Mr H in Yorkshire

Thought of another possible solution. Use a dremel type tool with a very thin cutting blade to slice into the stub (it will also slice into the mount unfortunately) to produce a straight screw driver slot. It might work.

There are such things as 'easy out' or screw extractors. They are reverse threaded screw-shaped hardened steel bits. You need to pilot drill the broken stub then insert the extractor. Tricky in such small a small bolt stub but possible. I have not used such but have read about then for removing broken thread taps. You could check on engineering forums too, they will have plenty of advice/experience I'm sure.

I hope it's better than an app my wife has for identifying wild flowers, point the phone at say a daisy and it identifies it as a cabbage! Still it was cheaper than £4K

I must agree with those advocating sending the image files to a printing business. I had over the years a few Epson printers, excellent printers but if used infrequently wasted most ink clearing clogged nozzles, cost as much in cleaner as it did in ink, all I use now is an HP (black toner) printer for correspondence and send all pictures to Snapfish. They seem to be iOS and Android only.

But what do all creatures do following eating?

Musk is definitely a 'Bond' super villain.

Not yet finished a project - another binochair but this one trailer based due to weight. As it uses a car seat I bought an electrically heated car seat liner, a lesson from experience. At present the polar quality goose down duvet jacket (it's astonishingly good, the trivial effort of simply putting it on heats it), thick cycling gloves, winter cycling tights under fleece lined trousers all helps, takes an age to dress but well worth it till frost forms on everything.

Better because... There are many factors involved, not least, design, manufacturing and quality control. A dear and much missed friend of mine founded a company that make microbial culturing cabinets, generally acknowledged to be the world's best. When they wanted to enter the US market, they hired a technical consultant who made them change all manner of components, mainly in electrical side. Simply put, the American components were crap compared to the British sourced items but US requirements mandated these components despite their technical inferiority. Just because a country has an attitude doesn't mean it's claims are true.

@tomato Easier than taking the mountain to Mohammed. Edit. Strange, before completing this post the 'system' challenged me to confirm that I was a human. I managed to fool it so the post then finished!

Funnily enough, I too have some models. These were made to guide me through an improbable project. I'm making a motorised binochair; it will be trailer mounted due to overall weight, and the optic will be 6" f/5 binoscope. The pictures below show the rider cage with its seat inside the 'box', the model is sat on the actual car seat. Next the binscope model, and then two pics of the binoscope in an early construction phase. The long cones will hold the objectives, the upright plates will allow optical alignment. This is my way of coping with the dreary cloud ridden skies.

That is cute, and I see your model does have mirrors.

Or go the long route and cast a tiny speculum disk! Maybe for when you make a model of Herschel's scope.

You could simulate a mirror with a piece of cooking foil carefully smoothed out, or get an inspection tooI, I have one, a small mirror on a handle, but the mirror is about 1" so maybe too big? As the model is metal, why not a disk of stainless steel with a good polish. At least you can machine that to fit.

That looks fun, how many hours to make?

I appreciate that as I said about being bulky, but it would be possible to design so that the upper alt box could detach from the azimuth bearing. Like most constructions, it's a matter of whether there were any gains that were worth the effort and perhaps added complexity.

Councils presumably have the decision power on this lighting question, and it seems some change their minds. I travel over towards Leeds fairly often, a while back many lampposts sprouted signs about being switched off after midnight. Those signs have all now gone so I imagine the policy has been reversed.

I am slightly surprised that no-one has made their EQ platform with the altitude axis as an integral part, that is by making the top plate of the platform become the ground plate of the dob style telescope. Although the platform would obviously be more box-like and bulky, the COG would be somewhat lower, giving more stability and thus possibly enabling more 'swing' time.

At present in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire the sky is miraculously clear. It's been so long I'm not sure what to do!

I can safely say I now know more about AP motivation and I salute the effort that gets the results.

I've wandered into this thread at the back end. Have you considered a a large aperture bino on a parallelogram arm?

I am sure that is right, I can still remember my first scope views from when I was about 10. Or to be honest, I recall something of the sights and know I was deeply impressed. A few years back my grown up son and I went to Dallowgill, a wonderful dark site in the Yorkshire dales. We had a 12" Dob and my 100mm binos. He still says it was one of the best days of his life and I can't disagree. We only gave up when everything was sopping wet with dew but that night we had planets, DSO's, extended star fields, meteors and a crescent moon at the end. Not having any images does not detract from that experience for me.

My ignorance. What about a 12" in somewhere nice - your neck of the woods for instance.

I don't buy that argument, the space telescopes are imaging instruments and there's not a lot of air to breathe either! We all marvel at the space telescope's results but there are no eyepieces up there.

Yes, that is a lot of dosh, especially if the data is somehow locked to one user only. I imagined a 'club' where you all chipped in a nominal amount, purchsed and shared the data and then processed by your preferred means. Not posible?

But doing which bit, what is most important?