Shimrod

Have you had a look through this (long) thread? what can I expect to see?

So the primary aim was to view and image the planets - mostly with the 80ed - as that is my travel telescope and my view of the southern sky from home is obscured by a recent housing development blocking the planets from view. For deep sky I would be using the telescope without the extender and with the skywatcher focal reducer/flattener. Imaging is with a Canon DSLR (unmodified). Would you recommend a barlow instead?

I've got a few bits on order at the moment, one of which is a 7mm OVL Nirvana eyepiece. I've been thinking about whether I should have ordered the 4mm as well (for use with my Skywatcher 80ed) or the Explore Scientific 2x 2" focal extender. I had thought about the latter when placing the original order, but at the time it was 30-40 days delivery - now it is available again in 1-2 days. My thoughts about the Focal Extender are that the 7mm will give me 3.5mm which will give 171x magnification for the telescope, and it will also be useful if I want to try imaging the planets. the 4mm eyepiece will give me 150x, will be lighter but won't really be usable on my other scope (8" EdgeHD). Any comments or alternative suggestions (up to the budget of the Focal Extender, around £140) would be welcome. thanks

It's always worth reading the definitions within the policy booklet. Mine (UIA) has separate definitions for Home and Premises - the latter includes the garden and all outbuildings within the boundaries of the property.

How about something like this: https://www.ebuyer.com/785008-canon-silex-ds-510-device-server-3128v569 If you are running a cable though, you might still want to consider wireless - you could use the cable to mount the wireless aerial on the outside of the house instead of running a cable all the way to your observatory.

My powertank Pro is about 12 months old, and the lights do not blink at all while it is delivering power

You confused me slightly with 'ethernet', but I think you mean 'wi-fi'. This is the sort of device you are looking for USB Wifi adaptor Unfortunately I cannot find one that is current - they seem to have had their day now every device has wi-fi. You could look for a wi-fi extender or travel router with usb ports which might serve for what you want.

I don't know how accurate the measurements are, but have a look here: Powermate 4x and here: Powermate 2 x 2 You need to click on the specification tab, but you will see detailed measurements for each part of the Powermate.

If you find that it is too late and the hex socket is now a round socket, I can recommend a set of these: Damaged screw extractor I had to buy a set to remove the focuser from my 80ed after the screws were fastened in too tight and the heads just stripped.

Thank you for your response - I have already bought binoculars which I am very pleased with. As to why I didn't have a budget of £800 - the binoculars are for occasional use while imaging with my telescope so it is difficult to justify the extra cost. Perhaps more importantly, I did not want to spend that much!

Yes, it is just Calilbrate then auto align. As mentioned before, the only advantage of repeating the calibrate is if you think you may have knocked the camera or you remove it from the OTA each time you finish a session and want to ensure everything is definitely set up correctly next time.

After a calibration, you would need to perform the auto alignment just the same as you would if you went straight into the auto-alignment routine. It is only the calibration which is extending your set up time.

You use the calibration process to align the Starsense camera to the OTA it is mounted on. If you never remove the camera from the OTA, then theoretically you only need to do the calibration once. I perform a calibration each time I set my scope up - it only takes a couple of minutes and it allows for any accidental knocks that may have occurred during setup. You can save alignment models, but if you have only added alignment points for a session, they xist for that session only. You use more alignment points to improve the pointing model - by default Starsense uses four alignment points only.

Have you tried loosening the bolt from the accessory tray first and then tightening up the bolt into the mount itself? Once that is fully tight, then re-tighten the nut below the accessory tray. It's possible you have not fully bolted the mount to the tripod and now the accessory tray is preventing it from being fully tightened.

You should be doing your polar alignment first, then theEQ north alighnment. If you haven't checked already, it is instructions on P17 then P15 of the NexStar 6SE and 8SE Manual manual on the Celestron website

If you haven't seen it already, this thread is well worth reading to get an idea of what you might see with various telescopes

I've answered Yes, but really it is 'sometimes'. I have a UK holiday in September to Skye, but the final location on Skye was selected by reference to light pollution maps. If booking a cottage in the UK, it's always region first, then sky quality second - as it is never just a trip for me to look at the skies! Long Haul holidays are never about sky quality, but for several years I have been traveling to Iceland for the Aurora and that is absolutely based on location and quality of sky.

I can't comment directly on the Skywatcher focuser - I bought an 80ed in March, but bough a Baader SteelTrack at the same time to replace the standard focuser. If you go down that route, you need to be aware that the Skywatcher reducer/flattener screws onto the back of the stock focuser, so you will need an adapter for the Steeltrack. I haven't bought the reducer/flattener yet as I am still getting started with imaging but also wanted to use the scope as a portable visual platform as well. I use a canon 7d mkii, but accept that for the moment I lose the outer edge of the view to quite server vignetting so the field of view for imaging is constrained.

Thanks for all the replies - my thinking is closer to Olly's in terms of price than the higher values. I do have a wedge for it (bought for imaging) but I am going to sell that separately - it is much better suited for someone who wants to mount the scope on a pier than setting up/tearing down each night on a tripod.

Or in other words, how much might my 2003 LX90 EMC 8" be worth? It's been sitting idle for a while although it is in good working order and clean mirrors. A friend has expressed an interest in buying it, but most of the LX90 scopes for sale are the newer UHTC and LNT variants. I often seen the 2/3rd of new quoted on here when people talk second hand prices, which might be a good starting point for nearly new but not for something that is 17 years old (especially where electronics are involved). For reference this would include all the accessories you would expect when bought new, plus a revelation dual speed focuser and couple of other bits and pieces. thanks.

They are called Toric contact lenses - I have them and they work well. However I have now reached the age where I have to wear reading glasses if I have my contact lenses in! I only have astigmatism in my right, so tend to observe without glasses or lenses - I find my eyes object to contact lenses late at night.

A quick update - I managed to get out for 15 minutes of clear sky tonight. I can see Saturn and Jupiter over an neighbour's house so a couple of easy targets to aim for. The binoculars feel light for their size, but obviously need a tripod to avoid movement - my camera tripod serves ok, but lacks a bit of stability when the column is at full extent. Jupiter and moons were clearly visible - I like the individual eye focussing which makes it easy for me to use the binoculars without glasses, although I now understand why they will not be too useful for wildlife. Saturn is a much smaller target, but it was possible to make out the rings as your eyes adjust. And then the clouds rolled in and everything disappeared. Overall impression - very pleased with the purchase!

It might be worth registering on Team Celestron - the Celestron support and beta testers site where you could ask the question direct of the developers. They do have various threads for feature requests - I've always thought it strange that the Starsense HC had less options than the standard handset, although I now control my mount through a tablet or laptop.

I don't really get the whole idea behind this device. You just plonk it down on the ground, wait a bit and look at pictures on your tablet or smartphone. You don't have to make use of (or learn) any knowledge or skill to capture the images. You are so removed from the whole process that you might as well just look at the pictures from the Hubble, pretend you have a Stellina and save £3,400. I'm just getting started with imaging, but even with the slightly out of focus, fuzzy M51 pictures that I took earlier in the year, I feel a sense of achievement that the Stellina would just never give me.

A quick follow up - I've ordered the Stellar II 20x80 from FLO tonight, so hopefully will have something to play with next week!