Penumbrella

Thanks everyone - really appreciate the advice, and the outbreak of unanimity!

Hi, I'm about to treat myself to a new scope - probably the evolux 82. I'm very much mainly visual (my mount is an az-gtiX) but am thinking about EAA down the road, or switching up to an equatorial mount if/when the AP bug finally hits. I've currently got a 130pds and want to switch to a refractor for easier grabbing and go-ing, and less collimating. My question is this - I have an altair 2" 30mm UFF eyepiece which I really enjoy in my 130pds. It's my only 2" eyepiece, but it's probably my favourite. I also (for some reason) have a 1.25" diagonal that I can use on the new scope. Should I sell this diagonal and buy a 2" diagonal, or sell the 30mm UFF and buy the 24mm UFF eyepiece? Any advice and thoughts very welcome - but please don't fill my head with 102mm refractor temptations!! It's taken me months to settle on that choice 😂

I very much take an 'everything I could need in the one box' approach to this, so here's my accessories case. I used shadow foam cut into a cheap case from amazon, then got a sticker from etsy to give it some sauce. The cosy arrangement also has the benefit of reducing the urge to browse for any additions!

I have the Az-gtiX, and am using it with my 130pds on an innorel carbon fibre photo tripod. I've only managed two sessions with it thanks to the endless clouds but I've been very impressed (I tried the az-gti with the same scope before, having heard good things, but I wasn't that happy with it). I've found it copes with the 130pds just fine, which it should really, being well inside the capacity. Nice and stable with very acceptable levels of wobble at the eyepiece. I even tried it out for some short-exposure AP on M13 - left it happily tracking for 30min (took 100, 20sec, exposures), which worked far better than I'd hoped. In short, I'm very happy with it.

I recently moved from an eq to an alt-az - and on the 2nd night out took this pic of M13. Made the change from an eq3-2 to an az-gtiX to make the trip outside faster and add go-to . Cannot imagine going back to eq for a while now! Pic is 100, 20 sec, exposures with darks, biases, flats (thanks youtube tutorials!) all stacked in DSS and fiddled in Siril. Taken with my Lumix GX80 on the 130pds.

Thanks both

Hi, I'm looking for a head to use with my 15x70 binoculars and a photographers tripod. Can anyone recommend a good option - the ones I've seen don't look like they'd get the job done at high altitudes. Do people just use standard ball-head mounts or something else? Alternatively, I've got an alt-az mount I could use instead - would I be better off getting an L bracket thingy, and if so can anyone point me in the right direction there! Cheers, P

I see this scope recommended so often - I'm doing a lot of window shopping myself, and, with portability foremost, think I've settled on saving up for a 80mm refractor with a mount like the az-gti (or in that weight class anyway - maybe the sa gti, the az-gtiX, or the skyhunter). But all of these recommendations for a 100mm refractor makes me wonder if I'd regret getting an 80. Am I right in thinking a 102 refractor would be too much for that kind of mount. And, to avoid derailing this discussion too much, what mount do folks recommend for a 4" refractor?

My first attempt proper, having watched a nebula photos video on YouTube I decided to try stacking shots using my Lumix Gx80 and my 130pds on my eq3-2 mount. Having seen some amazing shots lately I decided to try and get the horsehead - mainly to see something that isn't visible through the eyepiece. Plus orions belt meant I could actually find it - I've only got the ra motor on the mount, no go-to, so it's got to be easy to find! 120 x 40 sec lights + 30 darks, 30 flats, and 30 bias frames. Stacked in DSS and then played with in Siril. I've no idea what I'm doing - just looking at the frames I could see it clearly wasn't great polar alignment (I don't have a polar scope, so it's a bit rough!), and I'd never stretched a histogram before so there's loads to learn, but just staggered that I took this picture myself.

I bought a cheap multi pack of cookie cutters from papa bezos for that very job. Worked just fine. Sure others are available but this set spanned the sizes I thought I might need. PINGEUI 12 Pieces Round Cookie... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09W9F67L4?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Just to park this, I tried @Mandy D's suggestion of a 1/2 inch UNC. But no dice. So I emailed omegon and astroshop.eu to ask. No response from omegon themselves (yet), but the helpful chap at astroshup did reply: C'est la Vie

Super, thanks very much. I'll track down one of them and give it a go. Cheers.

Hi, I have this mount and want to know what the thread is to attach a counterweight bar. I can see a thread there through the tension knob, and a M12 threaded bolt almost works but not quite - seems like it's the right diameter but the wrong pitch. Presumably its some imperial bolt size I'm after? Cheers, P Edit: Pic of mount attached

I had first light with my new 15x70 celestron SkyMaster binos, a lovely experience. I walked a bit away from the house and sat on a bench overlooking the nearby valley. Wonderfully clear night, so I had a whale of a time just sweeping around picking out various stars and features - lots of 'what's that' moments and flicking back to skysafari for info. Jupiter, Saturn, and later on, Mars were all clear (if a little jiggly, especially towards the end of my time). I enjoyed seeing m13 and M31, both of which benefitted from a little time, but the highlight was definitely m45 the pleiades. Spent quite some time gazing at them - with the odd nip from the hip flask. Think I might invest in a monopod, see if that helps, but otherwise I'm totally sold on binos. A wonderful night with absolutely none of the usual faff.

Thanks to the judges - I'm right chuffed to have a prize! I really enjoyed looking at all the entries and found it all so much fun - a really great challenge. P