1 hour ago, saac said:

Hi Niall,

I teach Physics in Scotland so not sure what the system is down south re GCSEs. Here, it is possible to effectively "home teach" for national qualifications but presentation for exams has to be done through a centre (a school for want of a better term).  This effectively means you need the agreement of a school and then the school acts in a proxy situation for admin purposes/ they would also be the examination centre (administer the exam on the day).  You may also want to find out about any requirement for practical tasks or coursework - the examination body for the GCSE course may place particular requirements around how these elements should be conducted, for example assessment and invigilation standards etc. Don't be put off, it is doable, but I think I would talk to staff at your daughter's school first - ask to speak to the Principal Teacher of science first or maybe her guidance teacher.  As for is it worthwhile, well I guess that all depends on what she/you are looking to get out of it.  Further and Higher education course will be looking for standard entrance exams so your usual science subjects (Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Maths at Higher level) is she is ultimately pursuing a STEM pathway. The absence of an astronomy cert would not be of any real concern.  So I guess from that perspective the benefits may be marginal, but if she enjoys it, then it could be fun and perhaps a diversion from her normal school studies. The other thing to consider is whether she has the capacity -  is she already carrying a full certificate timetable?  Astronomy is not offered here (Scotland) by our examining authority, those that have pursued it have done it just as a fun/diversion topic. 

 

ps - just noticed you are in Dumfries and Galloway - is your daughter in school in Scotland, following National 5 courses?

Jim 

School in Carlisle - I work in Dumfries and  Galloway Royal infirmary, cross border fun and games!

My daughter’s 14 and strong in science & maths —> she’s doing triple separate science, maths & further maths GCSE.

Her school don’t teach GCSE Astronomy, she’s wondering if it’s something we could self teach at home? (Hopefully with agreement of the school).

She can already independently use an 8 inch dobsonian and can polar align my HEQ5 mount and set up my refractors. She knows the names of the surface features on moon, can find (and name) the constellations and can find deep sky objects without adult help or GOTO assistance. 
I’m an Emergency Medicine Doctor, did maths and physics decades ago for A-Level but am pretty sure I could assist.

So I suppose it’s a couple of questions - is it doable? is it worth doing? And how much time will it consume?

if anyone is a teacher on here…..your advice would be appreciated!!

Thanks

 Niall

A family member is giving me an older DSLR and lens to trade in for a new Mirrorless camera. I want to get something small and lightweight to take on holiday to Canada, and to start learning how to do nightscapes.

There’s a Canon sale at the moment, but I’m told they are fairly common:

I’m looking at the Canon R50 and Kit lens which will be £750-ish minus whatever I get for trade in.

The other option is the older Canon RP but it’s £1000-ish. 
I could go for Used from a reputable shop for a bit less (but see below) 

I note that Used body only entry level mirrorless aren’t that much cheaper than a new entry level mirrorless with kit lens in a sale….

TL:DR what lightweight entry level mirrorless would you all recommend for nightscape and landscape photography? And are there better options in the Nikon/Sony ranges?

Thanks NC

1 minute ago, dweller25 said:

The f/4.8 is not tricky to collimate, although the f/6.3 would have more latitude.

The f/6.3 is more suited to planetary as it has a smaller secondary obstruction, but it’s a long telescope.

Both are good 👍

Thanks,

I’m looking to replace a budget 8 inch Dob with something still easily manageable and with better optics and a better focuser. The VX10 at 1200mm would be my preferred option I think?

I’m plotting ahead for My next telescope purchase….

OOUK do two versions of the VX10 a shorter 1200 f/4.8 and a longer 1600 f/6.3….

Is collimating the f/4.8 tricky? I can’t see any reasons not to go for it over the VX10L unless it’s a pain to collimate?

(size and weight I suppose).

Thanks

Niall

Also, if anyone has this scope or can point to a review on it for me it would be much appreciated.

Aperture is everything….very interesting write up.

Up until I bought an 8 inch dobsonian recently I was a refractor only person. When I first used the Dobsonian I couldn’t believe how silly I had been. I still think a lightweight 4 inch Apo like the Takahashi FC-100DC is an unbeatable grab and go scope. And my little 3 inch apo is my binocular substitute (lazy eye, so binoculars are useless to me)…..however neither match what I can see with the dobsonian.

You mentioned considering adding a 12 inch Dobsonian to your collection? I’d been debating adding an Orion Optics U.K. 10 inch with upgraded mirror cell…..simply because of size, weight and storage. Have you experience of lifting a 12 inch and ever compared it to a 10 inch? 
—> And to anyone else have any of you used a “standard” 12 vs a “premium mirror” 10?

1 hour ago, saac said:

I'm not 100% sure but I think that the mirrorless Canon cameras use a different lens mount (EOS EF-M) compared to the  DSLR EOS range.  If you go with a Samyang 14 mm lens (which is a very good lens) then yes you will need to have an appropriate adapter for the EF/EF-S system lens mount.  Best thing is to speak to the camera dealer and they will advise. 

Jim  

Thanks….maybe easier to use something like this: (didn’t mean to get blue font!!) —> it shouldn’t need an adaptor and it’s cheap

Canon EF-M 22mm F/2 STM Pancake Lens

Hi,

I’ve been looking for a budget camera for my daughter and I to use for nightscapes and landscapes without breaking the bank. I’m looking at the following:

1) Canon EOS M3 - 2nd hand  = £220 ish

2) Samyang 14mm f/2.8 Canon EF = £250 ish from reputable online resellers second hand or £160 from eBay
 

Are these options reasonable and do I need an adaptor to fit that lens?

We will take on holiday to rural Canada this Summer, so a lightweight budget tripod recommendation would be appreciated!

Thanks

Niall

Is there a clear favourite between the 

Star Adventurer GTI and Ioptron skyguider pro? For entry level astrophotography with a mirrorless camera?

And do I need the extra cost of ipolar if I’m familiar with polar aligning an HEQ5 Pro? 
 

Finally are either compatible/controllable with either an iPad or iPhone —> or do I need to take a laptop outside with them?

Thanks

Niall

Apologies if I can find all this with the search function!!

My 13 year old daughter interests are Art & IT & visual astronomy and academically physics and maths.

- are there any photography courses for land and nightsky scapes & basics of DSLR that any of you could recommend? We live in Dumfries and Galloway

- is there a guide for a stepwise approach to astrophotography focusing on land and nightsky moving on to deepsky (rather than planets)

- likewise on equipment, I can teach her how to use an EQ mount and polar align etc. I’m guessing something like a star adventurer mount and 2nd hand Canon DSLR to start with? Then add in a Redcat 51 etc…

It would be nice to have an upgrade path that started simple but had kit that could be added to rather than immediately replaced.

p.s if this is all in a sticky thread somewhere please just link that and apologies again!!

Niall

Sadly can’t use binoculars, lazy eye after a childhood squint operation. I do have a WO Megrez 72mm scope which is kind of like a big monocular….. and WO FLT98mm than I want to sell because I rarely use it. It sounds like I should be using the 72mm scope on andromeda?

16 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

The Andromeda Galaxy is a large object, as the telescope is increased in aperture it no longer fits into the field of view.  Using my 30" Dob it looks more impressive in the 80mm finder as there is a fair bit of dark sky surrounding the galaxy.      🙂 

The Orion optics UK 10 inch dob can just about manage I think?

I’m really enjoying my 8 inch Dobsonian, in Bortle 3 skies in SW Scotland it shows a lot on a moonless, cloudless night.

I have a question about larger Dobsonians…using Andromeda as an example, on a clear night I see a brighter core and a smudge outside that with no real detail.

What would it look like through a 10 inch and 12 inch Dobsonian?? And has anyone done live view pictures in the same seeing conditions that they could link me to?

Also does a premium 10 inch Dobsonian with 1/10pv mirror (alledgedly reflects significantly more light??) get close to a more standard 12 inch dobsonian….

many thanks,

Niall

Are there any decent quality lightweight apo refractors in the 5 inch range or are they all beginning to get too heavy for Grab and Go??

At 4 inches there’s the Tak FC-100DC that’s as light as most 3 inch apos….

Are there equivalents to this moving up an inch?

thanks,

Niall

7 hours ago, John said:

In the 1.25 inch format I skip straight from 24mm (Panoptic) to 14mm (Delos) so 17mm (I had the 17.3 Delos for a while) gathered more dust than photons, sadly.

Similarly with my 2 inch eyepieces, I find the step from 21mm (Ethos) to 13mm (Ethos) worked well for me so I ended up parting with the 17mm Ethos and later with the 17mm ES 92 as well.

Nothing wrong with those ~17mm eyepieces of course, they were excellent. They just didn't fit into my observing approach or scope range.

I don't tend to hang on to stuff that is not getting used.

 

Same issue…..my 17.3 Delos isn’t used that much.

I use The Panoptic 24, Delos 10 and 6 on average night &  10 and 4.5 on a good night.

I’ve also got a Nagler 13mm that I use when I go on holiday with my 72mm small refractor. Delos aren’t good for a travel bag!! I’ll probably add 5mm Nagler to my travel setup at some stage. 
 

On the cheap eyepiece front - the starguiders have got my daughter out with the Dobsonian without fear of damaging the eyepieces above and are performing well.

Non-astrophotographer wanting to dip my feet in the water…

My daughter wants to take some pictures of the planets and try stacking with our dobsonian.

I’ve also got a 72mm apo and HEQ5 Pro mount, which I may want to dabble with at some stage.

—> Is the cheap-ish  ZWO ASI224MC camera a good choice or do I want something slightly more expensive for future proofing?

—> do I just connect the camera to an old laptop for a live view and  is there a way to Bluetooth/wifi to a device?

if there’s a guide to this sort of stuff already on the forum, please just point me that direction and I’ll stop with the silly questions.

thanks

Niall

6 minutes ago, Elp said:

Sorry to hear of your loss.

You'd have to test the camera. Most are poor at recording low light video, you may have a shutter setting in video mode to lower the frame rate (or increase the shutter duration) which will help. If you can also adjust the iso level to a higher level that will help but the higher you go the more noise you get, it's simply an amplification factor and doesn't actually acquire more light.

The other option is to use imaging mode, set at manual or bulb mode or, if it has a built in intervalometer or you can use an external one, set it to keep taking images for a set duration per image, say 3-4s per image or longer, aperture on the lens wide open, short zoom, iso around 800 maybe a bit more, the long open shutter duration will allow you to capture the streaking fireworks as lines of colour per image. If the lenses can be set in manual mode, test the focus first manually then leave it, if it's running in autofocus it'll keep searching for target focus and you'll find the images will more likely be out of focus. The camera will have to be mounted onto a tripod, any movement and light sources will zigzagg in the image.

Thanks, I’ll test it on Thursday/Friday! 🤞

This Saturday my family are having a memorial event for my dad who recently passed. He asked for his ashes to be made into fireworks (there are companies that do this).

Im not a photographer….how do we best record it without it being grainy or some random wobbly iPhone? He has lots of expensive DSLR and zoom lenses, carbon fibre tripods etc (he liked to image wildlife especially Antarctic and Arctic sea wildlife).

Can anyone guide me on how to use his kit and at what settings??

Apologies, I know this isn’t an astrophotography question!!!

Niall

Scope = 8inch Celestron Starsense Dobsonian 

Eyepieces: TV 24mm Panoptic, TV Delos 10mm, TV Delos 4.5

Also….. My daughter tried out her newly acquired BST starguiders 25mm & 8mm. I have to say they were much better than i imagined for the price. 

Tuesday night = Jupiter with the 4.5mm Delos, an eerie night where the cloud bands actually had detail and looked like clouds rather than just bands of differing colour. Uranus also resolved into a beautiful blue disk with none of the usual shimmer/distortion.

Wednesday night (tonight) = Jupiter slightly less good , but the Orion Nebula almost looked like a picture taken by an astrophotographer…..I don’t quite understand why the detail and view of this was so good compared to the planets 🤷‍♂️ 

A great couple of nights (looked at lots of other targets, I let my daughter go through the tonight’s targets list on the starsense app).

On 15/01/2024 at 20:01, Second Time Around said:

The OOUK Dob bases are absolutely superb.  They're all aluminium and so don't rot.  More importantly they're lighter and, even more importantly, have a very much smaller footprint than any mass market Dob.

I have 2 OOUK Dobs, an 8 inch and a 10 inch.  Despite having an hereditary muscle condition, on my good days I can manage either size - the 10 inch takes 2 trips whereas with the 8 inch I can carry the OTA in one hand and the base in the other. 

An able-bodied person would have no problem carrying a 10 inch OOUK in 2 hands because, as has been mentioned, the altitude rings make a great carrying handle.  The Bresser has similar altitude rings although the OTA is somewhat heavier.  However, the Bresser mount is not only heavier but most of all has a much bigger footprint, the latter making it much more difficult to carry than the OOUK.

The 10 inch OOUK Dob base is just about the same width as my hips, and that means it stays still when I carry it.  This makes it very much easier to carry, especially after fitting kitchen door handles to each side.

I tried a 12 inch at a fair last year, and for me that was a step too far.  Talking of steps, I have to carry my scopes up 2 steps so an ordinary sack barrow wouldn't work.

OOUK will make any size Dob base to order and so they can be fitted to other makes of OTAs.  They're not cheap though.  But this may be something well worth considering.

Both my OOUK Dobs were bought used and any problems, if there had been any, had already been sorted out by the previous owners.  Although they're expensive new they depreciate a lot and so make very good used buys.

Sorry, for the delayed response to your informative post!

Are the mirrors better than the entry level Celestron/skywatcher dobs? And do Orion Optics have any rivals that  FLO might sell? I guess my ideal would be a 12 inch Dob that I can manage to lift in two parts by myself (46 and reasonably fit), with dual speed focuser and higher quality mirrors.

I’ve got my eyepieces in a larger metal boxes with foam cutouts. However, I’m looking for something that takes 2 to 3 eyepieces only - ideally small and portable, don’t care if it’s a box or padded pouch/bag.

Any recommendations? p.s. standard size 1.25 eyepieces — no Delos/Ethos etc 😂 

Niall

Just to update:

I’ve managed to buy second hand BST starguider 25mm and 8mm eyepieces for my daughter from forum members over the last few days.  From the images attached I think this should cover the majority of targets for now (maybe not Jupiter and Saturn).

Thanks again!!

Thank you all!

I’ve hopefully secured a 25 BST Starguider from another member here (sale pending) which I’m sure my daughter will be delighted with. I’ll keep an eye out for a higher magnification starguider eyepiece 10,8,5.  Probably an 8mm would pair nicely x48 (25mm) x150 (8mm).

(8 inch Dob 1200m focal length).

I decided to hold my iPhone to a 6mm eyepiece in a 8 inch dobsonian and got an amazing picture of the moon….

What’s the easiest way to take quick images planets/moon and very brief DSky with a non-imaging telescope like a Dobsonian?

I don’t want anything too complex to start with, is there a decent phone bracket or better still can I  take short sequences through a webcam?  If so which webcam and can they upload to a nearby iPad/iphone/laptop via wifi/bluetooth?

If I’m a rookie at observing……I’m an absolute rookie when it comes to imaging 😂

My 13year old daughter sent me a bunch of photos of the night sky tonight (I was oncall at work) but wouldn’t take our “shared” Dobsonian Xmas present out because…..she won’t touch my TVue eyepieces despite reassurance!

We’ve mainly been using my Panoptic 24mm and Delos 10 and 6 with it. 
 

Can anyone suggest two cheap but decent-ish eyepieces I can get for her?  It seems a shame to not encourage her interest here!!