ibraidwo

3 hours ago, toshapetriji said:

Hello, the eyepiece was a Celestron 8-24 without the eye shield. I do normally have the problem you describe but this time it worked out OK.

Thanks - I think I have that exact eyepiece in my collection! I will have to give it a try.

Has anyone had any success with using phone adapters/holders?

Great picture.

Can you tell me what eyepiece you used to achieve this? Whenever I offer my iPhone up to the eyepiece I never seem to be able to find the sweet spot. 

Do you have the eye shield folded down or not?

Thanks,

Morning all,

Is it possible to test a drive on a mount without having a controller to see if the drive is working? I don’t want to spend time looking and throwing money at it if the drive is faulty!

The drive is on a Vixen SP and has an 8-pin connector with a 1/120 gear ratio. See pics. 

Many thanks,

Ian

Thanks for posting, I recently picked up the same mount, with an old 6" reflector at an auction a month or so ago for £45 and am just starting to see how it works and whether it does everything it should. It came with the same tripod as yours as well; I note your tripod cross-support also has rust on it - I was wondering what I should do with that.

Until seeing your post, I wasn't exactly sure what model mine is, however it looks exactly the same as yours, so i assume its a Vixen SP GEM also.

I have stripped the telescope down and cleaned it - it was very dusty (probably sat in a barn/garage for some time. I have also partially disassembled the mount, but won't go too far with it. The RA worm screw shaft is a little bent, so I need to do something with that and it has an RA drive, however I don't have a controller so can't test it.

The mount appears to move well on both axis. Hopefully it will work okay once I reassemble.

Hi all,

I picked up an old 6" reflector on a Vixen SP mount via an auction house recently, however it has a very unusual focuser that I haven't seen before.

It appears to focus by manually moving the tube in and out, tightening the nylon screw then rotating the whole tube for fine adjustment.

Can anyone tell me anything about it and how old it is likely to be? Possibly even what the reflector is? Manufacturer?

I have stripped the whole scope down to clean it thoroughly.

Many thanks in advance,

Ian

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me what EQ mount this is (it looks fairly old) and any ideas on what weight it could carry?

Many thank,

Ian

Not that i'm aware of...

If I had one, I would - it was a hypothetical question :-)

I am missing the odd end cap, I am sure others are too... The 2” or 1.25” ends aren't a problem as they are a regular size, but the business ends can be very variable...

Has any one thought about 3D printing replacements? Would they work? Would they be too stiff?

Going to http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/create_account_form.php?teamid=117875 gives me...

"Project down for maintenance

Please check back in a few hours."

Why is that of all the days and hours of the day I could have looked at setting up an account, I happen to pick the exact time that the system is down for maintenance!

It'll be days before I think about doing this again...

I have always been a sci-fi fan and have always been interested in the heavens. I have often thought about investing in a scope but always had other priorities.

I then worked with a certain Mark Thompson (the peoples astronomer) for a year and we would occasionally talk scopes and observatories in the pub, but at that time my daughter was on her way and again scopes were put on the back burner.

Finally at 45 I decided it was time to buy a scope, which my wife then bought for me. I was so excited about it coming that I camped outside the courier depot in Epsom waiting for the van to return as we weren't in when they tried to deliver it. The office stayed open for me as I had told them it was a present for my son!!!

A little over a year on - I have 3 scopes, one of which (the ZS66) has been to South Africa and to Spain...

My wife now thinks I spend too much time looking for scopes on eBay and ABS, and not enough tme outside looking through them...

I am enjoying this hobby!

Thanks for the info. Mine seems to be okay at the moment, but it's good to know what I need to do if mine exhibits the same problem.

A legend, a character and an inspiration so many.

What a life you have lead and such an impact you have had.

I will think of you when I look up at the stars.

May you truly rest in peace.

Can anyone supply a picture of this auto focuser fittd to a SW Explorer 130P?

Many thanks in advance...

I just found this thread. It's good to know that the skywatcher auto focuser does fit onto the 130p with the 2" focuser. Mine has this and I'll be looking to buy and fit one soon as I had a hell of a problem focusing on Jupiter at higher mags the other night. The view in the eyepiece shifted quite a lot between racking in and racking out... Looks a much cheaper solution tryng to fit a better manual focuser.

It's nice to find older threads that answer your questions...

Best,

A Baader 2.25x Barlow arrived in the post today - courtesy of the inlaws...

Keep your wish lists up to date, it worked for me!

Thanks for the feedback Chris,

I have sent the missus a link to one as a hint for my upcoming birthday.

I now have to wait a month to see if I get a nicely wrapped up baader box...

Best,

Ian

@knobby - I did see that article. I don't have any other Baader EP's. In fact I'm looking to sell off most of my Skywacher/Celestron EP's and just keep the Baader zoom and buy the 2.25 barlow to go with it.

@brantuk - I appreciate that 4mm may be too much for the WO66, however being able to drop down to 7, 6 or even 5mm may be workable on some nights. At least it would be nice to have the opportunity to try...

So with my 40mm and 32mm Celestron EP's, which give an adequate field of view, would the Baader 8-24 zoom plus Baader 2.25 barlow meet the rest of my needs?

Thanks,

Ian

Bringing a recent thread back to life....

...have just picked up a nice Baader Hyperion Clickstop 8-24 Zoom Mark III via ABS and was considering getting the Baader 2.25 Barlow to accompany it - to give me a little extra mag when seeing allows it. This would limit how much I would need to carry when travelling with the WO66...

Are there any other SGL'ers with experience of using this combination - good or bad!

Thanks in advance,

Ian