TheycallmeRiver

Thank you Malcolm. Yes, if I go ahead I would be purchasing with the Tri-Pier for the very reason you said. I may DM you later if you don't mind.

Hello friends, i've been away for a while. Health, etc. Hope you're all well. Nights will start to draw in again soon and I want a new mount. I think i'm going to sell my AZeq6 (I dont use the EQ at all and I'm not sure i'm ever going to now) and I would like something simple and quick to set up, for use primarily with my FLT132 or maybe occasionally my 9.25. The AZ pro from iOptron has always been on my watch list and I think i'm about to buy it - From FLO of course. Before I do, anything else I should compare and consider? Any good or bad points I should know about re the iOptron? Regards to all River

Also helpful. Thank you. I think I’m going to move it back to its proper storage and sacrifice that little bit of convenience.

Helpful. Thank you.

Hi all, I’ve recently started storing my 10” dob in the conservatory for easier access to my observing position. Thing is, it gets really hot in there. I mean really, really hot. Are there any issues storing it in an environment like this? Could any damage be caused?

Tell her it's imperative that you do it right now, because the objects you're going to be photographing are moving away from us at an incredible rate and they'll be gone soon!

Always had mixed results with clear outside. I check it, but only ever in conjunction with another couple of sites. Meteoblue is another option that is normally pretty accurate for me. Also includes jet stream data which is useful. https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/seeing @SuburbanMak Thanks for that cloud cover link. That one's going into my bookmarks👍

I'm in Maidstone. Welcome to SGL.

Life's too short my friend. As long as you can afford it, enjoy it; and don't let anybody guilt trip you about it.

What about attaching a small tracker? Like an Apple airtag, or some less expensive equivalent? I doubt anyone stealing astro equipment would know anything about it and would probably completely overlook a strategically placed tracker on the underside of a mount. If the worst happens at least you could track it to wherever they took it, and direct the police accordingly?

Last night was clearer than I was anticipating so I made a late decision to get out my dob and eVscope and have a look around. I was really unprepared for this session and I think my eVscope was slightly out of collimation, but time was limited and I only had an hour so I skipped it (I also forgot to take a new dark frame before I started and I think that impacted my results more than the slight miss-collimation). Anyway, I set up the eVscope as best I could and checked focus with my bahtinov mask, then slewed to M42 to really try out this 'enhanced vision' for the first time. Once that was up and tracking I moved over to my dob I looked at the moon and jupiter. Took a couple of pictures using an iphone X with a new adaptor that i've just bought which I will attach to this post. Back to my eVscope to check on how it was doing on M42. 3 minute exposure yielded this result: Was pretty impressed. It was a lot clearer through the eyepiece on the scope itself than the 'screenshot' it takes of the in-app image. I was so blown away by what I was seeing that I essentially abandoned my dob and focused on the eVscope for the next half an hour whilst I toured some of the highlights. I spent 4 mins on part of the Pleiades, 11 minutes on the Horse Head, and then 11 minutes on the Triangulum Galaxy. I'll post the results below, all have been touched up in lightroom but I can also share the originals if needed. I'm new to Lightroom so i'm still figuring stuff out. Mind suitably melted by my first real electronically assisted astronomy experience, I turned the eVscope off. I didn't want to do too much with it because I knew it wasn't set up correctly and I didn't want to overdo things until I've done all the things Unistellar say you should do first before you start. So I went back to my lonely dob on the other side of my garden, slapped in my 31mm Nagler and spent an hour just panning around, lost in the sky with no idea exactly what I was looking at, but lost in the sky just the same. Such a perfect night for me, and exactly what I needed after a busy Christmas and a tough few months. Went to bed with a huge smile on my face and a much lighter heart. Pics below (including the edit I made to the M42 image above).

True. The colour of that coating is just... What an absolutely beautiful telescope. Congratulations.

Enjoying this live unboxing 😍.

Bought a 3 axis phone adaptor from a chap on UKABS. I think the seller is a member here but I won't tag him because i'm not 100% sure its the same guy. Anyway, I bought it for my daughter and I to use with our dobs. She's so funny. She's only 6 but really keen on the hobby. Yesterday night she took one look at the sky then threw her hands in the air and said "how are astronomers supposed to astronomer in this", gesturing at the clouds and LP. 😆

It was hand held. I took about 10 pictures over the course of about 20 minutes and then just edited the one I thought was the best. Here is another unedited capture. I'd guess that whatever ghosting you're seeing was either caused by my wobbly phone or by mistakes I made in editing.. It looked tack sharp when observing it normally through the ep. Mind if I ask you a question? If I were to buy an entry level ZWO camera should I expect an end result markedly superior to my original image, or would they both be in the same ballpark after stacking etc? I'm really new at this. Never taken a photo with anything other than my phone, and i've had absolutely zero success on either Mars or Jupiter so far.

I took this on Wednesday 7th at about 1900hrs. Fairly standard fare for the Lunar imaging forum I assume, but for me this is the first astro image i've ever taken that I was genuinely proud of, and the first one i've ever edited myself. I took it with my iPhone X held up to a Hyperion zoom eyepiece which was at around 8mm. Single frame. Scope was a 10" dob. I played about with it in lightroom which is a first for me, and I don't know the program very well at all. I think maybe I oversharpened it a bit? Any constructive criticism please? I'm planning on taking more images over the Lunar cycle and then putting them up on the wall in a series.

I love pies! Never really associated them with Wigan before though. Ah well. Pies! Welcome to SGL.

I love the look of the Tak's. I doubt i'll ever own one given my circumstances, but i'm not sure anyone could describe them as 'ugly'. I feel like there's something a little bit classy about branding with a minimalist aesthetic like that. Even more so with a specialist product where the prospective buyer knows that the quality of the telescope will speak for itself, and therefore there's no need for it's branding to shout at you. On another note, thank you @DaveS for that link on page 1. I've never seen a scope remotely like that before. You are correct, it's beautiful; but it also gives me HR Giger/Alien franchise vibes..

eVscope 2 arrived. Mid life crisis confirmed 😆

This is my view tonight, looking South over the beach at Sandgate, near Folkestone in Kent. If you zoom in enough you can make out Dungeness nuclear power station just to the left of where the sun is setting. What a wonderful place to observe from. Shame I only have a Heritage 130p with me tonight but I’m still anticipating great views of the moon/Jupiter conjunction later; hopefully will also be able to inspire a couple of younger members of my family too. Anyone else have any pictures of a dusky sky which left you eagerly anticipating the darkness to come?

Welcome to SGL. I’m pretty local to you and my kids and I will be attending the MKAS family night on Friday as well - Health permitting.

Agree. Personally I find outreach really inspiring. I think it's something people generally do for the love of the hobby and the genuine wish to show others something they've never seen in the hope that they'll take inspiration themselves. I love looking at pictures and hearing stories about people looking through telescopes for the first time. 5 kuna is only about 60p but imposing any charge makes a difference in my book.

I started off with some cheap binoculars that I bought from DHgate. Some Russian brand called Baigish or similar. Allegedly they were 20x50's, but they weren't. They did me alright for a while and I saw some cool stuff through them though. For what I paid I was happy overall. Recently I bought a set of 15x70's from another member though, and they outperform my previous binoculars in every single way. I think these will do me for years.

I’ve never observed this cluster before, but I’ll certainly be doing so after looking at those images. for what it’s worth, I saw the bat first.

What a nice gesture. How about donating it to your local library? Or even a central Bristol library? https://www.librarytelescope.org/ facilitates this I believe. The idea being that the library loans telescopes to the community in the same way that they loan books. Their website says that normally an astronomer from a local astro society acts as a troubleshooter and occasional collimator.