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Some years ago, with my 250PX, I had problems with slewing and tracking in the Az axis. It turned out to be one of the encoder ribbon cable connectors adrift from its position on the control board's pins. The ribbon cable layout may have been defined before the ferrite rings had been added (probably to pass regulatory EMC tests) and there was little slack in the cables. It was difficult to spot the poor connection, as it was under the control board. The problems went away once I had re-seated the plug, and has been fine since. The clutch friction is a compromise between (1) good motor drive, and (2) manual operation without using the handset. Geoff

I'll be on it shortly. Put the 100 out and had a quick peek at Gassendi. Perfectly presented. Just let the scope cool a little and we're off.

Aurorawatch sent a red alert earlier, so we walked to a spot out of town with no street lighting and a decent northern horizon. As the last glow faded in the west, we strained our eyes to the north. Was there a faint, mauve tinge to the sky there? We both thought we could see it, but not definitively. Aurorawatch had by now downgraded to yellow, so we headed back. Next time...

Irresponsible behaviour: Nagler 2-4mm zoom on 2mm + 2.2x barlow (the Parks GS 2x is 2.2x really) in a 900mm FL scope = 989x 😬 Apollo astronaut viewpoint gliding over the lunar surface. I'll pretend that the floaters are a dirty command module window 😉 Highly un-scientific, but fun 😄

Hi folks After 6 years or so I am getting back into stargazing 🔭 Previously I had an 8 inch Skywatcher Dob which I struggled with and became too fixated with aligning mirrors to enjoy the skies. Before that I had a beautiful Skywatcher refractor but the equatorial mount took a while to set up and take down. So…currently I’d like something compact and easy to set up and use. I was thinking of the Celestron SE 4inch Maksutov Cassegrain. My interest is mainly planetary. Is this a good choice? Any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all Neb

Swapped out my RedCat setup for the Esprit120 which I think I'll be using in visual mode for the next few weeks as it is starting to get light well into the evening. I bought the Esprit 120 about a year ago and I still haven't really put it to work on imaging -I've been having too much fun using the RedCat. So this is really the first proper shakedown with the 120. Tonight I will be mainly looking at the Moon - it looks glorious, nice and sharp and no colour fringes whatsoever. I'm looking forward to playing around with this over the next few weeks, I'm going to keep it in visual mode until the autumn arrives. Jim

I'd give it a clean up with some steel wool then wash off any dust. You can use warm water and fairy liquid, then dry with paper towel and allow to dry on a radiator for a few minutes. Duraglit wool is also good to help clean up any bare metal but also needs cleaning off afterwards. Rust-Oleum sage green spray paying gives a nice finish. It's not an exact match but its close enough not to be obvious. It's also pretty hard wearing once completely dry. It's also cheap, so weights etc can be resprayed whenever necessary.

Good seeing tonight. I've been able to get really sharp and crisp views of Gassendi, it's rilles, central peak and fractured floor using the Svbony 3-8mm zoom (4mm setting) AND a Parks GS barlow which gives a combined magnification of a rather ludicrous 494x. Stepping up to 566x and a touch of the sharpness is lost although the views are still quite impressive. The scope is my old ED120. Schiller looks like a huge divot close to the terminator. The Parks GS barlow is the same optically as the old Celestron Ultima. Nice glass 🙂

You generally don't want to touch the highlights level on the right as it's your brightest parts (ie stars) and if you're not careful you'll oversaturate them and any glow and cause them to bloat. The mid is the control. It's usually better if you're trying to reveal faint signal to work on starless images, then recombine the stars after the stretching is done. This isn't so necessary when doing galaxy processing.

I purchased a Wi-Fi camera for my ‘scopes. I could not get the damn thing to connect. I tried a cheap Tesco CMOS webcam many years ago and a Phillips Toucam ll and although I did not do any imaging at that time, the views certainly made it a great tool for outreach events. Only downside is the length of the USB cables. I now have a secondhand ZWO ASI120MC, so I am looking forward to see how that performs.

The thing with rust which I presume is on it, if it's on the metal it is extremely difficult to get rid of without some sort of real surface grinding and pre treatment, hammerite is supposed to cover the rust and metal but does it continue to rust underneath? When I painted an area on a previous car, even when sanded down to bare shiny metal, a few coats of primer and a few coats of spray paint and lacquer, it still continued to rust a few months after. I suppose this application it isn't so exposed to the elements. With paint you usually want a good keyed (textured) surface so there's something and more surface area to adhere to in the absence of an electro static process. Maybe use a coarse grit sandpaper to finish the surface prior to coating. You can always sand down with wet and dry to smooth it off afterward but needs a few coats of paint prior.

Can I show something that I unexpectedly did see in a 5" Mak that I would have normally expected to see in an 8" Newt? A spider.

Mmm, very interesting, This was actually a specific example I did wonder might be easier in the frac., without diffraction spikes, and very uneven brightness.

I wish the Moon was available from my balcony tonight. Unfortunately after a few amazing nights, now it's behind my building and tonight I was too tired to get elsewhere. I still managed to bag M38, M36 and M37, not without frustration. I had to search at 100x to increase contrast 🤣 Seeing was decent and it gave me some OK views at 166x !

P.S. Had a great time on the moon tonight!

Yes that is a bit of an uncomfortable watch. Mercifully no lasting damage but maybe a lifelong lesson learned. Jim

The moon dominates the sky here tonight. Lots to see but following the Hesiodus "ray" phenomenon a couple of nights back, I could not resist a look at the smaller neighbour, Hesiodus A with it's double ring structure. It's small but quite well illuminated just now: Image Credit: ACT-REACT Quickmap / LRO / NASA

My old ED120 eyes the moon tonight at 257x

Got my spacers this morning. Another great delivery by FLO. Clouds included as usual. Supposed to have an hour or so clear tomorrow evening to give it a try Fingers crossed.

It probably needs at least some grease as the clutch has to be able to slip in the event of something impeding the rotation. The "trick" is to adjust the slippage torque to avoid slippage in normal use but also to avoid locking up. Try tightening the nut a small amount. 🙂

Sirius B in my Vixen SD115S. Never had a hint of it in my 8" newt nor C8. Never tried with an aperture mask though.

Have you tried moving it with the HC at the various speeds? Perhaps slippage could occur at slow rates 1-3.

I opened up last night and it all looks ok. One thing I noticed is that there was a lot of grease on the small spacers just under the big nut. Would that be causing it? Do they need the grease? So why at high speed with the controller is it ok to turn?

I believe that making an optically flat window, properly flat that is, is quite difficult. I have seen it offered as an option in the past but it was quite an expensive option. I used to have a 6 inch F/6 maksutov-newtonian but the meniscus on that had a figure of course, to correct the spherical primary. Nearest thing to refractor images that I've seen from a reflecting design though. Tiny secondary - just 18% of the aperture of the primary.

If the brass worm is turning then the wormwheel must also be turning which points to clutch slip as already diagnosed. 🙂