impressed, and, together with one of their optical wizards, they finished the design and brought it to market. I'll add both of the above to my post. Steve

One Coronado SolarMax II 60 RichView Solar Telescope with BF10. Open Box Open box - used for product photography. New and unused. Excellent condition. Open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £2,198.00 £1,978.00 (saving £220.00)

Hi William Yes I agree you can’t compare the too makes properly as obviously as you say 10 micron are contactable for problems or concerns whereas Software Bisque have gone down the open forum route which probably distorts the percentage of their mounts that need fixing or problematic I guess the fact that they sold thousands around the world it’s obvious that more of their mounts are going to cause concerns . It’s a hard one to weigh up really I like the 10 micron but don’t know if I can justify the extra £2-3000 on it even I was leaning that way unless I can find a good second hand one but you don’t ever see them on Astro buy sell uk maybe I should save for longer . In all honesty I haven’t got a mount at the moment I’ve got all the rest of the gear though . I had a eq6 a few years back but sold it and have a lay off for a few years but have come into a bit of money this year so have bought telescope camera etc but want a good mount so I don’t have to upgrade it in a few years time so I’m willing to spend about £8000-£9000 at the moment . Dave

Cheers

I have created a model in Excel, describing the orbits of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth, including the tilt of the moon's orbit (nodes). It also includes the distance between the moon and the earth (super moons). This model supports the prediction of eclipses, but as the orbits are modelled as circles, accuracy is not always high. Any tips how to model the orbits as ellipses? Anton (astronomy-morsels.ch) Sun-Earth-Moon Model V1.0.xlsx

Excellent, thanks for the replies, if I'd of known the thing was mounted the wrong way round I wouldn't have posted a pic 🤣. I've ordered a cheap 1.25" diagonal (Here) and the (Celestron eyepiece). Hopefully that gets us going. I've a good view at the house so hopefully the eyepiece is good for terrestrial viewing too. The handset is still there. I'll use batteries for the time being, and I've an upgraded finder. Telrad I think. The more I type I'm remembering that I spent quite a lot of money on eye pieces and different bits. Time to get the bug back, and hopefully we'll bump into each other again. Plus I promised pints 😀

One Celestron 8" Rowe-Ackermann Astrograph (RASA 8). Damaged B Grade 8" RASA - has a slight paint blemish on the OTA tube otherwise in excellent condition and optically A-OK. Scruffy box. Full manufacturers warranty. £2,469.00 £1,999.00 (saving £470.00)

I've highly rated Tele Vue products for many, many years (and bored many on this forum with that no doubt 🙄). I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting any of the TV team but it is good to see that they are such a motivated group of people maintaining high standards and setting the standards that others try to emulate. Thanks for posting FLO's impressions after visiting the company and meeting the Tele Vue staff. Very encouraging 🙂

It's something I never thought to ask my ex about. Lucy (Lucica) was from Romania. We did talk about birds and how the names were different. For example, our Swallow (Hirundo rustica) they call Hirundica.

One Celestron 8" Rowe-Ackermann Astrograph (RASA 8). Damaged B Grade 8" RASA - has a slight paint blemish on the OTA tube otherwise in excellent condition and optically A-OK. Scruffy box. Full manufacturers warranty. £2,469.00 £1,999.00 (saving £470.00)

A few more for my Stars Album

It's nice to hear good things about such a great company, and I'm glad that they have stuck with their values all this time. Long may it continue. Thanks for sharing!

It was speculated the EOFB was due to its angular magnification distortion, except the Docter/Noblex 12.5mm has no EOFB and has strong AMD as well. Baffles? Lens polish at the edges of the lens? Field stop too large? Unknown cause. But I lent the eyepiece to five other observers, and they all saw the same thing. If your circumstances don't allow it to be seen, keep it, because though tests show it's edge is only average at f/4, its other problem, FC, is very minor, and it was quite sharp at f/5.75.

How does it know o what my seeing is, when I don't know? Also, is it a accurate prediction/calculation?

After 3ppa in Nina and focusing main and guide scopes and recalibrating phd2 I took the attached pic. It's 23 x 180sec but clouds arrived full calibration frames. It's cropped and a quick post process (which I over did). My guiding was around 0.18 (1.6) in Nina. I think I could improve that with more medelling and maybe resorting to the backlash in Dec axis via a physical screw, but I'm not keen. It's possible my 3ppa was too accurate. Are the above numbers good enough for my gear? Also, hfr in phd2 was in red and over 4 most of the time and the zoom on guide star looked a bit big. Is this likely guide scope focus related? I have not changed gain control in phd2 think it defaults to 48. I also noticed one egg shaped star in top left but not really anywhere else in stacked image (not visible in the attached crop image). Likely a result of stacking not back focus? Lastly, there's a button in siril I think measures tilt and the top left of the quad overlay seems about 20% more than the other 3 which usually seem less than 10% different. Can a sensor tilt in just one corner, rather than in a plane? Sorry for continually asking more questions and requests for help. I do think I'm acting on them all and putting them to good use, but I might be a tad bias

You need a 1.25" diagonal and an eyepiece like the one you highlighted, 25-32mm will do. Someone has unscrewed the diagonal without loosening the two silver securing screws causing the diagonal nosepiece to be retained in the visual back of the telescope. Loosen these and remove the old nosepiece. Regarding power you will have to decide whether you want to run on AA batteries or an external source of 12v