Tomjo59

Maybe an equatorial tracking platform? I have one made by WatchHouse (not sure if they exist anymore), which I used with a Dobsonian mounted Newt. Or maybe make your own:

Like many on here, I have fond memories of S@N with SPM; I’m even old enough to remember a few of the black and white ones. I do wonder how much of the regard for it is pure nostalgia though. Surely S@N is suffering from the same problem as many scheduled broadcast programs these days - we now have so many other channels open to us to get our astronomy ‘fix’. Look how many enthusiasts have their own channels on YouTube now, in addition to actual documentaries. It could be argued that traditional sheduled programming is a dying medium these days, and I won’t get into the debate over the TV licence fee!!

A random musing for a Sunday evening. The lenses in my spectacles are plastic. They correct my short-sightedness and astigmatism perfectly. Has anybody or any company tried creating lenses for serious astronomical use using plastic, the equivalent of apochromatics, for instance? Obviously, I’m not talking about the lenses in cheapo refractors from department stores. I assume there are good technical reasons why this has not already been done, rather than using exotic and expensive glass; I would just be interested to know the reasons.

Only visual for me so far, but last night, on Perseid watch, had a good, long look at Jupiter, through the 8" Newt and the detail visible was excellent - really wished I could have done some imaging then!

Looks like SpaceX might have got the message: https://astronomynow.com/2020/05/05/spacex-to-debut-satellite-dimming-sunshade-on-next-starlink-launch/ Not much they can do about those already launched, of course...

Very pretty indeed.

Looks just like my dewshield (also on an 8” Dob). Made from an old foam rubber excercise mat. it definitely helps keep extraneous light out, and my secondary doesn’t dew up any more

Brilliant picture; did you take that through the Dob? (Only joking!)

Brilliant image, great resolution. Congratulations!

Nice clear images Stephen. Sky and Telescope magazine have two very good free apps you can download, one for Jupiter and one for Saturn, showing the positions of the moons.

It would be a pity indeed if visual observing declined, but as other posters have pointed out, it may be due to circumstances, particularly light pollution. I used to occasionally attend a get together of amateurs for a night’s observing here in the New Forest. At first, it used to be almost all visual, with people chatting, and wandering around looking through each other’s scopes; it was very ‘social’. As time went on though, more and more would bring along imaging kit, and most of them would spend the evening hunched over laptops, and not engaging very much with ‘non-imagers’. a pity, I thought.

Located Neptune without too much trouble over the last three nights, though the seeing here in South Wiltshire was poor last night compared to the previous two; weather is definitely on the change. A question I would like to ask though, is has anybody on here managed to glimpse Triton on anything smaller than a 10” reflector, or equivalent? There seems to be a view that a 10” is the minimum required to achieve this, so am I wasting my time trying with an 8” Newt?

Bet this produced a meteorite. Probably at the bottom of the English Channel now though!

Starting to (re)appreciate just how pleasurable to use a good pair of binoculars are. So hoping to buy a pair of Helios LightQuest-HR 80mm Binoculars soon, with a pistol-grip tripod head. This following the advice given on Steve Tonkin’s excellent Binocular Sky website.

Lovely looking ‘scope. Hope you enjoy using it! That ‘wheelbarrow’ arrangement for moving it around is a nifty idea.