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Ha would not do that Danny. You have made a good move joining this forum. The knowledge of the guys and girls on here is amazing. I would of been at a loss without S.G.L. members input. It can be a bit daunting starting out in astronomy. And also there is no such thing as a silly question, believe me I have asked loads. Let us know when you get your scope, so we can expect weeks of cloud cover.

I keep my kit in the fourth reception room in the lower east wing. From there its only a short distance out onto the lawns. Unfortunately the servants quarters overlook this side of the house so I always make sure that they turn their lights off.

Last year I used a QHY8L for this this year ill be LRGB+HA with an Atik 383 After weeks and weeks of struggling to get things working I have made a start on my luminance. This is only 1 hour of 300s Subs calibrated with Pixinsight Stretched and a DBE (Dynamic Background Extraction) you may notice that the stars in the corners are squaring off to the corners, this is a know issue with the flattener so i was expecting to see them.

Danny, with a budget of £400 you are limited in what you can get. The Celestron you mentioned will certainly be a good starting point, but you won't be able to see much beyond the Moon, planets and the brighter fuzzies unless you have dark skies. For what it is worth I have started a web site for budding astronomers who suffer from at least a moderate level of light pollution - called garden astronomy

Hi Danny and welcome to SGL. Apart from the scope there are a couple of books you might like to take with you next time you are at sea, both "Turn Left at Orion, and the Back yard Astronomers Guide will broaden your horizons in the subject, and come highly recommended. If you have access to computer facilities at any time, download the free program Stellarium it will help you navigate about the night sky with your bins John.

Hi Danny... as the others have said, let us know a bit about yourself and what you hope to see / do? Also @r1g3l hi, noticed you have a very low post count and yet your replies are very knowledgeable I'm guessing you are new to the forum but not new to Astronomy!

Hi and welcome I'll go out on a limb and guess the majority answer you'll get for a first scope will be a dobsonian like this as it seems to tick all the boxes and is nice and easy to use, just point and shoot so to speak rather than pfaff about with getting a mount all lined up and what have you.

Climate change should probably go on the list of topics not to be discussed on SGL The trouble is, people are either in one camp or the other and neither will actually listen to the other's opinions. It is a fascinating and somewhat relevant subject, and discussions about it can be very interesting. But they can also quickly descend into, "you're an idiot if you believe this" "no, you're an idiot if you cannot see this". How about this... The earth's global temperature will naturally increase and decrease in cycles over time. "Global warming" refers to an overall net increase, which may

My son was out on the patio the other day without shoes on and stood on a slug, much to his disgust. Since then we have started referring to going barefoot as "wearing your slug-squashing shoes". James

For the slug, i'm thinking it cant get much worser.

Daily Mail and Serious?

I just knelt on a big, black slug while doing my polar alignment. Black goo all over my clothes. Now it's started to cloud over as well. What else can go wrong......

Hi All I realise that such a mount could easily be beyond the reach of some budding enthusiast's pockets and I'm not writing this to show off, but I thought that if anyone was thinking of saving up to buy such a mount, or were deliberating whether or not to go for the EQ6 (or higher) or some other mount completely, that this might provide something to contribute to the decision making process. I am not as skilled in the dark arts as many who write on this forum (whom I have learned so much from already), but I am prepared to give an honest opinion on what products I have and my experiences to

Been trying to find this bad boy for ages. Got him tonight! 25mm eyepiece in my SW130 and I could also just make out the darker centre area. Clearest night here for months. Started (as always) with Andromeda and finished with The Coathanger for good measure! Hadn't seen that before either. Great night!

Absolutely magnificent! you have a great deal of patience. Have you ever tried using Photomerge in Photoshop? if you tick the vignette button it also blends everything together extremely well too and only takes seconds to stitch everything together. It works very well for my full discs. Alexandra

This weekend managed to free some time and decided to get a rest from the APT development by gathering some more photons At the end my primary hobby is astro-photography... It is not very popular target - NGC891, a galaxy 30mly away in the Andromeda constellation, in region full of small fuzzies. Looking at it now I think that it would be better to use ISO 800. F/5.3 is quite fast and doesn't allow to show much of the stars colors... Looks like I can't get away from the 2h curse . No matter what I plan or do almost all my objects gather something around this limit... Next night I tried to ima

http://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/whatis.aspx Hyperstar is only possible on some sct scopes - they will say if they are compatible - and it is a way of imaging at a very low focal ratio, usually f2 or f1.9. The secondary mirror is removed and replaced by the hyperstar lens and ccd. This is relatively easy, but collimation, at f2, must be spot on. The link will explain it far better than I could. The main benefit is the reduction in time that it takes to create an image due to the light gathering at f2. I am not aware that any of the QHY cameras will work as there is a special adapter to hold

My first scope was a £400, 10" skywatcher dobsonian. It was perfect for the job, easy to use for navigation, great optics and the lack of goto means I learnt the sky. After a while I was starting to wish I hard a motordrive or goto as it can get a tad irritating have to move the scope to keep your object in the eyepiece. I would say if you are not after a big scope why not try a dobsoniani that have a motordrive and is smaller in diameter. Be warm and safe, Neil

Yeah, but, if the pixels are dead, who killed them, eh? Didn't think of that one, did you? James

Laughed when I seen this and then I thought "Oh no, another SGL thread to hit the rocks" Jim

Far too early for me, getting to bed around 2ish these nights and being dragged out at too early hours still half asleep. Will be nie to see Orion again though, but in a few more weeks . Jim

Welcome to the SGL Danny. £400 is a good starting point for a starter scope check these out: First off the 6" this is the scope I would get if starting again in this hobby: http://www.firstligh...-dobsonian.html Then it's bigger brother: http://www.firstligh...-dobsonian.html Both of these scopes totally rock as a beginners scope, and are great all rounders.

I think we should desist from offering diagnoses over the net, maybe? Olly

Welcome to SGL Danny

The Daily Fail is probably more useful as emergency toilet paper than factual reporting.... at a push

hello and welcome! The choice of the telescope depends.. if you want to observe moon and planets, or deep sky too (you need a dark sky for this), if you live in a big city or a small one, and if you can move easily to darkest skies etc.. anyway, I think that the biggest diameter you can afford could be the best choice (so a dobsonian, easy to set up and very good aperture) Cya!

just also remember any bits you may need ..e.g...red light torch..collimation tool...power packs ...etc..may also come out of your budget..they can be purchased after of course,,,just a consideration...good luck

That luminance data looks good Earl - Can I ask what happened with your dual setup? I noticed that bits and pieces are going - Did it not work out as planned and what are you looking at doing now?

Hi, the Astro-Tech Paradigm ep's are superb value for money, incredibly well built and good flat field of view, I have the full set and they are the main stay of my collection.

First guided image. I am very pleased how guiding worked. I have had lots of problems with 5 minutes exposures. Guding is the key. Please feel free to post yours comments. Equipment. Orion EQ-G6 mount. Celestron 8 SCT Images. 3 subs of 2, 3, and 5 minutes Camera. qhy9c Kwik Guding scope with qhy5 Software. Nebulosity 2 Location. Colingwood, Ontario, Canada Cheers Manny

Thanks goes to Grischa Hahn who gave me advice after i had a problem with winjupos. This is one of those avis. where no matter what i do, i am not happy with it. I know its never going to be anymore than a troublesome avi taken in daylight. But it bugs me when i cant seem to at least get the best out of it. One thing that ive been working a lot on lately trying different things. Is false edge colours. Although not completely there. I do think i am getting better at control. Now i have the winjupos problems getting much better. I am getting more confident for the coming weeks. I just need to ge

Why are you asking eye-related questions on SGL? You should have gone to specsavers! (sorry - couldn't resist!)

Obviously it was the Death Star exploding. I felt a disturbance in my forks....

Thanks for the "heads up" it now shows even more stars that I cant see for the clouds!! L

What you have there is a very good focus in the center which gets worse the further out you go, I don't think that lens is very well suited to your xbox camera.

The colour is there, whether reflected sunlight, moonlight, or starlight. I guess we never evolved colour night vision because we are a diurnal species. I know most nocturnal animals are pretty much colour blind, but I can imagine that nocturnal lemurs like the little guy below see the night sky very differently from us.

I would imagine a desert to have some really clear dark skies, assuming there hasn't been any dust storms recently; it could just be sand or dust particles hanging in the air that made it look golden brown, dust can travel around the world on air currents.

Hi James welcome to sgl and the forums Clive

Mmmmmmmmm When I win the lottery.

Link to fullsize zoomable image.......... http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/112780 See if you can find M29

I've got the 200mm SW dob and found that the supplied EPs were absolutely fine for bright objects. I managed to spot all of the main features on Jupiter (bands, barges, GRS, moons, etc) and things like the Cassini division in Saturn's rings, but this was very dependent on atmospheric conditions, NOT the quality of the EP. In the last few months I've bought a 13mm Baader Hyperion and a 30mm Vixen NPL but haven't had a chance to use them on the planets, so can't comment on the difference. Unless you are desperate to spend money, I'd suggest using the standard EPs because the limiting factor at t

Nice one. I like to have a go at capturing it every now and then. I have a strange fondness for it myself, having dreamed about having equipment big enough to see it when I was a kid with a 60mm refractor in the 1970s. This was my capture over two nights on 22nd and 23rd July. Even distant Pluto can move a fair bit.

That was my thought exactly, im with the group that climate change is a natural part of the earths climate. It warms, cool, warms etc. Im sure i read a report not long ago saying parts of the arctic were actually colder than they were a few 100 years ago, instead of warmer like everyone expected.

I didn't laugh i'm afraid. I was too struck by the ingenuity of the builder and the innovative way he put it together. Should be put in a museum and revered!

Thanks Guys:) slowly hacking away at it with the odd hour here and there:), I've added some more timber and brackets and made up a pier adapter using 18mm ply and M12 threaded bar. Using ply for the pier adapter is a bit of an experiment but its worth a go before I try and drill some steel:)

I was at a festival (New Wine) with 10,000 people this week.... I set up my little Celestron 70mm and pointed it at the moon which was glorious.....and then just offerred a look through to those passing.. I must have shown over 100 people the moon...I just love the comments.. "....I llve in London so I never see anything like this thank you....wow Mum come and look you can see the craters.......I can see the lines coming out of that large white crater (Tycho)" Some give the impression that they do not think its worth looking through and then are amazed at the detail they can see. Over and ove

Errr, yes it does. Isn't that what the fans on the bottom are for?

Built the frame work for the warm room which will support the fixed roof, used 2x1 treated timbers doubled up in places and angle brackets added for strength. I need to add some more angle brackets but I will do this once the fixed roof is on. I also have some heavy duty angle brackets for the four main corners to help firm up the structure as a whole.

Here is a superb page for help with setting up an EQ mount http://www.themcdonalds.net/richard/astro/writings/setupEquatorial.shtml Mick.