SzabiB

2 hours ago, Ian McCallum said:

Yodel was supposed to deliver the 0.965" to 1.25" adapter yesterday. I was away from just under 24hrs there, so I wasn't in. 

I sent a SMS message to the driver about where to leave it. They never replied and left it in a wheelie bin outside, a few hours later. 

I come back this afternoon and it's not in the place where it supposed to be. I've checked everywhere, so I've raised this with Yodel and the ebay seller. 

Yodel are going to investigate, but I fear it's been stolen. It's not expensive or anything, but just very annoying! 🤬

Yodel once delivered a pair of running shoes in my recycling bin...on bin day... oh well, it was a long process to get the refund 🤦‍♂️

Since I got my new little 127 MAK, my poor DOB was hiding in the corner, sobbing in the past few weeks. 

Now, my MAK's mount is on sick leave, I dragged the DOB out again. 

I had a few mods in my mind already, but now it is time to get the ball rolling. 

My wish list is the following:

- change the original finder for a RACI as my neck is playing funny game lately. This task is done, I managed to get a Skywatcher one from Astro buy and sell. Very happy so far.

- getting an azimuth setting circle fitted. One of our club member built his own mount and the kind of execution of it blown me away. I was well impressed and really liked the idea about the setting circle (and many other things on it). This is in progress, looks like someone is going to print me one on a sticky back vinyl. Still need to figure out something for a pointy bit for the base.

- I was not happy with the Classic 200's teflon bearings. I tried the soap trick with no success. I was so close to get a lazy Susan bearings, but got another tip for spraying it with silicon based spray. So I done it today and it made massive difference, butter smooth. 

- I am in the process to order some self adhesive spirit level and inclometer from Amazon. 

- I want to replace the base legs with some adjustable ones, so I can level out the whole lot easier. I was doing a bit googling today, but looks like everything is massive. If anyone has any suggestion about reasonable sized adjustable legs, please do not hold it back 

I guess this is the most inexpensive improvements I can make at the moment. If you have any idea / suggestion or you want to share your mods, please join in. 

5 minutes ago, Elp said:

When powering a mount the strength and consistency of the 12v supply is critical, its a bit like a car battery and trying to start a car if there is insufficient voltage and amps the starter motor will not start. It is why I suspect I was getting issues when running the azgti on AA batteries, it would stop slewing, WiFi connection to the app would become unresponsive. As soon as I switched to a Celestron LT power tank which advertises the quality of its sustained 12v connection and it's designed to power telescope equipment, all the issues went away. @SzabiB, your mount shows erratic and random issues however which I think are more internals related.

I am thinking forward and if turns out, that both of the power sources were rubbish what I tried (which is hard to believe, but anything is possible)... how do you find the Celestron Powertank? I am not really keen to spend more money at the moment, but if it is a must, it is a must. 

Hi @kevroy

Thank you for your answer.

I am using an Anker PowerHouse II 400

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08PCYF3Y4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The mount was working flawlessly in the first 10-12 occasions than problems started. Few days ago I tried a different power bank and displayed the same issues. Even tried a different mobile phone to control it.

After a few email with Chris from FLO (he is very helpful and patient.. hat off), I am sending it back to further inspection. Fingers cross it will be sorted before Mars opposition (otherwise I will have a lots of nudging on my DOB)

Btw, picture is amazing, fingers cross, one day I will be able to take something similar...  

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

I had something similar and reinstalling the firmware fixed it. Which version are you running?

You've some problems with it. Perhaps it's worth trying to get FLO to send a replacement.

Current firmware is 3.40 on it. 

I am in conversation with Chris from FLO, so we are working on the solution

I started to regret to buy this mount. 

At the beginning everything was fine, than trouble arrived. 

Last night it went absolutely crazy.

- done the alignment and the mount just started to move suddenly and pointing random places (for example South Pole... which one was obviously under me)

- than during other try of aligning , started to spin 360-s on the Alt axis 

- clicking got super loud and when I managed to set it up and tried to track Jupiter, it was very shaky and gave zero good views (the whole mount shakes with every click)

- the last stunt was when I was trying to observe Mars, flipped itself perfectly 180 degrees on the Az axis and pointed in my face (the machines are coming for us....) than cut out

Everything is up to date and it runs from an Anker PowerHouse so deffo no firmware or power issue. 

It was -1 degrees outside, but I guess the mount should handle this kind of temperature with no problem.

Any suggestion? (I purchased it a month ago, so emailed FLO about it this morning)

Yesterday, during the day, we had horrendous weather in Highlands. To be fair, I was ready for a sofa-Netflix night. 

One of the local club member asked me during the day about an evening session at the observatory. I said yes, but was 99% sure it is not going to happen.

How wrong I was. Weather beautifully settled and we were set up and ready to go around 8 o'clock.

Of course I started with the moon (still overly excited about it 🤷‍♂️). I used some very low mag for starter, fiddled around with my new ND filter and taken some pics. 

A bit later I turned to Jupiter direction for the wife's request. Visibility was good with 3 of the Galilean moons are clearly in sight. We went for a red spot hunt. No joy...next time.

My little MAK's final destination was Mars for the night. 

I was pushing the magnification hard and got some good details many times for a few seconds. Also had a good go with different eyepieces from Paul's collection (thank you Paul 👍).

Tried some of the Morpheus, Explore Scientific and Pentax ones (dangerous game). The wide field is just brilliant on them. I also had a go with a Tele Vue 2x Barlow. This was the piece where I understood why this little [removed word] costs 4x more than my BST Barlow. As a beginner, I don't have much experience to form honest opinion,  but the TV Barlow just gave much better view than the BST with the same eyepiece.

At the end of our session Orion nebula started to rise and finally I had some very nice view of it through Paul's Skywatcher 200. He also explained the easiest way to find on the night sky.

Before we put the lens covers on, I had a final look on Betlegeuse.

10 o'clock we were packing up and heading home.

Short but very good session. Not only the good views, but I learned many new and interesting facts again.

Tonight sky from our back door.

Taken with my Samsung S20FE, pro mode, touch up in Adobe Lightroom Mobile

I placed an order 10 days ago for the Barlow + eyepiece, but this time the eyepiece was out of stock already ( showed due in 7-10 days). 

Today the website showed the eyepiece on stock again, but no dispatch notification.

Just wondering, anyone received the order yet which one was "pre-ordered"?

Two deliveries today.

Postlady brought my Baader ND filter, what I got from astro buy and sell.

Filter is tip top, but needed a good cleaning as I could cover a full season of CSI Miami from the finger prints on the glass surface.

Also got a cheap Pentax bino from Amazon. I had a bunch of voucher what I could only use on items what actually Amazon sells. Technically it was free. It will replace our old (now dead ) National Trust pocket bino. 

Not convinced about the quality and how long it is going to last, but if you don't try, you don't know 🤷‍♂️

Another evening in the back garden. 

After Saturday night wild camping (running away from fireworks with the dog), last night I decided to just stick around in our back garden. 

Unfortunately clouds were coming and going very rhapsodically, also the moon had his own personal cloud, didn't manage to see much. 

Played around a fair bit with my MAK + newly obtained 32mm plossl, than spent a cat - mouse game with higher magnification on the moon, trying to beat the clouds. 

When Mars popped out finally, I was delighted, but I just couldn't manage to get any good view....I am not lucky with the Mars at all.  

11 o'clock I was observing my eyelids already in horizontal position. 

Hey Douglas, 

Welcome to the forum. 
I am based in Inverness and going to Cairngorms frequently (for hiking). You are perfectly positioned there for some good observing. 

We have an awesome Astro club in Inverness and they organising sessions frequently at the Culloden observatory. I know, it is an hour drive for you, but maybe you should come around sometime.

Another great evening at the club observatory.

Forecast was promising ( it was a lie...), so we had a mini meet up again on Culloden battlefield. 

Sadly the clouds started to roll in when we turned up (I am pretty sure, these are still the same clouds following us what FLO sent with my new MAK last week).

One of the club member brought me a brand new 32mm Celestron Omni Plossl to try and buy, so I pointed the 127 to the moon direction. 

The viewing was on and off with occasional clear skies. I spent my majority of time on the moon, trying to identify different regions and matching it up with the map. Sometimes I just used my new 32mm, framing the whole moon and taking in the view, while my mind was calm and racing in the same time , thinking about random thoughts. 

I pointed the scope to Mars (rather disappointing view) and Jupiter for a while than moved back on the moon and fixed my phone holder to the eyepiece. Spent the last one hour with taking pictures and playing with different settings and my super cheap/usefull Bluetooth shutter button.

After 9 o'clock sky started to be hopeless, so we packed up.

The great thing about this kind of sessions is the community. While myself is not the most social person most of the time and I like my space and quietness (standing back of our garden, 3 o'clockin the morning), oddly I really enjoy small meet ups. We had good conversation about interesting topics, seen some mind twistingly genius diy solutions and  got some priceless tips. Even the conditions were not the best and I haven't seen ton of stuff, I still came home happy and satisfied.

Great observing session last night.

My local astro club's chat group came alive late afternoon, forecast was promising. While I was still sitting on a conference call, I was texting my wife already about going up to the observatory tonight (great family program, the hound has a good exercise, wife is happy, everyone happy). 

I set up around 18:30 and it was the time for the 127 MAK to shine himself. Clear sky, Jupiter, Moon and Saturn all visible with the naked eye. I planned only planetary so I just done a quick 1 star alignment... on the moon. It worked out for the AZ GTi, any target I picked from these 3, was in the view field of the 25mm eyepiece.

Started with Saturn. Amazing views, even it was low. Finally very good view of the rings. I even seen one of the moon (still trying to figure it out, which one). I was switching between 125X and 185X magnification and worked very well.  After a while of peeping at Saturn and impressing wife multiple time, I moved to Jupiter. 

Good old Jupiter. Clearest picture I ever seen during my short astro carrier. I started to understand, why the MAK called planet killer. I could see the bands clearly for a good few seconds periods. 

Finally I moved to the moon. And here the problems started. It was impossible to fit it in the 25mm eyepieces view filed and was super bright. Luckily one of the club member landed me a 32mm super plossl. 

At the end I gave a go for Mars, but due on the wrong place (top of a settlement) I didn't manage to get much of it.

Around 9 o'clock we started to pack up and had a good chat with two of the other club members. Both of them are in the hobby long time ago and I seriously need to start to take notes of the useful advices. Me and wife also had a go with a few other telescopes, we got some amazing view of Saturn on one of the club member's Celestron refractor, which costs peanuts and supposed to be a guide scope, also tried a wide field Baader Morpheus eyepiece and I was massively impressed.  

Some little addition for the 127 MAK. 3D printed focus wheel as none of my clothes peg fitted 🤷‍♂️

Double session last night.

So after 30 minutes of sweating blood and a close encounter with nervous breakdown due my new AZ GTi misbehaving,  finally I was glued to Jupiter.

While I was enjoying (finally) the tracking ability of the mount, my local Astro group's chat went ballistic about Aurora Borealis. Unfortunately I didn't manage to spot it, due the street lamps are perfectly lined up in the direction.

So anyway, views of Jupiter were fairly clear and I spent 1,5 hours observing it, playing around eyepieces and Barlow combination, trying to take some pics with my phone (massive failure).

I packed up around 11 and went to sleep. Alarm went off 3 o'clock and I was out again in 30 minutes time peeping Mars. The conditions were less favourable than few hours earlier and made the following conclusions:

- I need some filters

- I love my new MAK 127

- I need to throw the supplied red dot finder in the bin

- Scottish humidity is really not good for viewing

I wasn't determined enough to drag out the Dob, so grabbed my bino at the end, had an extra 20 minutes on it and spotted two meteors as well. 5 o'clock I was back to the bed again.

Ok-ish night, I really need to get out to some proper dark skies. 

I am big fun of Petzl products (having many years of running and outdoor background).

Personally I use the Atick Core, but possible is a bit over kill for your needs (450 lumesn - use it for trail running as well). They have less bright versions and the Core rechargeable battery is fantastic. The big plus off it, if you ran out of juice or forgot to charge it, just pop out the Core unit and insert 3 AAA batteries. 

You can start it up with red light straight and stays on it (I mean switch it on/off/on and remains on red light setting without the need of touching normal light mode). 

Ok, we are up and running, it is beautifully hanging on Jupiter in the past 30 minutes. 

So what helped. 

- switch off, disconnect from power (running 13.2V Anker PowerHouse - I can run a fridge from it for 2 days...)

- reinstall firmware

- delete app and reinstall 

- figured out, the cable what I ordered for powering the unit, is not the best one. Need to be wedged out in the powerbank connection, otherwise any slight movement, loose power for a few second

I am controlling it from a Samsung S20 , but going to dig out some old phone for mainly control. 

Thanks for the input for everyone, fingers crossed now it is going to be fine. Now going back to the garden...

Started to get very [removed word] off now. 

ok, so downloaded the correct one, uploaded, all good. 

Now the mount doesn't move at all. All comes alive, when I select North alignment, choose two stars, moves half a centimeter, thats it. Trying to control trough the app, nothing. It is all connected, the app is buzzing, when I am pushing the control buttons, but no movement or noise in the mount... 

4 minutes ago, Elp said:

Rewind a bit here.

It will work in alt az (as per its design intent) with any firmware.

@SzabiB Which firmware is loaded onto the mount right now?

Last night was 3.29 which came with. Now I updated to 3.40 and waiting for darkness, sitting on needles... 

15 minutes ago, Pixies said:

yes - but there are 2 versions of the firmware. The plain old AZ one, where you have the scope on the left side, and the dual AZ/EQ - where you need to have the scope on the right, even in Alt-Az mode.

Your symptoms sound like using the dual-use firmware in Alt-Az mode but with the scope on the wrong side.

OK, so can you point me the direction, which firmware do I need?

This is my scope

2 minutes ago, Pixies said:

The latest version is 3.40. But does it say whether it's the Alt-AZ or the Alt-AZ/EQ version that's installed on your mount? I'm not sure if the loader program can differentiate, though.

On the Synscan pro app, when you connect, do you get options to use Alt-AZ or EQ mode? 

I updated now. It was in Alt-AZ mode as I have the normal mount and no wedge or counter weight. 

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

@SzabiB -  Quick pic of your setup?

Have you updated the firmware at all? Or at least checked the installed version? Is it AZ only or AZ/EQ?

You can use this to check the version (using Windows) "Windows program: Motor Controller Firmware Loader - WiFi, Version 1.80":

http://skywatcher.com/download/software/motor-control-firmware/#:~:text=Windows program%3A Motor Controller Firmware Loader - WiFi%2C Version 1.80

Nope, not yet. I just checked the current one is 3.29 A5. So I guess I  need to download the 3.80?

I received my new 127 MAK on AZ GTi yesterday.

Around 9 o'clock the clouds disappeared, so I moved to the garden.

I was mocking around good half an hour and did not manage to get the mount aligned.

I set up everything how other ones suggested. Telescope facing North, all spirit level in centre, telescope on the correct side of the mount, mount runs from an Anker PowerHouse, location service enabled. 

In the first round  I tried the North alignment. Any star I picked from the list, made the mount crazy and pointed the telescope to the ground. I restarted everything, deleted and reinstalled the app on the phone and moved to the 2 brightest stars alignment. Now finally, it started to point towards to the sky, but it was miles out with everything. 

Jupiter appearing end of my garden I gave up and pointed the scope to Jupiter and clicked on the point and track. This function actually was working pretty well, I needed only fine adjust the position every 7-10 minutes to keep Jupiter in the middle of the eyepiece. 

Any idea, what am I doing wrong? I need to figure it out before my wife comes home, otherwise I can't justify for her about my new purchase (which anyway only was over £100 - not... but luckily Flo doesn't put invoice in the boxes) and I am going to sleep on the sofa for weeks...

Guys, just a warning for everyone ⚠️

Some awful scam is going around at the moment. So my wife asked me to order a few bits and furniture while she is away. I placed the order how she requested and the package turned up today.... I was in shock. Instead a new hall tree and curtains a Skywatcher MAK 127 AZ GTi was in the box. 🤷‍♂️

She will be back on Sunday, so I still have a few days to live 🤣🤣🤣

@FLOwas quick as always, Alex was super helpful and of course the package came again with clouds...now I know why FLO needed a second, bigger warehouse. They are keeping the clouds there before dispatch.