tombardier

Thank you! I'm very pleased with it. I spent some time ironing out a few teething problems this afternoon. I increased the pre-load on the azimuth bearing, as it was just too smooth. I found an old cast iron pulley which fits on the counterweigh bar very nicely, and gives me the perfect counterweighting in combination with just one normal 5kg counterweight. The binocular mount arm itself was drooping a bit, so I shimmed the rear bolts holding the aluminium strip, and also shaved off some material where it had been catching. I'll probably re-design that bit at some point anyway. The double hinge thing is ok, but it's not as smooth in operation as the rest of it is, and it feels like it would be better to have the binos themselves able to rotate freely, rather than using the hinges. I think the double hinge arrangement offers huge freedom of movement though. I managed to spend some quality time with it last night, and it was lovely to use! I can just sit there, completely relaxed, binoculars suspended in front of me. I could nudge them with the bridge of my nose if I wanted to move them, or grab them and scan huge swathes of sky without moving my chair at all. It's everything I'd hoped for! I was using the 20x80 Celestrons I've just bought from @Pete Presland, (bargain!). I spent some time looking at the moon of course, and kept on going back to it. It was still worth looking at the rest of the sky though, and so I spent some time on M42, as well as the double cluster, and M36, M37, and M38 in Auriga. I'm sure this is going to be my primary visual observation tool from now on. I'll still be using my 10" newtonian for high power bino-viewing, but until I can lie back in a reclining chair, and have my newt just float above me, I think the parallelogram is going to be what I'm reaching for more often than not! Cheers!

I finally completed mine. Had to make a couple of adjustments, and I still need to make a couple more, but I've been absolutely loving it tonight!

I completed my parallelogram mount today. It's something I started when I had some time off over Christmas. There was an initial surge of productivity, and then it languished. I managed to get it over the line today though, and I couldn't be more pleased! To cut a long story short, it's everything I hoped it would be. Immersive views, in a completely relaxed position! I started with some 1x2" oak battens, and some M8 bolts with plastic hand-tightening knobs, and also some teflon washers: A bit of a test fitting here: Double-hinged, because I was just making it up as I went along! Bought two nice pieces of billet aluminium for the azimuth bearing. 120mm diameter, with 37mm depth. I went for 120mm because it's the size of a CD, and that's the classic thing to make an azimuth bearing, using teflon discs. I made it to fit my EQ6-R tripod So I went ahead with the teflon/CD idea: So, I got it working, but actually, it had quite a lot of lateral play, and I just didn't find it too pleasing at all, so it was back to the drawing board! I decided to use a tapered roller bearing instead. I had an excessive amount of material to play with, so it was no problem! Just a video of me taking very deep cuts: https://twitter.com/tombardier/status/1489028101292142595 The outer race would go in after machining, but not after having cooled down. I bought it in to the house and it dropped right in. The inner race wouldn't go on after machining, but a few minutes later it went right on. They both fit very nicely. And here it is, finally!

Another thank you to @Pete Presland for my new 20x80 Celestron Skymasters! They arrived, safe and sound. Fantastic bargain!

Cheers. I think I'll go back and try again with it. The deconvolution has made some of the crater shadows a bit "artefacty"! I tried tweaking it a bit, including de-saturating to try and give it the subtle brown shading I see through my binoviewers. It's actually less colour than my camera picks up, although the image above did have the saturation increased slightly.

Last week was a very refreshing change! I'd decided to de-prioritise any imaging for a while, until I'd taken my fill of visual observation. Opportunities have been so scarce. I do regret not taking more opportunities to image last week, but I did enjoy gazing through the eyepieces! The first set of captures were from the 11th (I think, will double-check), and were taken at prime focus using my ASI290MM and 254mm f/4.7 Skywatcher newtonian. The next lot were captured on Friday evening, additionally using a 2.5x powermate. I don't think the seeing was as good on this night as it had been for the 3 prior to it. North polar highlands, Mare Serenitatis Montes Apenninis toward the top, Rupes Recta toward the bottom. Mare Imbrium, Plato, Montes Apenninis Southern polar highlands, Clavius nicely placed. Plato, Montes Recti, Mare Frigoris, Northen highlands Sinus Iridium. Would have been nice to capture it the day before, but I was too busy gawping at it! Gassendi, Mare Humorum Palus Epidemiarium toward the top right (The Swamp of Epidemics!). I don't like this one too much. Montes Apenninis. Well beyond the ideal phase for capturing it. It looks a bit of a mess to be honest. Trying to deconvolve it was troublesome. Included for completeness only!

Absolutely love this. Keep on enjoying that data; it's fantastic!

I've been out looking at the moon with my 10" f/4.7 newt and binoviewers. The seeing wasn't steady, but detail was resolving well enough to make it worthwhile observing! I didn't have the mist that accompanied the good seeing recently, but the transparency was very good, and I found some enjoyment looking through some new (to me) Pentax PCF 12x50 WPII binoculars. I bought them because I've realised recently that my astigmatism really is compromising my viewing pleasure, and looking at wide-field views or stars has always been less than satisfactory for me. I bought these to replace my Pentax SP 10x50s with only 13mm of eye relief, and eyecups that don't fold down. The PCFs have 20mm of eye relief, and are just a bit classier in every respect, so I've been able to try using my glasses. I've got to say, the view through them using my glasses was fantastic, with sharp stars visible everywhere, and also many many more faint stars visible; this, on a night with a very bright moon! I had a look at the double cluster, and just did some general scanning. I can't wait for some dark nights now to really start enjoying them!

Cheers! Because the binocular isn't on any sort of rotating bearing, it just made sense to have it double-hinged like that. If the binoculars were free to rotate, a single hinge would just work. Anyway, I'm retro-fitting a justification, I didn't think about it this much at the time, it just seemed to make sense I haven't done the azimuth bearing yet. I'm going to drill and tap and screw some teflon furniture pads on to the bit of billet that pairs up with the one you see on the mount. They'll glide over a CD. I have a dividing head, but it's a bit big for the milling machine, and I also have a rotary table which is also not a very good fit. Maybe instead of that, I'll just use some geometry/protractor/pair of compasses etc stc to get equally spaced radial holes. Having been back at work over the last week, and fitting in part time study, I just haven't touched on it! I really want to start using this though. Having my binos on a normal photographic tripod is a literal pain in the neck!

For me, the moon is exceptional tonight. Lots of time spent on Sinus Iridium and Gassendi. No idea what magnification, as I've been looking through my 254mm newt and Denkmeier Binotron on the high magnification setting, and 32mm Denkmeier plossls.

Workmanship is a strong word.. I have a workshop full of metalworking tools which I just about know enough to use without injuring myself. My carpentry skills are pretty much non-existent! I had to google how to drill a hole without a horrific exit wound the other day (and also got ideas for that from your video!). I have stumbled through all this as a learning exercise as much as anything. I want to get it all together, and figure out what works, troubleshoot etc etc. I fully anticipate a version 2! Need some counterweighting arrangement for the rotating axis on the L-bracket: I'm working on the azimuth bearing using some ridiculously large billet aluminium!

I love this. I just wanted to say how helpful your video has been. I'm building my own parallelogram mount at the moment, and watching your video has given me a much needed boost! I'm at the point now where I just need to mount my counterweight and sort out the azimuth bearing/tripod mounting arrangment. I've gone with a double-hinged rotating l-bracket for the binocular mount. I'll put a post up as soon as it's ready for demonstration!

I think you're right, yes, thank you. I've been poring over Kstars trying to figure it out! I find it difficult trying to reconcile the celestial dome view you get in planetarium software, with what I could see outside! I'll get there! I'll be spending significantly more time with the binoculars once I've built my parallelogram mount, which I started today!

I'm in a fairly rural area, apparently bortle 4, but the local light pollution is very distracting, and I see characteristics of bortle 5. I was out with 10x50s (Pentax SP), using a cheap photographic tripod. It's a bit of a neck snapper, trying to use it for anything high up. I'm not sure what I was looking at really. Fuzzies up at zenith, east of Pleiades. Fuzzies/star clusters to the left of Cassiopeia too.. I only recently started using the binos and trying tot learn more of the night sky. I was wearing a hoodie with a very large hood, and I had a shemagh/keffiyeh draped over too. That tends to help with dark adaptation and general immersion! The pesky clouds that kept going over didn't help with the immersion though! Interested in the idea of filters. Have you tried UHC/Oiii filters? Are you filtering the objectives, or the eyepieces?

It was really clear when I went out at around 9, but there were threatening clouds looming, on the horizon so I decided not to set my telescope up, but grab my 10x50 binoculars! I've got them on a cheap photographic tripod, which doesn't make for relaxing viewing, but it's better than hand holding them! I've really only started using them recently, after mounting them to the tripod, so it's only recently I've started really trying to map out the night sky a bit more. Similarly, I've been trying to really get lunar features nailed over the last few months too. Anyway, I was of course having a look at M42, and kept going back to it. In all honesty, I'm not sure what I was looking at. There were a bunch of faint fuzzies to the East of M45, near zenith. Some very nice star clustery things to the left of Cassiopeia too.

Hi. As per the subject really. I'm building a parallelogram binocular mount, and would like a tripod to mount it on. I have a couple of photographic tripods, but they're pathetic, flimsy things really. I think the 2" stainless tube tripods I've got on my EQ6s would be pretty good, but they're very expensive. Can anyone recommend something that will be adequate for my parallelogram mount which is being made from 2x1" oak, and anything up to 100mm observation binoculars? (I've only got 25x70s at the moment). Cheers!

I absolutely love it! It's 16kg, so it's about as much as I'm happy to man-handle on to my mount on a regular basis!

This is from my atlas. It's certainly not been given any emphasis in the illustration here (EDIT: But the scarp is there). Maybe we could get it named after ourselves!

Hi. I'm having a look, and I think I see the depression you mean. From the LRO view, it looks like an elongated oval, however, from my image, it looks more like the area I highlight in the second image. Is that what you're referring to? And because it's easier to see without my polygons

Hi, I captured this little lot last Thursday, I think. Seems like a long while ago now! I decided to try and experiment with increasing my focal length a bit, and so all of this data has been captured with a 2.5x powermate. The close-ups have been captured with my ASI290MM, sampling at 0.2"/px, and the others captured at 0.26"/px with my ASI1600MM. All were captured with my SW 254mm f/4.7 newtonian. I think the seeing could've been a little better, but it was nice to be out observing and imaging anyway. I'll just say, these are all best viewed at a distance! I found Vallis Rheita to be quite striking when I was observing, so I targeted it here: And here it is with the 290MM. It looks nice and sharp, when it's far away. The illusion disappears once you look up close! This is just along a little bit, with Vallis Rheita still visible near the terminator, at the far left (EDIT: clearly it's the right!). Mare Nectaris and Fracastorius are at the lower left. Her's a bit of Mare Crisium And a close-in shot, with Macrobius in the top left Macrobius is still visible in this shot, at the bottom right. Some of the rille system is resolved in Posidonius at the left And finally, I just pointed at this bit, because it was a bit cratery! The partially cropped crater at the bottom is Vlacq. My fun bit of trivia is that the central hill range in this crater is just slightly larger than the Malvern Hills, near to me! Good for putting things in to perspective!

That's more than a lot of scopes out there, I'm sure! In fact, that's probably about the average number of opportunities we've had this year! I'll probably sell my Pentax SP 10x50s once I've figured out what I'm doing about my astigmatism. They've only got 13mm eye relief, and so glasses aren't going to work with them. I guess the only way I will keep them is if I start using contact lenses. I can't bring myself to sell any of my other scopes though!

I'm not tempted to sell my visual scopes, but with the weather recently, I've been tempted to get rid of my long exposure/DSO imaging equipment and re-invest in some really nice binoculars! I've only recently started using my Pentax SP 10x50s after sticking them on a photographic tripod. I'm enjoying them quite a lot (except for my astigmatism), and am just about to build a parallelogram for them (to save my neck). I've also recently started binoviewing for lunar and solar particularly. I've just found myself being converted very quickly in to binocular viewing!

I decided to give the thick clouds a long hard stare, for around an hour and a half last night, and they sort of cleared for just long enough to capture 240 seconds of LRGB data! I discarded the L, as I preferred the R, and so this is the waxing gibbous moon in RRGB. The captures were 60 seconds per filter, and marred somewhat by thin cloud. I had to pause every time there was thick cloud, and very little of the footage had truly clear sky! It was captured using my 254mm f/4.7 blue steel-tubed skywatcher newtonian, with an ASI1600MM, on an AZ-EQ6 GT. I stacked with AS!3, then went through my really very tedious routine involving both Pixinsight and PlanetarySystemLRGBAligner to get my channels registered together, and finally post-processed in PixInsight. This was captured between 22:00 and 22:30 last night. Earlier on in the evening, I'd had a really nice hour of viewing, and just decided later on that I was going to capture some footage; clouds be damned!

All in the name of science! I like it

I'm late to the party, but I've been interestedly reading through this. I find my Baader 0.9ND filter has made a huge difference for lunar observation. I had non-descript moon filters before, and they were fine for reducing the glare, and giving everything a yellow tinge, but the ND filter actually gives the moon a sumptuous texture which I could stare at for hours on end. Putting my 10x50 binoculars on a photographic tripod has meant they're actually usable, and can't really be beaten for grab and go (10 seconds). I've liked that so much I've ordered a load of bits to make a parallelogram mount. A Daystar Quark has been a game changer. Viewing the sun in h-alpha is absolutely amazing. You can have days where you wouldn't see a single feature in white light, but the texture in h-alpha is still completely captivating! It takes quite a bit of time to start really being able to observe the fine detail. Definitely worth the investment. Most recently, I think a binoviewer is going to be the most revolutionary thing. I bought a Binotron 27, and I've only been able to use it for one night. The night in question had the worst seeing I've ever experienced, to the point it actually made me laugh out loud! However, I felt like the binoviewer might finally give me the truly immersive observation experience I've always looked for. I'm desperate for the clouds to clear off right now!