TheycallmeRiver

Finger? It’s a toe, surely?! 😆

What a great night sky to have available at home.. re your situation, I would imagine periods of low motivation are common in this hobby among people who have been doing it for a good many years? I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it or feel like you should be pushing yourself to get out there. As long as the sky still inspires you, and I assume it does given your images, logic suggests this mojo loss is just a temporary lull. Natural ups and downs. Everything reverts to the mean in the end.

Is a 2x focal extender different to a 2x barlow? What you've got there looks far wider than the barlows i've owned. Edit - Never mind. Should've just googled it first.

I'm in 👍

Thank you all for the advice. I’ve got some reading to do I think. @newbie alert I will send you a PM, but what a kind and generous offer that is.

Didn't realise this, my scopes are pasted below. The used FLT 132 is new to my collection, not even used it properly yet. Telescopes - Orion XT10i, Celestron 9.25 Evolution, William Optics FLT 132 with feathertouch

I don't know I'm a total AP newcomer. All of my scopes are in my signature, I don't really know what I should use yet and i'm happy to be guided with whatever you experienced folks think is best. The only astro photos i've ever taken have been through an iphone held up to an eyepiece. In my head I know what I want the end product on my wall to look like, and i'm happy to sacrifice a little quality, but i'm adamant that I want to have taken the photos myself rather using images taken from the internet. As for lenses, I only have the kit 18-55 that the camera came with. It's been sat in a case for a couple of years along with the DSLR itself. I can afford a couple of hundred quid for a ZWO camera thats a bit more dedicated if you think it's worth it, but if I spend that money i'd like it to be usable for planets in the future, as well as this moon project (not mono colour).

I want to take a series of 3 or 4 moon phase photos, process them, and then put each on a separate canvas and stick them up on my living room wall. I'd like them to be as high a resolution as is feasible, because i'm going to be blowing them up to quite a large size. I have an entry level DSLR thats a few years old, a Nikon D3300 and I assume it would be usable for this project if I bought a T Ring? Would that be good enough for this purpose, and maybe for some planetary shots later this year when the time is right; or should I prioritise a lower end planetary camera instead?

I can relate to this a little. Maybe not the manual alt-az, but definitely the feeling that I ‘needed’ a refractor. I think I’ve been seduced over time by phrases like ‘refractor magic’ and ‘pinpoint diamonds on inky black background’ etc. Somewhere deep down I felt like I had to see for myself. Anyway, I’ve owned my dob and my Evo for a while now and I was always intending to buy a refractor at some point in the future, but a couple of weeks ago the WO FLT 132 in my signature came up used. It was way above my budget but still a bargain compared to a brand new one and I thought why wait? Thankfully my wife is… open to persuasion when presented with a passionate argument 😊 I drove the length of the country to pick it up last weekend and now I can’t wait to get started using it. Just waiting on a couple more accessories before I can get going, and I still need to sort out a battery or power tank for the AZ-EQ6 I bought with it. I think I’m probably set for a while now, scope wise. Accruing eyepieces and gaining more observing experience are my priorities now.

My slug problem vanished when I redid the garden with artificial grass. I’d forgotten all about them until I read this topic!

Your complete set looks awesome in that case. Did you get the same ‘back in stock’ email I got from FLO earlier this week? I also jumped as soon as I saw it. Mine arrived today too, along with a new 2” dielectric diagonal 😊

That was cool, thanks for pointing it out. What's the object coming in from the top middle from 20:05:40 onwards, travels slowly down and right and then disappears a couple of minutes later? Thought at first it might have been the ISS, but that wouldn't just disappear the way this did. Looked too bright to be an aircraft?

You aren't the first to say that to me in response to my pretty basic level criticism of the eyepiece. I do still fancy the Morpheus 9mm because I love the 12.5, Maybe I'll keep both and learn to use the 10XW a bit better.

I'm still learning about eyepieces and I don't own a DeLite yet, but my take on the only XW I own (the 10mm) is that eye placement seemed pretty fussy. I've tried with the eyecup flat, extended all the way out, and at various steps in between. It's probably more inexperience on my part than anything else because i'm aware that this is a much loved eyepiece, but my first and second impressions of the XW weren't brilliant. I have my eye on a Morpheus 9mm that might eventually replace it, but until then i'll keep persevering.

There's my XT10i, somewhere over there in the middle of what my kids call 'Astronomy Corner'.

The eyepieces were in far worse condition than the mirrors were. I may well do that. Thanks.

Greenwich used to be in Kent? I never knew that. Anyway, I was born just down the road from you in Woolwich, lived half of my life in SE London and only moved to Kent 15 years ago when my wife and I bought our first place.

No, I live in Maidstone. River's just a long time nickname. I do observe from the East end of the county sometimes though. Pleased that the first people to reply to my post are all from Kent I was really hoping to meet some more local folks.

Well, mainly I was curious how old it was. I like that i'd be at least the third generation of my family to own it, and I found it fascinating to look at and hold in my hands. It's by a distance the oldest telescope i've seen in person. I wasn't particularly planning on selling it and I certainly don't have the skill to restore it yet. Maybe i'll just use it first? I observe from a balcony at their house sometimes as it has a great view out to sea. Next time i'm down there I might just set it up next to my own scope and see just how well it still works in its current condition.

Hi SGL. I'm a long time listener, first time caller. I've been interested in astronomy for most of my life but only really started taking it a little more seriously during the first lockdown. Since then I feel like I can't really get enough. I find a lot of it hard to understand, and I've made a number of pretty common beginner mistakes which I'm sure will come out as I spend time here, but none of them are dampening my enthusiam for the hobby. In fact, I feel even more inspired than I did before I started. I own three telescopes - A dob, an SCT and a refractor, and i'm currently starting to build a proper eyepiece collection. As and when i'm allowed to edit a signature I'll update it with what I own. Look forward to sharing our hobby with you all as time goes by. River

Came across this old 4" reflector in my Dad's loft this afternoon. 900mm focal length. I guess somewhere around f/8.5. He reckons his dad gave it to him about 50-55 years ago, no idea how long his dad owned it for prior to that. The primary mirror looked in pretty good nick considering the bashing about the OTA seems to have taken over the years. Secondary mirror not so great. Don't even want to guess at the collimation The 4/5 eyepieces in the box were all .965's. There was also a wooden tripod and a mount in the box, alongside a finderscope, if you could call it that - Looked to be about 2cm wide! Can anyone identify the model/age of the telescope from these pictures? Quick google search didn't turn up much.

I would absolutely love to go to something like this. I’m sure I’d learn bucketloads.

This is the inside of the card I got from my middle daughter. She’s quite inspired by astro, and I thought her little Saturn above the ‘I’ in her name was pretty cute ☺️