Gfamily

I don't know whether you are familiar with the Irish National Inventory of Historic Scientific Instruments which is available as a PDF from Google Books - it has a list of Grubb telescopes amongst other items

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Irish_National_Inventory_of_Historic_Sci/vwXPDwAAQBAJ

It might be useful if you've not seen it before. 

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Nice info, but I doubt the OP will ever see it since they last visited on May 14, 2022.

Good point   - but it may be useful to someone else who's wondering the same. 

There's a calculator available at the 'astronomy tools' website that will show you what the field of view will be for a variety of scopes and eyepieces, lined up against a variety of targets, such as the Moon and any of the Messier objects. 

Basically, it depends on the f/ratio of your OTA, the focal length of the eyepiece and the Apparent Field of View (which will depend on the design of the eyepiece). 

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

There's a variety of tools that you may find useful - but don't get too stuck into them, just use them as guides rather than instruction manuals  

It's a very nice scope. Practice getting the balance right with your preferred eyepiece, otherwise you may find it drooping when in use. 

The helical focuser can be a bit sloppy, so it's worth getting some plumbers' teflon tape to wrap around the thread to make it a little bit more snug.

Also, if you are using it in an area with some local lights, it can be worth getting a lightweight dark fabric to drape over the open truss so you can cut out some of the stray lights. 

Finally, I'd suggest getting a sticky label to put on the dust cover that says in big letters "Turn off the Red Dot Finder", otherwise you'll be constantly replacing the 2032 button cells! 

Enjoy 

Someone on Twitter was asking about the likelihood of being able to see changes within 30 seconds.  They posted 4 images and I converted 3 of them into a GIF animation 

Unclear whether the result is due to actual change over that period, or whether it's just some variation in the image quality 

Original tweet - https://x.com/la_foley/status/1761641449127371194

For those of you not on Twitter

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1761531341978427402.html

An explanation...

https://x.com/DrPhiltill/status/1761531341978427402

Incidentally, the most recent Awesome Astronomy podcast has an interview with Dr Phil Metzger

59 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

yup and a great view out the big windows.I was in the IT dept on the ground floor can't remember what floor the canteen was but they did great meals. 2 meals of the day and a chef who would cook what you wanted ie omlette steak etc that was pre 2000 as I moved to france in 2005

 

expect a DM in the morning 😀

On 22/02/2024 at 21:57, fozzybear said:

Welcome on board.  Me ex Manc and worked in the Sandcastle age's ago. 

Do you mean the Royal Insurance building? In which case: hi, we may have passed each other in the very orange canteen. 

6 minutes ago, John said:

That is an excellent hint. I will use that approach when I'm next doing outreach with younger observers (and I think it might be useful for some older ones as well !) 🙂

I said to some of the pupils that it was also useful when talking to older people!

Mrs G works with a local primary school and one of their years was having a 'residential' week locally. 

As the forecast seemed reasonable, we'd said we'd take some kit out so they might get some astronomy while they were in a less urban area. 

With the scopes and a pair of binoculars, we were able to 'wow' the pupils with the Moon, Jupiter and the Orion Nebula .

Handy hint: if observing with young people; - put a chair backwards onto the telescope, tell the observer to put their hands on the chair-back, and they won't grab the eyepiece to look through it. 

51 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

This is how it works at this unnamed club as I understand it. You can go to 3 meetings but if you want to go to more you then have to join (or not). 

We always welcome non members, the difference being that we ask members to pay £1 subs, whereas guests pay £3.

4 hours ago, JOC said:

I wasn't hugely enamoured with the astronomy club that I went along to for a couple of meetings.  The first one I went to in order to see what it was all about they didn't even have a telescope at and weren't that interested in the fact that I had taken my brand new scope and wanted to find out how to use it.  

It's a regret that our club (see my sig) isn't really able to offer chances to observe, and we're limited in the amount of 'hands on' advice we can give to new 'scope users.

But with the unpredictable nature of UK weather, we can only really see our meetings as being for sharing our interest generally, so we have talks on the subject and offer a chance to meet with like minded enthusiasts. I think we've only had 1 evening in the last 6 months when it's been clear enough on a club night to consider getting a telescope out.

That said, I'm going to try to get a 'ring round' or WhatsApp group for people who want to get started; so that if we have a good evening forecast we can let people know that we'll be meeting somewhere suitable for an impromptu observing session, primarily so that people can have someone take them through setting up, aligning, and finding the target objects. 

1 hour ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

I failed the test, they suggested I try Densa. (98% bigger membership)

A mensa member would probably insist on telling you that it should be '4800% bigger membership'. 

A non member might have said 5000%

This morning brought delivery of a Synscan WiFi dongle, that I can use on either of my old Synscan mounts.

I really appreciate the additional alignment options that the app offers over the handset.

Furthermore, the Point and Track option is very useful for grab and go use. 

Part funded with the Tring Astro vouchers won for being on the second placed quiz team at the last Autumn Astrocamp.

If people are looking for a 'step up' book from TLAO, I can suggest the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders. It only covers constellations visible from the Northern Hemisphere, but it has a wide range of targets, and a lot of useful information.

Google Books preview available

https://books.google.com/books/about/Illustrated_Guide_to_Astronomical_Wonder.html?id=ymt9nj_uPhwC#v=onepage&q&f=false

On 12/02/2024 at 13:27, DaveS said:

From what I can see, the BBC are treating the Columbia loss as more of a drama than a scientific investigation , typical Beeb.

Did you watch it? 

18 hours ago, Brad M said:

Hi,  new to this site.   I recently purchased the Skywatcher GTI and am having the exact same issue as described in this thread.  I am using an external power source - not batteries and cannot get the device to track.  After hitting ENTER in the eypiece - nothing. No problem aligning or slewing to deep sky objects.  Just wondering if any resolution was found?

Is your tracking set to 'sidereal' in the app?

Are you finishing your centering by pressing 'up' and 'right'? 

Also, what happens if you manually centre the target and then hit 'point and track' ? 

Have you turned off battery optimization for the SynScan app? 

This keeps the app running when you switch to Sky Safari.

Just a thought 

Elp makes a good point, that a long focal length generally gives a narrow field of view, so not so good for browsing the sky.

You might consider the SkyMax Go2 127, and swapping the telescope over in the mount depending on whether you want to look at the Moon or browsing the sky generally.

I can't remember whether the Travel Scope comes with a dovetail (which will allow it to be clamped to the Go2 mount) but it should be able to fit one if not.

It'll be worth making a DIY dew shield for the 127, but it's a good step up scope. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescopes-in-stock/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az-go2-wifi-maksutov-cassegrain-telescope.html

1 hour ago, cajen2 said:

I'll be there: pitch 26 as usual. I've got a friend - @Richard N - coming for the first time so let's hope we get at least one good night!

Unfortunately, we'll miss seeing you, as we're in France again this spring. Hope to see you at the end of September for the Autumn Astrocamp.

Well, that was excellent.  A world tour of sites and a historical overview of how the study has developed over the last couple of centuries.

The Zoom session was recorded, so hopefully it'll be made available for wider sharing. 

Anyone else watch it?  

The original Star Adventurer manual has the following details of the LEDs

Quote

 

Warning Status: LEDs will blink at a 0.5-second rate in two cases:

 1. Firmware upgrading: When updating the firmware, LEDs on the Star Adventurer will

blink as a warning not to turn off power.

 2. Battery low (The battery voltage is lower than roughly 4.5V): Star Adventurer supports

most of the AA batteries. When using rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-Mh) batteries, please

replace the batteries when it indicates low battery in order to protect the batteries from over

discharge. When using Alkaline batteries, the system will run normally for a while after indicating

battery low.

Motor Error Status: LED will blink at a 3-times-per-second rate in two cases:

 1. Motor speed accuracy violation: The motor speed error is over 5%. If this keeps

happening, the user may need to check for overloading (Max load is 5kg) or low battery l

 2. Motor stall: the motor stalls over 5 seconds. May be caused by external interference.

Please check if the mount is blocked by an external force.

 

You'll be able to confirm whether it was flashing at once every 2 seconds, or 3x per second. 

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Could you not take a series of overlapping stills covering your 360 degree view and give them to Microsoft ICE to stitch? Or make several panoramas, save them, and, diotto, give them to ICE to stitch?

Olly

ICE is no longer distributed by Microsoft, but the MSI s are available from Archive.org as per the links here 

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/394300-stitching-software/#comment-4240099

Yes, it's the lack of information that's the problem. 

For the future though it's worth knowing that if you have a contactless bank card you can just tap it on the pad at the gate and again when you get off at the other end and TfL will keep track of all your day's travels and charge you the best price overnight. So if you made just 2 journeys it would be less than a 1 day zone card, but if you made lots of trips it would max out at the £9.60 or whatever.

For two people you'll each need your own card, and (obviously) if you have multiple cards, make sure you use the same one each time you tap in and out. 

It really works, and does so across bus, tube, rail and tram. For buses, you just tap on, and it's a flat rate for the trip - not sure how it works if you have to change route, but I think it counts a second tap within an hour as part of the same trip.