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Some clear sky here but occasional showers and 45+mph winds put me off. Next few nights look promising though.

Another vote here for a 102ED f7. Its a nice sweet spot of a scope on all fronts. Can also sit on an EQ5 with no problem.

In the cold light of day, I now have the overnight timelapse. It runs dawn to dawn and the PaullSky Pi then FTP's it to another Mini PC ( a cute little N100 from Chineshire) that came with W11 but got retrofitted with Ubuntu (I'm done with headless PC's balking at Microsofts demands). That machine is the server for my other survelance cameras via AgentDVR, I can VNC into both Pi and PC should I need to but Agent drills through the portforwarding and dynamic IP malarky and gives me a lovely screen showing the normal camera's live view, the latest frame from the PaulSky camera and the current dawn to dawn Paulsky Timelapse. Until I find a way to lash it up differently, the MP4 just plays contininuously. I can download the the file to my home PC for editing such as below where I've trimmed the timelaps to show the overnight period only. You'll see the ickle aurora at the 8 o'clock position at around the 23:00 mark. Untitled video.mp4

I thought this would be a funny question to ask! SGL is littered with comments about big expenses pursued to improve the experience as an amateur astronomer, but I'm asking you: have you ever spent a lot of money on an item that you wanted specifically to improve your astro-sketching experience? For example, I'm thinking seriously to buy a star tracker, even though for my normal visual observation I don't feel like I need it at all - and I don't really do astrophotography. But for sketching... (OK I would probably start doing some sort of DSLR astrophotography too!)

Absolutely this Mike! I tracked the apparition last year and it was absolutely terrific as a project from April till August. This particular observation at conjunction -6 (or 7) days (this is the 6th August, i think Inferior Conjunction was on the 13th) and the Venusian crescent at just 2.4% was probably my highlight and best observation of the year: The weather then over the next few days didn't allow an observation closer to the Sun until it was too late a day or two before conjunction - too late for me to find Venus (manually) safely. A definite bucket list item to get closer. Utterly beguiling at even this thin crescent a few days before. No ashen light for me here.

Thanks Mark. I will never unsee the smilly crater now 😂. Yes I hate when updates decide to happen during imaging. I hope the weather improves so we can get some high resolution images.

Thanks. I keep it firmly in mind that there is nobody to stick a plaster on any injuries. Probably nobody would find me for weeks out here in the sticks. It gives one a proper sense of fragility and vulnerability.

Can you ssh into the asiair and look at the filesystem , see if there is an indi catalogue and what the indi catalogue says ?

If you are convinced it's XML what's the odds that it is indi ? And that's well documented .. It would be quick to knock up a test.

@bosun21 I have used the mount in AZ but I am trying to use Ascom and CdC with varying degrees of success and as I found in an earlier topic post I made the rooky mistake and was struggling to get it lined up, so it is at least for now in EQ mode.

@M40 I had looked at the Todmorden pier and have not yet ruled it out for the reason of being able to adjust the hight, but if I do go with a raised platform I am not sure it would be the way to go.

@mikeDnight that is a very nice set up you have. At only 5' 9" I would of needed a stepladder to reach the eyepiece in your first set up. The info from your pier set up now is really interesting and answers another one of my questions that it is personal preference as well as including how tall you are. The photo from outside with your scope just peaking out of the top has raised another question for me. I was planning on making a raised decking platform of about 1m high, the reason being I have a railway fence at the rear of my house and at that hight the top of the fence would be just above the horizon giving me as much sky as possible. Am I expecting to much from a scope to be looking low in the sky even in good seeing conditions?

Hello, I am a relatively new landscape astro shooter located in the Boston/Cape Cod area of the US. I would love nothing more than to meet other amateur landscape astro photographers in the Cape Cod area. It's been a pretty solitary experience so far. I am also new to this forum, if I posted in the wrong place I apologize.

My 25mm A-T Paradigm (Starguider) has 17mm of usable eye relief with the eyecup all the way down, so identical to the 24mm UFF with eye cup folded down. I've not measured the eye cup up eye relief of either.

Place a bright star at the edge of the field, then look direct at the center of the field. If you can catch the bright star in your peripheral vision, you are seeing the whole field. If you want to look at the edge of the field with direct vision, and you simply move your eye to do so, and the eyepiece is wider than about 70°, you will move your eye's pupil away from the eyepiece's exit pupil. In order to look directly at the edge in an 82° eyepiece, you need to roll your head over and look through the eyepiece at an angle, whether using glasses or not.

Sounds about right. The eyeglasses view in the 22mm Nagler is still wider than the Redline 22mm 70 degree by a few degrees.

I bought the SV zoom for £80. The Nagler is over £400!

Some double stars and the moon with my 70mm F/6 ED this evening. Seeing not so great through. Moon was behind the house later so it was worth at least trying for some brighter DSO's. Despite the paltry aperture, I did manage to see M 65 and M 66 of the Leo Triplet group. NGC 3628 was not visible though, perhaps unsurprisingly given the small scope. As Meatloaf sang in 1977, "Two out of three, ain't bad" 🙂

Another first for the PaulSky Camera tonight, a short burst of Aurora, either that or the reactor's alight.... The forecast has a broad but not highly intense Auroral Oval oval for the period so it certainly looks like it. Other frames, though not as intense, show more definite rays. North is to the left. The red at the 8 o'clock moved around and spread over 20 minutes or so and faded.

I have taken quite a few images of Double Stars. I haven't done anything recently as I have been focused in other areas. They are not super hard to image but the biggest challenge is getting the balance right if you want to catch fainter field stars as well.

It looks like I didn't Piero as I have just checked the 22mm Nagler and it comes out at 656 gms.........my apologies to Neil.....

I was given one of these to "play" with some years ago, it is a "Bird-Jones" type. It actually looked quite well made and finished but the performance was pretty sub par. After faffing about with the collimation for ages I managed to get a fairly decent image out of it, good enough to please a complete beginner but not worth spending any extra money on it. Quite a bargain for free. 🙂

I don’t regret buying either. I have not done an in depth comparison or a non-biased opinion between the two. Some of the things that I have noted so far are: the SV is a little bit taller than the TV. the ‘extra’ lengths… ie 7 and 8mm. wider FOV… 56deg. [SV] v 50deg. [TV] the twist-grip for changing focal lengths on the SV is about twice the height of the TV - the diameter is about the same. the SV twist-grip is ‘smoother’ when changing to other focal lengths than that of the TV. build quality… the TV is solid. I can hear slight rattle if I shake the SV. I think other SGL’ers [and astro-forums] have commentated on this issue, but I don’t think it’s going to disintegrate or come apart that easily… unless I do something drastic or stupid to it. both are optically very good. I find the relief isn’t to bad either. I wear glasses/spectacles, but not when observing. Some have said the SV & TV planetary zoom e/p’s are a bit tight in that department. the SV is about two-thirds the price [or less] than the TV.

I was working tonight but managed to get outside for a short session with the 15x70's. The Moon looked spectacular (again) 😀 with plenty of detail on the terminator. M44 was more washed out by the moonlight. I did manage to spot M67 and M53. I think I also spotted NGC5053 which is a Globular Cluster very close to M53. Cheers Ian

If you are doing visual you can always flip your AZ-EQ6 into Alt/Az mode. This will keep the eyepiece in a respectable position for observing with your Newtonian.