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As requested, a photo of the finished clock. I'll be adding details of the construction shortly, copying relevant excerpts from my rather long thread in the DIY Astronomer forum. It's not really a blue moon, it's lit with a white LED but the digital photo has coloured it blue

Always nice to see a bit of proper science. If youre interested another quasar is up for grabs now, just as distant (~8bly). If you havent already imaged it, its the twin quasar: The edge on spiral is NGC3079, really useful as a pointer to your target. Its also a great example of gravitational lensing.

I have to say I almost entirely disagree with your 'ultimate guide' for beginners! All the telescopes you 'recommend' are very small aperture and in the main come with lightweight unstable mounts that will do more to frustrate the user rather than give them a good start in observational astronomy. For visual observing, aperture counts. The larger the diameter of your objective, the more light you gather on deep space objects and the more resolution you have on solar system objects. For the budget conscious beginner, by far the best bang for your buck comes with a Dobsonian mounted Newtoni

This is a starting point. To date I haven't managed to print an accurate enough escape wheel but I have made improvements to my 3D printer recently so I'm ready to have another go.

Half round file Stu- one with fine teeth and gently and patiently- very easy to catch the edge and bend it. Here it is in the spider- I’m about to fit it to the tube- hope I didn’t mess up any measurements

Hello Gina I did a presentation to a Scottish Photographic Society a couple of weeks ago - Powerpoint based. Its attached - feel free to bin it, rip it shreds, do anything you want with it. I dont get prissy about copyright of my images etc - feel free to use any images you might want etc etc. All the astroimages are mine and the none astro ones are all copyright free. Astro Imaging presentation.pptx

I'll start with some photos of the observatory taken a few years ago. From the north looking roughly south and then from the south at various angles.

Following getting my 3D printers confused in Firefox and changing settings on my Mini printer, which was printing the bed clamps of Concorde, instead of the Concorde web site and messing up both print and Mini printer, I decided I'd print the parts on Concorde. So now I'm printing the second bed clamp on Concorde itself. Hence I now declare Concorde as a working printer even if it isn't finished!

Pond filled. More back filling with soil. Now having a rest! Some photos.

It's empirically verified that the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant, independent of reference frame. There is no analogous principle for sound waves. Hence one cannot attempt to reframe special relativity using sound, or any other form of energy transfer apart from radiation.

the focus sharpener

Moved it to D6- that did the trick. think it should be strong enough 30D8DFF2-43AC-478B-AA75-B980CEC1CC78.MOV

Hi Gina, I did a lot of professional public speaking in my career and have couple of thoughts based on what you have said so far. Given this audience is not astro people - I think I would first engage their interest by first talking about something they will understand - terrestrial photography. Hence, describe how a DSLR camera works first. Hence; reverse thes two slides Explain how terrestrial images are typically done with short exposures and how that works fine. Then explain that longer exposures and adjustment to ISO are necessary to capture enough light for evening pictur

Finished clock except for the motor drive unit - tested with a DC motor-gearbox. Arduino Nano arriving tomorrow. The one I had was faulty.

Here is a photo of the lampholder and LED bulb (G9 base). There are two fixing holes 0.5" apart (12.7mm) a bit bigger than 3mm (probably 1/8" = 3.175mm) so M3 bolts will suffice for fixing (one is shown in the photo). The LED bulbs are 4W, equivalent to a 40W GLS bulb and 5 of them will give plenty of light. They are the dimmable variety so I will be able to reduce the light output for watching television.

Went out this afternoon and had a good look at the area to determine where to put the new "pond" and fountain/water-feature. There's a wide view through the picture window in the living room so decided to put it away from the other pond and bird feeder between the new micro observatory and main one. Started a bit of planting round the naturalistic pond too. Some photos from indoors as it's raining.

Taken from living room window. Pond is level - ground slopes. So does my bird feeder - must re-plant that upright ? Another lovely sunny day with a few clouds about. I'm doing what I can before it gets too warm - 23°C forecast for today. Stopped for a mug of coffee ATM.

And if it doesn't you can always use it for waterskiing ? James

Print finished and looks virtually perfect. Printing time 1h 23m. The 300mm steel rule shows the scale. That print is BIG!!

Finished test print.

Congratulations on your new mount. I am sure that you will soon get used to the set up and it will become second nature. A lot of folks are using these Polemaster thingies now for polar alignment. I know exactly what you mean about storage. You may find these azimuth bolts awkward when storing too. However, there is a simple solution to the storage problem. It inolves building a shed in the garden with a roof that rolls off ..... well ... you know the rest....

Hi Mountain Skies Your blog is an interesting personal point of view on starting out in astronomy and I think you make some useful points. Personally I don't agree with you regarding getting a cheap refractor as a good first scope. A nice little Newtonian on a decent tracking mount (EQ5 for instance) or on a Dobsonian mount would be my preference. Regarding your comment "The biggest problem you hear in astronomy is that someone got a big 1000 dollar telescope and hated it and stuck it back in his/her closet." Whilst people having "all the gear and no idea" can be an issue, from my

Brilliant indeed!

Second time lucky- I ordered some ss mudguard washers and turned them to size this time and the soldering went perfectly I also discovered that the citric acid I bought to descale my kettle works great for removing borax flux Just need to not make a balls up of bending the edge over now...

AKA the pencil sharpener All ready for the hand-controller...

I have just done another talk on Monday to a huge U3A audience (over 200 people). I was told a lot of the photographic group had turned up too. I did my usual talk which included what, and how to create images. I think one or two people dropped off to sleep, or glazed over, but the majority seemed to find it very interesting. At the end I took a stacked image (old Horsehead DSLR image) and live processed it. I got some very interesting questions afterwards, and one person turned out to have done a bit of AP himself. I got another booking on the back of it for a Prob

Here is a screenshot of the firmware check of the bed level which shows that the orthogonality is near perfect with the Z guiding perfect. The variation that remains is a slight bending of the glass plate as it is only clamped at two corners ATM - I have more clamps to print. I am amazed to have managed such a very small variation in height without any bed levelling, across a 400mm square. Less than a tenth mm RMS error. And this will be corrected by the firmware in printing.

Part of clock hung on the wall.

A cloud slightly dimming the sun.

There's a frog in my smaller pond now ?

Now watering the area having filled up the pond - it had gone down a couple of inches. AND I now have wildlife in my pond ? Just one lone pondskater, but it's a start.

I've got one of those to quarantine my fish in if they need treating. Here's our pond dig many years ago, we dug a trench and made a concrete collar then excavated the inside and fitted a liner. Dave My daughter and dog filling it and getting the creases out of the liner Me in the shallow end

You don't need a lot of space, we can't fit a pond in the garden ground but have a pond bucket instead. It is small yet has brought frogs to the garden and is very relaxing to sit next too. The bucket is one of those garden buckets you see Monty using on Gardeners World. We have frogs again this year and I am hoping the lily will flower. You will need to add an oxygenator I have used a British native one called starwort I bought cheaply delivered through the post (local garden centre had only the invasive non native species) and working with the lily pad leaves keeps the water clear and

Jocular - Scottish Eyepiece. <I'll get my coat>

Assembled dome and casing top etc.

Redesigned and printed a new lens support. Definitely better Focused on a distant light. Focus not perfect but not too bad - I think I'm learning a new skill The moon is 98% full and about as bright as it gets yet it is possible to see a few of the brighter stars - it was hopeless with the dome! Mind you a new non-yellow and clear dome should be better than the one I was using. I can see two red hot pixels and maybe a green one 0 blue ones might not show. A dark would eliminate those. I think I can make out about a dozen stars Here's an image taken with the ASI178MM to sho

Skirt and lens tube extended and taper increased slightly to improve clearance.

YIPPEE - I'M ON GIGACLEAR!!

George This coming Saturday night along with 3 other members of my club, doing a presentation for 70 scouts, and 5 group leaders at a over night camp out Get so much enjoyment working with kids, and passing on knowledge what is above us to them Also explain Australian Aboriginal dreamtime when come to astronomy, which goes back 40,000 years, and passed down from one generation to the next in story telling Cheers John

On the right speakers Organ music sounds stunning.

For extending the bass response this would do me nicely :- The Epicenter 500 Subwoofer

Or should I have said "Clever cogs" ?

We do seem to have had more than our fair share of clouds over the past couple of years and it can be a tad frustrating. However, I feel the clouds do prevent this wonderful hobby from becoming tiresome as we appreciate the clear nights, and days, when they eventually come along. Imagine how horrid it woul be to have wonderfully clear conditions on tap !!!!!

Don't give up go, for the astronaut bit. Guess around Chesterfield, so maybe a bit too far for the East Midland Stargazers. Meteors: Keep an eye out on May 24, reports that we may pass through recent comet debris, so might (just might) be something. Aurora, best I can suggest is the Norwegian ferry service Hurtigruten that goes up and down the coast. Decide what you want from a scope, the budget stated will get you a lot of scope, but a lot of scope may not be the best. I might suggest a nice 80-100mm refractor and an iOptron cube. Getting a big scope that you do not or cannot use is a waste.

As a rough guide so far: 22" blank £475 10kg weight disc £20 3kg 60grit £30 3.5kg 80grit £15 1kg 400grit £13 1.75kg 220grit £12 Spirit level £8 Gorrilla bucket £12 Belling stones(6!!) £10-15 12.5kg 80grit £50 Still have 10kg of 80,all the 400 and 1kg of 220 left

No, keep at it. If you seek professional help you'll be wasting scope money.

These are amazing. You are truly gifted, my friend, both literally and artisically. A real pleasure viewing all of these sketches and it makes me think if that is how good the views are in a dark sky with a 10" what on earth would I see in my 14". I just might have to make some plans of my own. Thanks once again for putting these together, you did an amazing job.

nice vid you should have used this Pat

Thanks, Ken. Let me know how you get along. I think I'll pop up on the roof tonight, the first time in over two weeks!