sorrimen

1 hour ago, PeterStudz said:

I had to look back at my pictures & files and I was using a BST StarGuider 5mm. I also bumped up the video to 4K at 60 fps, zoomed at 1.7x. For some reason zooming in the video at between 1.7-1.8x makes an improvement. Not sure why as it doesn’t when I take single images.

On the 8” Dob I find the 5mm quite useful. Especially on the moon. Although for planets like Jupiter and Saturn seeing does need to be good. I had about 7-8 nights of trying when seeing was good and it only worked out well a couple of times. Not that I tried to do this every time. Often I just enjoyed the view. I also like looking a globulars and the ring nebula in the 5mm. Can also be handy at splitting some doubles, although I’m still learning about that. I think you’ll find it worth getting.

Out of interest. I only started taking smartphone snaps because my daughter wanted pictures. She likes it and it helps keep her interest up. I can remember when we first tried this on the Orion Nebula. Just hovering the phone over the eyepiece had her literally jumping up and down - you could see colours on the phone screen.

Although I’m more interested in just observing I have to admit it’s nice looking back at my “astronomy” folder and seeing all the pics that I’ve taken. It reminds me of the whole night itself, although I’ve had plenty of good nights without fiddling with smartphone images. 

And I always like seeing other peoples images, like yours, too. It all adds to the fun of what is a great hobby.

Right, I suppose I'm spending that £30 then! Really appreciate you putting the time into checking back over your pictures. Yeah I accidentally stubbled onto a double the other night and it was something I didn't even realise existed. 

I'm certainly the same, but for whatever reason with anything I observe I end up taking a picture. Haven't had anyone out with me yet so I suppose it's just me wanting to share the awe with people. Thanks again!

Thought I’d add, Peter, what eyepiece were you using for that jupiter shot if you can remember? I’m very tempted to buy a 5mm BST but I’m not totally sure if I need it yet.

Hi everyone 

Right so I’m making an assumption here that a lot of us imaging with phones will have untracked scopes such as dobs. For those of you who fit my assumption, have you ever tried hand tracking or tilting your phone for exposures longer than 10 seconds? I’ve just about managed to tilt for a 10 second one but took a few tries to get it perfect and couldn’t imagine 30 seconds would be possible. Let me know your experiences!

2 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

Here are a few pictures with an iPhone 12. Orion Nebula and sunspots with a 4.5” reflector on a wobbling old EQ1 with cheap motor drive. 30 sec exposure single shot for Orion, single shot for the sunspots.

Jupiter and moon via an 8” Dob. Moon single shot, Jupiter a single frame from a video. The black dot is Ganymede. I don’t have a PC so no stacking for me. Any editing done on the phone. 

Okay wow those are incredible. That jupiter one is what blows my mind seeing as it’s just a single frame. My stacked and processed pics aren’t even close to that 🤣 Can’t wait for it to get higher into the sky. 

Orion nebula looks amazing too. Might have to have a go at hand tracking, though I imagine 30 seconds will be very difficult.

3 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

Interesting. I found the Celestron NeXYZ to be a royal pain in the… over engineered and unnecessarily heavy but then I do have a small telescope. 

The one that worked for me was a no-name brand off eBay. I think I paid about £10 for it. I mainly use BST StarGuiders and do remove the eyecup. Been doing it for about 18 months and there’s no damage. In fact I often remove the eyecups anyway - I sometimes observe with glasses and find that in order to get my eye close in the eyecup just gets in the way.

The mount grips the eyepiece very well, it’s not going anywhere. Might be different with other eyepieces. And to make things easier, once I found the sweet spot, I stuck a screw in the mount (see picture). Now I only have to adjust the “Y” direction. No faffing about with “X” & “Z”. With this mount and BST StarGuiders I’ve never found it necessary to adjust in “Z”. It’s simple, light and with a little practice I can mount it in the dark. 

Oh that’s great to know actually. Whilst it seems to work with the eyecup I imagine it’ll be a lot easier without. 

Oh I see, suppose not then. I looked through a smaller scope I own and it definitely didn’t look like the moon behind clouds, but I suppose it must’ve been. Thanks guys.

Thanks for your comments all. I checked the moon’s position and it really did seem a bit too far off to be what I was looking at, though I hate these sorts of posts when people deny something they aren’t sure of so I can’t say for sure. The moondog idea certainly seems more akin to what I thought I was seeing, so glad to know it’s a phenomenon that exists. Thanks again all!

Have just realised the zoom quality on here isn’t phenomenal, but there are two stars in the picture as well, and it is much larger and actually a bit brighter than these. Slightly perplexed!

Hi guys

Just peeked out the window and saw this rather large and bright, though fainter than stars, blur. The moon was lower on the horizon and further to the right, so was it perhaps a reflecting on the moon on clouds? Is there any way for a star to be distorted this largely through cloud? Tried to get a look through my telescope but it wasn’t much more than a bright whispy blur. Also opened the window to make sure it wasn’t a reflection. Let me know what you think and if you’ve seen anything similar!

P.s. the black box is just to protect neighbours privacy

Update: 

Phone mount has arrived and surpringsly clamps on just fine to the BST eyepieces, even with the eyecup on. Adjustment is a little tedious as it takes a while to unscrew, however I imagine this will be less of a problem from now on as they are set to the right position (might take a minute or two at most in the dark). Overall it feels a tiny bit flimsy and cheap, although it is mostly metal so this is more of a case of it being thin rather than material quality and to be honest with how well it stays in place I don't imagine this feeling reflects performance/longevity. 

Final note is that I have an iPhone 12, so there are 2 cameras. Just from previous experience these only switch between video and photo, and between normal and ultrawide lens. Just using either the photo or video mode doesn't cause any issues multiple camera-wise with the mount.

1 hour ago, MalcolmM said:

Those are great pics and in my experience, phone adapters are a bit of a faff, take a bit of getting used to but will allow you to get even better pics!

Malcolm

Thanks! Suppose I'll just have to get used to it if I want the best quality pics. 

Thought I’d add, I’m new to SGL so if this isn’t the appropriate forum/formatting etc. just let me know and I’ll get it fixed.

Hi all

Pretty new to all this, very recently bought an 8” dob and have from two nights out got some not terrible first images of saturn and jupiter (amongst other things). These have come from just holding the phone up to the EP with videos and sometimes with 10 second exposures which is a real challenge. As a result, I’ve just bought a £15 or so phone adapter (Gosky from amazon). 

My eyepieces are all BST starguiders and I’m wondering given their wide and angled shape if anyone has had experience combining these with a phone mount. I’ve also noticed that you can remove the eyecup which would make it much easier, but I’m not sure if removing and replacing the eyecup overtime will cause it some damage? 

Finally just asking in general how people how found using phone adapters. In your experiences have they been much better than holding or is it just such a faff that it’s not worth it? 

Thanks in advance (and here are the pics because why not!)

24 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I have the StellaLyra 2" 2x one that I linked to and an Explore Scientific 1.25" 2x focal extender. Both excellent.

Yeah ES eyepieces and barlows seem like such a safe bet, really can’t go wrong it seems. 

Those price tags explain why I haven’t seen these kind of barlows before. Certainly a beast of a barlow. 

1 hour ago, Mike Q said:

Eyepeices come and go, but a good Barlow is forever.   I have a 2 inch 4 element Barlow that I positively love.  With the new 20mm 80 degree it has given me some lovely views.  I am waiting to see how it does on Saturn and Jupiter when they come back around   

4 element?! Haven't even heard of that, must be a pretty nice piece of kit. Yeah can't wait for Saturn and Jupiter to be a bit earlier on, staying up all night has been a bit taxing haha

1 hour ago, Don Pensack said:

Your choice of a 2X Barlow was a good one.

With the eyepieces you have (also good ones), you now also have 9mm, 6mm, and 4mm.  The jump from 200-300x might seem large, but here is the thing:

on the nights when a 200x image is clean and sharp and not scintillating, it is likely 300x will be usable too (Moon, double stars, Mars at opposition, Neptune, Uranus).

And on a night where 200x is really pushing the limits imposed by Seeing conditions, even 250x won't be usable.  So the 100x jump a the high end is likely to be fine.

It's the same reason why, in my 12.5", I have smaller steps to 300x, then jump to 400x and 500x.  On the nights when 300x is clean and sharp and still, 400x and 500x are usually usable.

'Your choice of a 2X Barlow was a good one', best words I could've heard. Always nice to have someone directly agree when there's so much personal preference in this hobby. All that makes sense too, can't imagine if I'm able to get to 300x I'd be craving the 250x so badly. Thanks for your help!

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

That's why I've always liked the idea of a x3 Barlow - fewer duplicates. You could have a 25mm, 18mm and 12mm only, with the x3 giving you 8.33mm, 6mm and 4mm. A really nice spread.

Hadn't even considered that it gave me such a good split. Perhaps I'll look into that, definitely when I look to upgrade in the years to come.  Thanks for your comments!

5 hours ago, Pixies said:

The 12mm BST is the best of the range (along with the 8mm). I'd hazard a guess that it would be better than the 25mm barlowed. But that is now for you to investigate.

With the 8" dob, I always found a 12mm EP gave a sweet-spot between magnification and contrast for bright-ish but diffuse targets. M13 (Hercules cluster) and M57 (Ring Nebula) were particular suited to it. An 8mm EP was usually a good option for both Jupiter and Saturn with standard UK seeing conditions.

Yeah that's a great point actually. Seen plenty of people saying avoid overlaps with barlows but for the price I'm paying I might as well have the eyepiece on its own, knowing it's likely better. 

Wow, thanks for all these great responses and in such a short time! I think I've settled on grabbing this BST barlow for £30. There happens to be a 7mm X-cel LX for £50 on ABS, but I'm just going to have to forget about bridging that gap for now so I don't spend £80 instead 🤣. Annoyingly, with a barlow my 12mm becomes redundant apart from the fact I need it for the 6mm, but even if all goes wrong I can sell any of what I've bought for little to no loss. Thanks again for all your help guys!

Hi everyone,

First off, I understand that there are lots of topics out there very similar to this, but for whatever reason getting people replying specifically to my queries makes me feel a lot more comfortable (I’m sure some of you understand)

Anyway, I’m a new 8” dob owner (1200mm fl) and have just got a set of 8, 12, 18, 25mm BST Starguiders. Living in London, I feel as though planetary and lunar will make up a lot of my observing so I think I would like a 6mm for 200x. Would you guys recommend any specific 6mm? Alternatively there is a BST Barlow for a good price. The barlow would also give me 300x for lunar and maybe planetary on exceptional occasions. Might I add, I’m really not looking to spend much; £40 new or used is about my limit (already spent the cost of the scope in EPs, cleaner fluid, collimation tools, chair etc). 

Essentially, is the barlow (with the additional 300x) or a 6mm eyepiece on its own going to be better, and what are the recommendations for either? 
 

Thanks ever so much!

Just seen it too, possibly looking to buy it if it hasn't gone already (unlikely isn't it). Just wondering if I do get it, do you have any experience switching between 2" and 1.25"? Does it get so annoying that you end up not using one or the other? Very new to all this! 

Thanks

Ross