malc-c

10mm three core SWA from a leading electrical wholesaler often used by the trade retails at £6.18 per meter, so your 70m would cost £432.60 retail inc vat. The cost for internal trunking, which more likely will be metal is around £16 for a 3m length, but it's the labour installing it that's probably pushed that part of the quote up as the pipe will need to be bent slightly in two directions to enter and leave each socket and be flush against the wall for fixing. I would have thought that as they would only need to pull the cables through the ducting and terminate each end and install a simple ring main in a "shed" a max of two days labour would be my estimate. Depending where you are you could be paying £300 - £350 per day, so £700 in labour. However he's in business, has overheads and needs to put food on his family's table and pay his mortgage, but £2100 does seem a tad high. If he's local, ask for details of previous customers in your area so you can independently get feedback or even see his standard of workmanship. You only need to watch a few youtube videos from small electricians to see cases where they lost a job on price, but then were called back to fix things as the customer wasn't happy, often resulting in the lot being ripped out as it was done well below standard. One other thing, I'm sure a lot of the work could be done by yourself. The fitting of the back boxes and trunking and bolting the new sub consumer unit to the wall doesn't need an electrician. Once fitted the electrician then only needs to run and terminate the cabling which could reduce the cost as that could be done in a day. Maybe worth having a chat with the guy to see what you can do to make the quote cheaper and make his job easier.

Depends on a lot of factors, like how heavy the DSLR is for one. Some of the older Canons are quite a lot lighter than modern models. Your lactation, is it exposed as wind will act upon the 200P like a sail. The EQ5 / 200P (an 8" f5) combination is sold as a package, and I started with this when I got back into astronomy some 13 years back. Back then we had lots of LP from sodium lights, so I bolted an old Canon 400D to it and ventured into imaging. It wasn't long before I purchased an HEQ5 mount as the EQ5 was stretched to its limits to cope with the extra weight of cables etc. I would always recommend the 150P (6" scope) with a EQ5, especially for imaging unless your budget runs to an HEQ5.

I've got a 400D which is the model below (lacks live view) and modified this myself. I'm happy with the results

Also check that the DEC axis isn't rotated 180 degrees before you put the scope / camera on the mount. There are plenty of images that show which way round the motor should be in relation to the home position. If you are sure you have things the right way then the issue is most probably a polar alignment issue, or you haven't done a two or three star alignment so the synscan unit can work out any alignment errors and correct for it when slewing to targets

Problem is the connection errors can be software related. There have often been posts where EQMOD works but GSS or / and NINA fails or randomly drops connection or vice versa. Strange to hear that the original mainboard failed and caused a runaway in DEC. Again, all the mainboard does is work out how many steps of the motor is needed to move from one position to another, so again it could have received incorrect data from the software. Maybe try older software such as EQMOD and Cartes du Ciel to handle the selection of targets and see if you get similar connection issues. You may need to remove or disable NINA / GSS depending if they start running as a service when the PC is powered up.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/402434-advice-on-1st-observatory/#comment-4312833 I think this was the thread ??

Personally if they are the company that the post above is referring to then for a company not to have credit card payment options is to me a red flag. Bank transfer is as good as giving them cash. It means that should something go tits up you have no recourse to get your money back. With a credit card, any payment or part payment over £100 means you have protection should this company suddenly stop operating and the owner disappears after taking deposits off people. £2500+ for an observatory does seem steep, but then the cost of building materials has risen a lot in the past 12 - 18 months, but that seems a lot of cash, especially if you have to provide a base on top. As mentioned above most building contracts will often ask for a percentage up front to purchase materials, but then based on the name, this company is making sheds anyway so they should have stock of the materials anyway, so can't see why they need to take a payment up front. At least the amount of deposit is small in relation to the overall cost.

If they are untrue than that would suggest that the retailers such as FLO would be selling them under false pretences and could lead them wide open under UK consumer laws..

No not really. On paper the load limits would suggest that, stating the imaging, and visual being more than the EQ5, and the internal gearing and stepper motors suggest that the EQ35 is a better performer. I think what they have done is taken the EQ3 and changed the gearing and steppers to make it perform better than the EQ3.

No one can tell you what to get, especially as you don't mention what interest you, the quality of the skies where you live, or if you can travel to a nice dark site. Its basically an 80mm F5 refractor on a budget. Like all things it will give you views of the Moon and bright nebula or galaxies under nice dark skies, but like all things in life you get what you pay for. All cars will get you from A to B, but don't expect the smooth luxury a Rolls Royce offers compared to a no frills Ford, the same goes for telescopes. The problem is that unless someone has exactly the same scope none of us will be able to tell you how good or bad it is. The problem is that you can always look at getting something better as you are always comparing whats available at any price point... even when you have a $1000 budget you can always get better mounts or optics... Personally, as per the post above I would stick with a brand that is known worldwide, and that means Celestron if you are using that same supplier. The 114 EQ is as basic as it comes but if you could stretch to the 130 that would be better....

Compared to the EQ3 and EQ5 the EQ35 has more payload capacity and the internals are different, offering more precision with the steppers having twice the microsteps (64 as apposed to 32). Just browse the full specs on FLO's website

Not seen something like that since I left my job as an IT Projects Technician....

Thing is that your two requirements are at opposite ends of the spectrum. For planets you need magnification, for galaxies its aperture. To get really large detailed planetary images you need both, mainly as higher magnification reduces detail so to compensate a larger aperture is required. With galaxies you want to capture every photon so a fast scope with large aperture is needed. So basically, if you're not happy with the results you are getting, then there isn't much you can do other than upgrade, as sticking a 3x barlow in the mix won't give you the detail you want as the resolution and brightness will be greatly reduced. All scopes have their limitations, which is why a lot of people end up with two or more scopes that are more suited for the deferent needs.

Don't fret over reviews etc... I know there are more options to get your name in print these days than it was a decade or two ago, but it's still something you should be proud of... well done

I presume its because the 130M comes on a motorised EQ-2 mount, and I'm sure the OP would have stated if he had swapped that out for something else, so its a fair assumption to make. To the OP, imaging covers a wide range of disciplines, from Luna and planetary through to faint DSO's. There is no ideal equipment (just look at similar posts and people will argue over recommendations made) and a lot will depend on the targets you want and the budget you have. Other than Luna imaging which can be done with any mount and a cheap webcam or even a mobile phone, the equipment required to do it to a level where you get decent results isn't cheap. Yes if you own a DSLR then that would be a starting point, and ten years ago it was very common to see setups based around a Canon D350, 400 or 450 as these were easily modified (if you wanted to make a true Astro spectrum camera) and were quite affordable second hand, especially compared to the "entry" level dedicated astro CCD cameras at the time. These days dedicated astro imaging cameras are getting better in performance and cheaper in price, making them recommended more over older DSLRs. Again, the equipment is dependent on the results you aim to get. If you want to do wide field then camera lenses on a tracking mount, or a small fast refractor would do the job, but the same kit would be useless for a really fain nebula that requires hours and hours of subs. One of the issues I have with similar posts is that members could recommend spending £200 on a camera, and then the OP realises the limitation of his mount or scope and then ends up needing kit that is way out of their price range. Maybe if the OP narrowed down the targets he/she is aiming for and if possible link to an image of what they are expecting, along with their budget then others will be able to narrow the recommendations down

Well done Kevin. I love the feeling you get when you see your work in print, and that was just a few articles in a national magazine, I bet its ten fold to see your work in a stack of books... Was this self funded or through a publisher ?

I need to read posts a second time... I thought you had a C8 / EQ5.... Maybe if you elaborated on the targets you want to image, and what you budget is then it might narrow down recommendations. Or simply browse through the forum for similar posts where people are after suggestions for gear needed

No expert, but I believe guys who use a scope like yours tend to use some form of focal reducer when imaging faint deep sky objects. The long focal length of the C8 will make it great for planetary work where magnification is needed. Personally I think your EQ5 mount will struggle with the C8 plus camera and a guide scope of some description. For imaging the max payload would be around 6-7kg and the C8 is around 5.5 to 6kg so you are already on that limit without the extra equipment. But you do have excellent skies so exposures needn't be too long. I would suggest the tried and trusted HEQ5 would be the ideal mount. It's load capacity, precision, and affordability both new and second hand would be able to handle the C8 etc just fine. Budget around £200 for a small guidescope / guide camera package, and £30 for an EQDIR cable to hook the mount up to a PC for control. Software wise, most packages are free, or just a few ££ for an annual subscription. Sharpcap, Cartes du Ciel, EQMOD or GSServer, APT and PHD2 are just some options, but other planetarium software is available. The PC to control the mount needn't be a powerful one, but to stack the results in something like Deep sky stacker (again free) and then process the result does need a PC with some umph... Now as we all have our own opinions and hopefully others will chime in here and make other recommendations. There may be flatteners, correctors and focal reduces they can recommend. I don't have a C8 so can't really advise on that part.

If you are working from Chart 1 that you don't want to change simply click FILE and select New Chart, and then search for the next target., which will be centred in the chart and circled with a label - you can then flick between the two charts

Did you check the links - I get an error from all three - all use the URL with the e missing

For doing the basics of controlling the mount, guiding and taking the images the PC doesn't have to be anything special. I still use a Core2 Duo processor with 8GB of old DDDR3 Ram, with mechanical drives as the main observatory PC (it was a dinosaur back in 2011 when the observatory was built) - the processor is circa 2006 !). But the processing is done on a modern Ryzen processor based machine (4 cores 8 processors) with 16GB DDR4 ram and a fast Nvme SSD main drive.

The part that confuses me (easily done I know 🙄) is why would you want to keep a chart open if the target you are searching for (and presumably to target with a goto scope) is outside the "field of view" of the existing chart ? - Anyway it doesn't really matter as I guess the beta version provides the OP with the functionality they wanted ?

It does pop up the info, and the chart remains unchanged. - So to answer the OP, current release version of CdC doesn't have this option, but a beta release does have an option to display info on a target that is not in the view of the current chart without changing the focus to that target by centring it on the screen

@StevieDvd I've dredged through my old images taken as part of the build, was this the image you are referring to Steve ? It was the rough sketch I made for the local engineering shop (sadly no longer trading) and I think from memory cost me around £50 at the time

If fixed in an observatory you will need to clear all the previous aligning points anytime the clutches are released and the mount moved manually. If you have to set up each night then these should be cleared before use with three or more new points found and added, much the same way as you would when using a handle.