rojay

Got it, thanks.

Sorry if it's a daft question, but are these your own ratings, or is there a source to look them up in? Thanks!

This is a nice report! The descriptions have given me plenty of new ideas for targets to observe from murky skies. 👍

But after all my geometry efforts, I took it outside last night, put the telescope on it, and only after not understanding what was going on, realised I'd carefully put the south bearing due north! 🤔

In order to wrap my head round the geometry of these platforms, I enlisted a couple of helpers! The pirate is holding his boathook at an angle of 52 degrees (roughly), with the bottom end pointing to the south bearing, while his Viking colleague is holding his pointer vertically. Moving the platform across its range of travel, the polar-aligned boathook is stationary, while everything else moves... Not sure if that shows up on the pictures, but it's a pretty convincing demonstration in real life 🙂. Ooh, and Snapseed lets you combine photos, that does the trick!

Here's my build so far. I don't think there's a straight cut on it, apart from the original edges of the board... But I reckon it's going to work!

Taking a cue from some of the comments from other members here, I decided to spend some time looking at the Auriga clusters, paying attention to the character of each one (rather than just 'ticking them off' as I tend to do). And it was a very enjoyable session, much better than not finding M81/82 and cursing the poor transparency like my last time out! I was surprised that at low power they were actually quite hard to pick out against the bright sky. (I'm using an 8inch F6 Dob). So I put in a zoom eyepiece and turned up the magnification to darken the background, looking for a sweet spot of crisp stars and dark background, but it was just getting better with higher power, so I ended up swapping in the 7.5mm TMB Planetary. I'm sure that's not what it's supposed to be used for 🙂 Anyway, they are indeed three noticeably different clusters, well worth my taking the time to appreciate them. PS I have a DIY azimuth circle and a digital inclinometer, which helps a lot with finding things when the sky is bright and there's not much naked eye or in the finder to star hop from.

Gosh I'd forgotten about this book! I borrowed it many times from the local library in my youth.

A motor to drive the equatorial platform I'm trying to build. Buying bits is much less tiring than sawing wood!

I happened to be awake at 6 this morning, and i remembered this report, so went and had a peek out of an upstairs window. Had a great view of the waning crescent moon and Venus. I'd forgotten just how bright Venus can be! So thanks @paulastro!

Just in from a pretty decent session. Started with the Pleiades, then M35, but couldn't spot NGC2158. Nice look at the Orion nebula, then up to Auriga to see M36, 37 & 38. Tried the Crab nebula, but no luck, I think the light pollution is too much for it here. Double cluster was very good. I then looked at the carbon star WZ Cas, a first for me. Very distinctive colour compared to the nearby stars. Swung back to look at Sigma Ori, and then called it a night.

Indeed it does, and that's a useful link too. Thank you!

Thanks John, but I'm still lost! I'd get it if the motor was connected to the south bearing, or otherwise directly moving the top board versus the bottom one, but if the motor is turning the pillow bearing, which has a much smaller circumference than the ellipse that the metal segments are part of, surely the motor would have to go many times faster than sidereal? Maybe I should just get building and see for myself 🙂

Hi and welcome from one who's recently taken the plunge after a good deal of lurking!

This is super interesting, thanks all who've posted. I have a question: the EQ1 motor presumably turns at 1 rev/day, but the bearing needs to go a lot faster. Did you need to do some modifications to the motor? Thanks!

Here's mine, a Dark Star telescope. It's well over thirty years old, but works fine. Still has the original 35mm film canister to cap the focuser!

Welcome! I'm one of today's new recruits too...

Thanks! I guess astronomy is all about waves of one sort or another. And about how much H2O you've got above you. 🙂

Hello all, I've been lurking for a long while and enjoying the content here, so thought I'd actually register and say hi! R.