JimB1

Got my solar eclipse glasses in the mail. Looks like we are going to get a very slight view of the annular eclipse from where I am this year but next year I have plans to go to Niagara Falls on the Canada side to get to see the full solar eclipse. Going to bring my travel scope and a herschel wedge with me but also my Lunt sunoculars and needed a few solar glasses for other people to use while we take turns with the scope and sunoculars

Fortunately I don’t have that particular issue lol. I’m on a street that ends in an apartment complex so unless someone is ordering furniture or it’s garbage day, few big trucks on my street… -Jim

So I went to NEAF this year, excellent speaker line up this year btw, and while I didn’t spend much at the show, I did get on the waiting list for a new Losmandy mount. I am thinking about the gm811g but as a guy who is over 50 who has had knee surgery already, I am kind of waffling on the light weight vs heavy duty tripod. The heavy duty tripod is 35lbs (15.8kg) vs the light weight which is 15lbs (6.8kg) which is significant since I need to carry it to setup whenever I want to use it. I got to see the HD mount at NEAF but not the LW one. The HD was massive with 3 inch (7.6cm) legs and looked stable as a mountain. I can lift it and carry it but just not sure I want to. If I were to go with the HD mount, that puts the price within a few hundred dollars of the G11g but the cost is pretty high at that point. I can do it but it’ll definitely hurt the wallet lol! It’s one of those “buy once, cry once” type of purchases. I’m using a Meade LX85 right now and that is pretty portable and stable but the star alignment and ascom drivers are wonky in use and the inconsistency is frustrating. I’m mainly visual currently but starting planetary and lunar astrophotography and am thinking about DSO astrophotography but the mount is the basis to everything where AP is concerned as I understand it. My beginner planetary AP setup is currently a Meade SN6 with moonlite focuser and motor, ZWO mini filter wheel setup with Astronomik LRGB filters and a Meade LPI-g advanced monochrome camera. The whole setup is under 20lbs (9kg) I know a lot of folks here are doing AP and have a wide range of equipment, any one with Losmandy using the LW tripod of AP that can let me know what you think of it? Or any other opinions would be appreciated. I probably have a month or two on the waiting list so I have some time to decide. Thanks -Jim

Hmmm, I have an eye exam coming up Seriously though, my size limit is more based on my muscles than my eyes since I have to setup every time I want to do an observing session. I decided a while ago that an 8” cat or Newt is going to be my limit based on what I am willing to carry and the capacity of a reasonably portable mount since anything bigger will require more time at the gym lol. I have messed around with the thought of a 10” Dobsonian though. Since my largest scope currently is 6” that leaves some growth options 😎 -Jim

I am always amazed at the difference a good collimation can make. Nice work -Jim

So around here it is definitely winter now with temps at night consistently near freezing or below. The flip side is that cold weather often brings clear skies. I have been using thermals under my clothes and layering up but bulk gets in the way a lot as do heavier gloves. I started using a product called “hot hands” which has wrist straps that you put those little bags that heat up when exposed to air. The theory is that the heat at your wrists warms the blood going into your hands so your hands stay warmer. It does work up to a point but the colder the air, the less effective it is. I’ve been thinking about electric socks and gloves… I’m sure a lot of you are in similar scenario, How do you stay comfortable for long viewing sessions in colder temps? -Jim

Last night was just beyond frustrating. Got setup while it was daylight everything looked good… right up until the sun went down. Off the bat my neighbor who had Diwali lights still up, but hadn’t used the ones in the backyard since Diwali ended a week ago, decided last night was the right time to turn them on all night. Not a big deal because the moon was super bright and I was aiming for Jupiter tonight which was also super bright so a little more ground light would probably be ok… just annoying. Ran into my usual issue in that I can’t see Polaris well, that section of sky and most to the north/north east are washed out by NYC andNewark Airport. Usually I can get reasonably close by compass… usually…. I think I was actually pretty close but when I did a star align the LX85 got nowhere near Vega, which I could clearly see. When through the autostar settings, reset the mount and tried again, same thing, way off. Shut everything down, verified everything on the mount was level and polar aligned as I could and tried again. It got closer, ast least Vega was just outside the view in the Finder so I centered it and went to the next star, Koceb which is in the Big Dipper but puts it in the washed out area but I could just make it out. Again, it slewed to an area not near Koceb but I decided to just manually get it there with the hand box so I could move on with life. So put in my target for the night of Jupiter, again it got in the general vicinity but was outside the area of the finder scope so I have to slew around a bit to get it in sight. Ok, finally there right? Views looked good. Jupiter was clear, a good view of the moons, this is going to work nice… famous last words. Swapped the eyepiece for the camera and… nothing. No views through the eyepiece. Fire capture threw an error about the moonlite focuser and crashed. It not only crashed fire capture but froze up the laptop. Reboot time… laptop came back up, opened fire capture again. Same thing moonlite driver issue, crash, reboot. Did this one more time and gave up on fire capture. It did none of this indoors earlier. Now the temps were starting to drop and the wind is picking up. I decide to fall back to skycapture and the manual moonlite focuser control. Opened skycapture connected the camera, no errors, but also no image. When though reconnect a few times It said it was connected but no image. Was outside for a couple of hours now, last ditch effort, pint at the moon, super bright and huge last night. Go to put me nowhere near it…. Again, but easy to find in the sky. Got a big white blur on the camera, ok so something is working, can’t get it in focus though. Arrggghh neighbors 10000 watt halogen backyard light turns on. Between that, the moon, the Diwali lights, my yard is like full daylight. Nope, I’m done. Broke everything down and put it all away for the night. Then to top it off, when I went to close the tripod, last piece to put way, one off the little rubber feet came off, no big deal, they come off all the time, usually they just pop back on.. usually. Nope, the spike that it fits onto is inside the foot. It had broken off. I don’t see a bolt or anything. I have no idea how the spike attaches to the tripod so I couldn’t put it back on. Then I got up this morning to catch the end of the lunar eclipse, it’s low and behind trees in my neighborhood so that was a washout too. Like the Albert King song “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all” -Jim

Very nice! I’ve been messing around with the idea of getting one of those or a Lunt 50mm for a while. Looking forward to hearing how you like it after you’ve had a chance to use it a bit. Congrats -Jim

Televue 32mm plossl. This is my go to when starting a session and usually I spend the most time just enjoying the views though it. -Jim

This may not be exactly what you want to hear but my suggestion is a decent pair of wide field low power binoculars and either The Backyard Astronomer's Guide or Turn Left at Orion (or both). You’ll be amazed at what you can see with just binoculars and he can learn all about the night sky without a huge outlay of cash. Just my opinion… -Jim

Just updated my original. 30w theoretically would be able to run for 20 hours or so if nothing else was being run on it.

I am using a Ecoflow River max to run my equipment currently. It takes about 3 hours or so to charge from 25% to 95% with a couple of generic portable folding 125w solar panels or you can charge it from 12v dc in a car or 110v in the US, not sure if they ship with an adapter for your local power requirements. It is 600w output with 600wh of power so you’d need to calculate the wattage of your heater to determine how long you can run it. Heaters are generally very power intensive. The lowest power I have seen is 200w so theoretically I could run a 200w heater for 3 hours if I wasn’t running anything else. A 30w could theoretically run for 20 hours… The delta is lighter than a car battery and is self contained with a carrying handle soot is convient. Not sure this helps you but it’s a nice power option… -Jim

I recently purchased 2 Meade LPI-G cameras, one advanced and one regular, for planetary imaging and auto guiding respectively. I was having some issues getting the ascom drivers to work correctly so I decided to just ask Meade directly. Long story short, they responded promptly and got me the information I needed very quickly so I am up and running. Like a lot of people I am concerned about the Orion takeover of Meade and what that means for the brand but if this interaction is any indication, I think they are moving in the right direction. Usually people only gripe about issues they have had with a vendor so I wanted to give credit when it is due and let everyone know that my most recent experience with Meade support was very positive. Jim

Got it. Per Meade support: You need to download the latest SkyCapture software from the Meade site. In the zip folder to download, they’ll be updated ASCOM drivers the you should install if you're encountering issues with ASCOM. https://www.meade.com/content/product-resources/ In case anyone else needs them Thanks -Jim

Can you let me know where you found this? I tried the driver that comes on the disk and when I try to connect with the Ascom Meade Generic firecapture the ascom driver properties don't show any cameras so I can't use the camera there. It works fine with the meade skycapture software so I know the camera and wire work... Thanks -Jim

Orion/Meade is clearing out the Meade imaging cameras so I ordered an LPI-G advanced monochrome for planetary (and to try out some short duration deep sky as a test) and a regular LPI-G as an autoguider. The LPI-G advanced arrived today… -Jim

Hello from Central NJ, probably one of the worst light pollution areas in the country LOL I consider myself a long term beginner at astronomy, I have been involved off and on for about 30 years but never seriously and just enjoy looking at the night sky. I spend a decent amount of time just naked eye looking or with wide field binoculars though I have a couple of telescopes and do use them when time and circumstance permit. I bought my first scope when I was around 20, a Meade 395 90mm f/11 with EQ mount. I still have it, it’s still a nice visual scope and gets regular use. I have modified it quite a bit with a new focuser, Finder, vixen mount, etc. I have gotten excellent moon and planetary views with it and it’s a great all around visual scope to me. A couple of years back, I found a Meade Schmidt-Newtonian 6” for sale locally for a good price and picked that up planning to do some entry level Astrophotography. I am still in the planning stages but I have been using it visually and it needed collimation and a new focuser ( I went with moonlite) but now it is all sorted out and at last NEAF before the pandemic ( the first time I ever went) I bought a Meade LX85 at a good price as well so I have a lot of the tools to move forward with that project. I’m sure all this makes me kook like a Meade fanboy but I am really not, my purchases just happened to work out that way lol… Anyway, happy to be here any I look forward to learning from everyone as we go though this journey. Thanks -Jim