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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

FWIW, the SM125 ED is manufactured to a minimum Strehl of 0.92. When considering Strehls, 0.8 is diffraction-limited 1/4 wave, 0.92 is very good, 0.95-0.98 is exceptional, and 0.98+ is essentially perfection. HTH, Steve

Same issue, that’ll teach me to keep up to date! 🤣

I used a Japanese made ‘Green Federal’ 1:2.8 stopped down to F4. It’s an old M42 with adapter for Canon which I got from eBay a few years ago, think it was about £20 😊

Cool. Thanks for that. i believe the AZGTI can handle up to 5Kg payload and I’m not putting anything too heavy on it so should be okay. The Ioptron seems to be the one to get if it doesn’t move when locking everything down. Will check out the Minitrack so thanks for all your help.

Ty for this but I have a lot more reading to do before attempting this side project. Maybe when I run out of galaxies

A picture worth a thousand words , so heres 2k 😄 Not my pictures , you find them on Agena Astro - link atached. In the diagram is SCT but as far as I know is the same for MAK : 1) Thread adapter to 1.25" holder to OEM diagonal to eyepiece 2) Supa-Dupa diagonal already fitted with thread adapter ( Named firms with mucho $$$ involved) to eyepiece Since you are doing it for the kids , maybe 1) is the way to go. Choosing and Using 2" Diagonals for Schmidt-Cassegrain and Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescopes (agenaastro.com) EDIT: If you unscrew the two silver knobs , does the silver threaded tube comes out ? Looking a bit closer it looks like the nosepiece of a diagonal that was unscrewed.

Thanks! That was beginners luck. I think seeing must have been pretty good that evening, struggled to match it since. From memory your barlowed focal ratio should be 4x to 5x your pixel size. So for my 2.4 micron camera, f12 is a nice ratio, which is 2x barlow and f6 scope. The resolution of the 90mm scope supports that as well. For my 3.75 micron cameras, f15 to f18. This means 3x barlow, and is very seeing dependant Good lunar requires pin sharp focus. Use the nask on a bright star or planet. Video with short exposures and reduced frame size for fast frame rate. I don't shoot using the full sensor, but use a smaller region. You can do this with a dedicated astrocam, not so with a dslr from memory

So, if you have an DS 50 mm and BF1200 you can make also you own solar telescope.Only thing you need is a 50 mm refractor / achromat telescope with 2" focuser....right? Thanks.

I found the same AI Denoise problem with Windows 10 displaying the ”Runtime Error” on the stand alone version. My PC running Windows 10 22H2 (OS Build 19045.4291), basically with the latest updates, and has the problem but my observatory PC, which never gets updates and is not online just the local LAN (and only connected to the WEB to download things like these AI models) is version 19O3 (OS Build 18362.535) very old, and GraXpert 3.0.0 runs on it without problems... goes to show that being up to date with Windows updates is not always beneficial… I’d say quite rarely so when Microsoft is involved. This is a known problem to the developer so I’m sure version 3.0.1 is just around the corner.

Could the single screw in the eyepiece holder cause some newtons rings? I remove the eyepiece holder and attach my Hypercam 178 to the revealed T thread. That's the only way I can get focus! I do need to use a spacer as well as I've a Starlight focuser with very limited focus range. It's much better than the original helical focuser.

A diagonal is missing, possibly some sort of finder, maybe the handset ( I don't see one) and definitely the user manual, the telescope is mounted back to front.