John_D

The Arstechnica website now has a section called The Daily Telescope. It's essentially a daily photograph with a space related theme which may be of interest to this forum's readers. I think that they also take reader submissions. ( I particularly like the moon over Sicily one - 24/10/23 )

They both look great to me. If I had to choose I'd probably pick the one on the right but, as you mentioned, the GRS is more prominent in that one. Just looking at the cloud bands towards the top I can't see much difference at all. Is the processing of the raw data automated or is there room there for image variations? ( Also I'm glad you've thawed out after the previous post 😁 )

Excellent report and images thank you @geoflewis. You've given me some motivation to get myself outside even if the conditions are marginal. ( Unlike the astronomy experiences of my youth, I'm now dressed like a polar explorer if I'm out observing between November and February. Must be an age thing 😁 )

Just to follow up on this. I've checked the Libby app for my local library and it has the BBC "Sky at Night" and "Astronomy" magazines. Strangely it also has "Australian Sky & Telescope" which I suspect may be of limited use in the northern hemisphere 😁 Anyway there's plenty of reading there until the weather perks up a bit.

You could try your local library online magazines. They may have electronic copies that you can browse ( and print pages ). In Wales you get access via the Libby app but I think that they only have "Astronomy" magazine. However your area may be different.

VLC is a popular open source option that I've used in the past. It's not always the most user friendly but there are plenty of resources online.

Thanks, app installed. I've got a reasonable view to the north away from the bright lights of Llanelli so I'll give it a go. Have you ever ventured up to the Brecon Beacons when you get an alert? The Brynamman to Llangadog road ( A 4069? ) should have some good views northwards.

That's great. Do you use any particular software to predict or give advance warning of these events?

+1 for the Titan drill. I've yet to find anything that stops it and the chisel bits are excellent for removing tiles.

My TAL 2M that I bought off Ebay recently cost £90 which I thought was cheap. The plywood cases would probably cost more that that if you bought them new. ( Yes it cost me £40 in fuel to go and get it but using man-maths I'm rounding that down to "about £100 all in" )

I've used this sort of thing quite successfully as well - https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-blue-tip-2-flange-thread-cutting-screwbolts-10mm-x-120mm-25-pack/323ht If you do use them then make sure you vacuum the dust out the hole after drilling otherwise the bolts might not go all the way in ( don't ask how I know that! ). I used a socket set to drive them in rather than an impact wrench.

That's very useful thanks. In my experience of photography ( astro or otherwise ) more detail and clarity usually mean more $$$$ I think the animation really adds something, it makes it more "real" somehow.

Well the weather gods and my sleeping pattern finally got it together this morning and I had about an hour's worth of clear sky around 3.00 a.m. I had an excellent view of Jupiter and its 4 Galilean moons which is great as I hadn't had a chance to try the TAL out until now. The two small issues that I had above: The original focuser and the TAL eyepieces seem to work fine and focusing is OK, even the 4x Barlow ( although the image does get a bit soft with the latter ). I "fixed" the finderscope by adding some washers under the fixing screws on the dovetail to give a bigger area to secure it and by shimming with some bits of cardboard from a Weetabix packet ( other breakfast cereals are available ). That seems to work for now at least. Next time I'll get the camera attached ...

That looks great. Could you give some more information about how many frames in the animation and much video you took for each one? Thanks.

That looks great to me, it seems to have merged seamlessly. Did you need to be careful with the initial processing of the 4 images to get the merge to work? ( I thought Hugin would work with TIFFs but then again I've only ever used JPGs )

I've had some success with daytime landscape panoramas using Hugin ( FOSS ) on Linux but I don't know how well it would work here. There is a Mac version but you would have to convert your files to TIFF.

Thank you very much. It's too late for the rabbit holes I'm afraid. I've already met the entire cast of Watership Down 😁

I'm just starting with astrophotography and this is my first attempt at lunar imaging that I'm happy for people to look at. ( This was actually about my sixth attempt in all and was taken at the end of May. ) Because I'm a cheapskate I decided to start with whatever equipment I already had rather than buy anything new so I used my old Bresser 70mm refractor. This is on an equally old Orion EQ-1 equatorial mount that I've motorised using a stepper motor and an Arduino controller. I initially tried to take a video but my Nikon D3100 was over exposing the moon and I couldn't work out how to adjust the exposure ( I don't use video much on that camera! ). In the end I used an intervalometer to take about 200 stills. I use Linux so the processing was: RawTherapee - RAW image processing to fine tune the exposure and colour balance and crop the image PIPP ( under WINE ) Autostakkert3 ( under WINE ) GIMP - final fine tuning I could have probably done more tweaking of the image but I'm the world's laziest photo editor so this had to do. ( I was happy with this result so I've splurged £100 on a second hand TAL-2M scope which should give some more detailed lunar views and maybe some planetary images as well. )

Thanks for the information. I'm not much of a social media person but I'd like to come along to some events. I spent a few hours yesterday assembling the scope. It was surprisingly straightforward and the clock drive also seems to work OK with the ticking noise just adding to the overall "missile launcher" ambience! Two small issues that I had were: I put the original focuser back but the mechanism is a little sloppier that I'd like. More pondering is needed. Fitting the finderscope was tricky. There are some dovetails near the focuser as can be seen in the picture but there seems to be no way of securing it properly. There are two grub screws on the dovetail which don't seem to do anything. More investigation is needed. I also found a small plate in the box which gave a serial number and the date of manufacture as 1996 so the estimates weren't far off. The skies are meant to be clear tonight so hopefully I can give it a proper test.

Thank you all for your responses. It makes sense that the blue ones are earlier. The label inside the box is marked as a "TAL" but with the 'L' in Cyrillic - "TAЛ" ( That may not display correctly! ). I've had a quick measurement with the vernier calipers this morning and yes, the TAL eyepieces do seem to be slightly oversized. The 'normal' 1.25" eyepieces that I have for my 70mm refractor are just a touch under 1.25" whereas the TAL ones are a touch over. The TAL ones won't fit in my refractor focuser and my existing ones are a bit of loose fit in the TAL focuser. Interestingly, on further inspection, none of the supplied TAL eyepieces or the 4x Barlow lens will fit into the replacement focuser that's currently on the scope so it looks as if the first job is to replace the original focuser and take it from there! I was concerned that my camera adapter would be too loose a fit but fortunately part of the standard TAL focuser unscrews to reveal an M42 thread which fits my Nikon M42 adapter very nicely. After I posted I did a bit more digging and I found this post from 2010 - https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/57026-the-tal-2-m-newtownian-reflector/ - which was also very informative especially regarding the motor drive. doublevodka - I'm sure that you know that these come in two very substantial plywood boxes. These are currently lurking in our utility room and SWMBO has already asked the dreaded question - "... and where exactly are you going to keep that?" 😁

I've recently bought a TAL 2M telescope off eBay. It's 1200mm / 48" long and looks as if it hasn't been used much recently. My plan over the next few weeks is to assemble what I've got and see if there's anything missing or needs fixing. Some of the controls seem a bit stiff but hopefully that's just a bit of re-greasing that's required. I'm not sure of the date of manufacture as there's precious little paperwork but the labels inside the box have the text "12.93" on them which could be a date I suppose. I imagine there's a serial number somewhere but I haven't really looked. I've already found lots of good stuff on these forums ( thanks! ) and have downloaded the manuals but I have a few questions and I'd be grateful if anybody could point me in the right direction. Using 12v AC 50Hz for the motor is slightly unusual. I assume that the "electric clock drive" referred to in the manual locks to the 50Hz to give the right rotation speed? The power supply that I have is marked "Douglas Louth Eng". The service manual that I downloaded mentions a "Control Panel" with speed selection buttons. That's not mentioned in the list of items in either box, was it an option or a later addition? The service manual states "If the control panel is provided the car's mains or storage battery 12 V can be used through the car's cable." which implies that it was an option. The standard focuser seems to have been replaced with a "Sky's the Limit" unit. The original focuser came with it, is worth putting the original back on? In most of the pictures of these telescopes that I've seen the OTA and stand are white but mine is a rather fetching blue. It doesn't look to have been painted and I'm not bothered really but it would be interesting to know the history. Thanks John