Kluson

Thanks so much. i have taken your advice on board. I am now looking for a good used Canon 750D which I can then have converted.

 Many thanks for your help and advice.

Cheers

D

21 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

I recently received two plastic bottles with spray heads in  Jiffy bag, both with tops snapped of so a big box would have been nice 😁

Dave

There seems to be no consistency in the way Amazon packages are packed.

3 hours ago, Greymouser said:

I have just got this out of self imposed isolation, after receiving the other day. ( Glad to know I am not the only one doing this! ) Perhaps not the best eyepiece out there, but the 10 mm is very good in my opinion, so I am hoping for similar quality with this one.

Now all I need is the clouds to co operate, and then decide if I can justify a similar sized Morpheus...

I would be interested to know your findings, perhaps you could kindly give us a review when the clouds part 🙂

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

Amazon packing at work. All that was in the box was a Baader adapter. 🙄

I had a box arrive like that but my wife didn't believe me 🙂 

Hi Everyone

I have an old Canon EOS10D it is in mint condition. Would this be suitable for Astrophotography. Does it need to be modified?

Many thanks for any help to a beginner

D

On 26/05/2020 at 13:21, PeterCPC said:

Hello and welcome. I'm not far from Andover either.

Peter

Hi Peter.

Are you a member of the Andover Astronomical society or any other clubs. I have been looking at some of your pictures. i would really like to get into Astro Photography, and would appreciate a little help and advice, Many thanks

D

On 06/06/2020 at 16:49, heliumstar said:

After a few days in quarantine (are you guys doing this as well?) I unpacked a little package.

Inside:

 

Old hack:

 

New:

 

Just to add. Weight saving in comparison to Tak tube holder + ADM Losmandy bar is almost 400g. Pretty good.

 

Yes I do exactly the same, The shopping gets all wiped down with Isopropyl before it goes in the fridge. All the fruit and veg washed with soap and water. Packaging left for 72 hours 🙂

On 04/06/2020 at 17:41, Shimrod said:

It's always the way. I bought a new telescope last August, and I think I had weather good enough five times between then and February. Being retired, you at least won't have the constraint any more of curtailing an evening's viewing so you are capable of working the next day - enjoy your retirement!

Thanks so much for your kind post. It certainly seems to be the way it goes.  Just waiting fora clear night now

Clear skies and stay safe and well

D

On 05/06/2020 at 04:43, Demonperformer said:

The 6SE is a great little scope ... with one really irritating habit.  I mention this merely to forewarn you before your power supply arrives ... some of them have a glitch with the power socket making it a bit loose, which can cause the power to cut out as the scope changes position (more during slewing than tracking). There are two relatively simple solutions to this. The more permanent one is to get a small screwdriver and "spread" the centre connecting bit inside the socket. As a person whose DIY ability could be written on the front of a postage stamp without defacing it, I avoided this "highly risky" exercise and went for the other option ... a roll of electricians tape. By taping the power cable across the base of the mount, it prevented any "wobble" at the plug end as the scope moved and it performed perfectly. You may not have this problem (not all of them do), but at least you won't start panicing if you plug it in and the first thing that happens when you slew it is that it stops.

Hiya

 Thanks for the tip, As an ex touring sound engineer , I really like everything tidy. I have used some Velcro cable wraps to secure both the power lead to the telescope and also the cable from the star sense to the base :-)  it's the OCD in me surfacing :-). Thanks so much for the tip though!

Clear skies and stay safe and well

Sorry , nothing to report, cloud and rain ever since the power supply arrived. Think I need to used to this, 🙂

3 hours ago, apophisOAS said:

How much did you pay as i have seen one for £58 and also for £100 on other places?

Roger

I paid £55

cheers

D

15 hours ago, Kluson said:

power supply arrived :-)

 Ha ha, As soon as my power supply arrives it clouds over :-) . Sorry to be a Jonah guys. :-)

power supply arrived :-)

Not much done I'm afraid, We are waiting for the power supply to arrive.  Once that does we can align the Star sense and off we go., Looking forward to that.

As another Newbie, I can recommend "Turn left at Orion"

Oh well here goes.

back in the distant days of 2012/3 we bought our first telescope, a Celestron Nexstar 6SE, we got it from FLO who were really helpful and gave great advice . it was on at a sale price , I seem to remember.. Not long after this I got promoted which meant really extensive travel, and shortly after that I had a Heart attack in the Netherlands. The telescope sat in the cupboard and didn't get used. Once recovered I was back into the travelling to what seemed like a different country and airport every few days. I decided that it was time to take an early retirement in 2019 and then worked with the business in order to facilitate the retirement which took nearly one year. Finally the time came at the end of the fiscal year in March 2020 to take the early retirement..

My wife suggested we should now get the telescope out of the loft.

Out it came. After a few hours it was all assembled. I then tried to attach the Starsense. Released the original handset,  and tried to plug in the Starsense one. After some swearing, I gave up had a coffee and set about attaching the starsense camera to the Tube. Odd the screws just go round and round , (there followed more swearing)- That will be because they are too small. After some checking on the web and indeed here, I found that they are indeed too short as suspected and that the early starsense kits, didn't have the longer screws in the pack 😒.  Went back to the handset to try again and it popped on first time with no problems and no swearing.

So that was that then. Back on went the red dot finder which I couldn't line up with the scope. Sunday night arrived and we took the telescope out into the Garden with some charged batteries. There were a few stars out but we had little idea which. Eventually we managed to get one in the view finder then another , then another , then something came across the field of view moving at an amazing speed. switching to the Binoculars we caught our first sighting of the ISS, which we could confirm with an app. My word this was getting exciting. Looking at the star chart : we had no app ,we thought the big bright star was Arcturus. To be really truthful, it was amazing whatever it was. The more we looked the more we saw. It was getting darker and the whole sky was opening up to a mass of tiny lights. I had seen pictures but never anything like this. The best night sky we ever saw was in Kenya, so dark, I had never seen so many stars. Now this experience was just as inspiring and indeed very humbling - we went to bed that night like little kids....................................................

The next problem arrived, Firmware update- I was not looking forward to that at all, but with help from some guys here and once again the support of Dr Lee at David Hinds , I, had to order some cables which duly arrived a day later, thanks Celestron and Wide Screen,  great service.  I charged up some rechargeable batteries and we are all up to date. I then saw on the web a fix for the red dot with a little piece of cardboard - Success and no swearing. (You may have gathered by now that any kind of DIY job etc in our house is measured by the amount of swearing involved in their completion, it's a form of Parkinson's Law),  - All lined up, the little cardboard trick worked.  - Then another brainwave, after getting the screw dimensions for the starsense attachment from Daniel at David Hinds,:- check the Man's : it might be useful one day drawer; full of nuts ,bolts and screws - More success a pair of stainless screws which were the perfect size. The plan was to get out later that night to do the alignment with the starsense. At around 9ish we saw the Moon, lets go  take a look with the telescope. try as I might I could not get the moon in the eyepiece. Off came the starsense and on went the red dot. realigned it on a telegraph pole, put the dot on the Moon and bingo!  There it was - The moon in fantastic glory, I nonchalantly asked my wife if she wanted to have a look at the Moon, knowing full well that she would be amazed. Amazed she was ! We played around with different eye pieces and found the 25mm to be best for us., we just watched and watched, trying to identify craters, we lost track of time moving the telescope around looking at other stars and a few final glimpses of the Moon. The batteries were getting low and so were ours. Our second time observing and again amazing.

The Telescope eats batteries, Power supply ordered, again thanks for the advice. I hope I have put this post in the right forum and will update it with our experiences with the telescope and observing, Now it will have to be a little bit more serious, we will align the starsense and use it to get to know our way around the sky - The more we look the more we see.

Stay safe everyone and thanks for all the help, encouragement and advice.

D

We started with a pair of 8x40 Binoculars, not as good quality as those but it got us going, then we took the plunge and bought the telescope, Unfortunately Work and circumstances took over, but now we are back and eager to progress with astronomy. Even standing outside at darkness is different, just looking up. I'm sure the binoculars will be great. I have learned to keep expectations under control. I think our first expectation was something like ' We'll get a telescope then we'll be able to see wonderful sights like the ones we see from Hubble"  The sights we see are infact wonderful, but not Hubble :-). Once you have a little background too it just keeps getting better. I would say that this is the hobby which never stops giving even though I am feelling the learning curve quite steep. We are a few weeks into our renewed interest and it really does get better every day. I think I will keep a beginners Journal.

Thanks everyone for their help and advice. All is now done eight years of updates completed. Appreciate your tips.

Thanks again

D

I want to try some photography and have downloaded Siril. I saw a tutorial on you tube which made it look pretty straight forward. I will never allow anything windows near my Mac 🙂 . My Mac will remain pure and virtuous  🙂.

2 hours ago, Sky-searcher said:

 

I recently used a outside tap adapter to make a larger dial for my MAK127. Does make focusing easier. Cheap and easy mod.

That looks great. You would think some bright person with a 3D printer would make something. I've fitted the clothes peg works great, but a little ugly. If someone was to make a little anodised piece, which fitted over the rubber, like a little handle , I'm sure it would sell.

I am so glad I came back here. The advice I have received has been great. The clothes peg trick was a real gem

Thanks Guys

D

1 minute ago, Star101 said:

Cant be more boring than my weights. At least you got to use yours lol.

Mine are waiting for the scope, which will be at least another three weeks...and let me think, whens the summer solstice!!🤔

It gets better , I'm waiting for a wall wart power supply tomorrow 🙂 LOL

All I can say is these guys are amazing. I am new to the whole of Astronomy. I have a telescope we've had for a number of years and not used a Celestron 6SE and star sense. I have raised so many tickets as I work the telescope out , and the two guys Dr Lee and Daniel have been really great and very supportive. I feel so confident that they will get me on the right track.  - Very happy with this level of Customer support!

a little boring I'm afraid, but it was exciting for me. I got the cables to make the firmware updates to my telescope  .. Now everything is updated. 🙂

stay safe and well all

D

Wow, that's great. I'll take a photo later. Maybe you can see what I mean. It may just mean I need more practice with the telescope 🙂