Mr_Cat

Thanks for the heads up - ordered

Realised that I'm not going to get Pons-Brook or even Jupiter for a while as they both drop behind my roof line just after sunset so I figure I'll be driving to a dark sky site. As such a practice pack / unload seemed like a good idea and as the rdf and the guide cam needed aligning I decided to head out to somewhere with a decent viewing distance - and there is a very handily placed lighthouse 9 miles away to line up on. Anyone who knows the Isle Of Man and the TT this is at Mountain Box

Thursday is now renamed ToyDay

On some levels last night was disappointing and frustrating but at the same time I did quite a bit of work on my process so I'm claiming it as a win. Scope out at 1330 to cool as it looked like the sky was going to be clear. 1900 I got out with the finderscope on a tripod and had a look at Jupiter - when the clouds cleared I could discern some banding and 4 moons. It always surprises me when I can see something through the scope and look up and see the target is covered in cloud - but there is enough light that the telescope can pick it up.. About 2015 the clouds had cleared enough so I move the C925 and mount onto the terrace - first outside session with the Asiair - and the issues started. It wouldn't plate solve with the camera in the OAG suggesting the issue was the focal length, then I remembered the Focal reducer was in place - so I calculated the new focal length and tried again - still no go.. I was tempted to go back in the house at that point but persevered, replaced my finder scope with one I could put the camera on - and it plate solved. Went through the all sky polar alignment - which took ages with the clouds. While I was waiting I took the OAG off and on went a diagonal and an eye piece. With the mount polar aligned I started slewing to targets and realised that the guidescope was out of line.. Thought about calling it quits there but persevered and aligned everything - swung to split Lyrae and as the mount slewed total cloud cover rolled in.. So not much seen but a good evenings work in poor conditions which should save me time when when do get a clear night !

Big shout out to @PaulE54 for a superbly packaged Finderscope and guidecam He was a pleasure to deal with.

2 gigs today so only had a short break between them but got out onto the terrace with the 925. It was pretty windy but between the gusts is seemed ok so I put some magnification into the moon (8/22 zoom) and realised the seeing wasn't great so swapped the eyepiece out, put the reducer and the camera on and headed over to M42. Nice little EEA session on that but no captures as the wind had picked up limiting exposure time to a couple of secs. slewed back to the and with the focal reducer in the view was much better so grabbed a short section of vid / quick stack while breaking down..

Quick update. Got everything out onto the terrace last night and decided to try the ASIAIR out. Told it to slew to the moon - it missed by a long way, pretty much 90 degrees out and once more the OTA nearly hit the mount... I decided to park the mount and start again. The mount parked pointing the OTA 90 degrees out on the RA. I powered the mount off, released the clutch, turned the OTA to the right position and powered the mount back on. Back in the ASIAIR, slewed the mount to the moon and it was only about half a moon out. Problem solved - it seems my process will be connect the mount, park it, rotate the OTA, power back on, enjoy my viewing

That is super nice !!

I chucked a SynScan Wi-Fi Adapter onto my EQ6 - no configuration needed, and I can drive the mount from my phone or my laptop. Came in very handy when I wanted to hook my mount up to a V1 ASIAIR as the ASIAIR didn't see my USB lead (as it's a V1) I put the wifi adaptor into station mode and connected it that way to the ASI air. Quite a flexible little device tbh.

Had checked the forecast and was expecting nothing so had settled down with my better half.. But about 2030 I noticed the moon / Jupiter and Sirius were visible albeit it through cloud. After mentally pacing around for 30 mins (and waiting for the program we were watching to end..) I took another look - not any better but figured it was worth taking a chance and getting out. 10 mins later the C925 was out, dew shield on and warming up.. There was no way I was going to get any star alignment so I just manually slewed over to the moon and even with a thin layer of cloud it was totally worth hauling everything out onto the terrace. With the poor seeing I used the time to line the RDF and finder scope up properly. Then started with a 22m eyepiece but stepped up to a 6.5mm. At that magnification not having tracking was a pain but I still enjoyed the view. Then swapped to a 22/8mm zoon and tried the .63 reducer out. It was nice to be able to frame the entire half moon in the eyepiece. Kept the session to an hour (inc setup / break down) but after 10 days of nothing it was nice to get a little time to test things. Loving the C925, even with the cloud layer it was still incredible

That is a good idea but I think it would still have grazed the mount - I've probably got some stainless allen bolts I could swap in for a test, manually slew it across to see if if would actually hit. When it got the c925 I was thinking of replacing the dovetail with a Losmandy-type Dovetail which would offset the OTA probably 2 cm away from the mount - maybe the sum total of shorter bolts and a larger offset would sort it.

Just got myself an ASIAIR v1 and after a lot of messing around (it wouldn't spot it over USB..) I finally got it hooked up to my EQ6R via a syscan wifi adaptor and EQMOD Just re-doing the connection (etc) process during the day to check I can do it outside at night and using the ASIAIR software to slew to targets. I was just randomly hopping from target to target - I was slewing from Deneb to M41 and noticed the back of the OTA was about to hit one of the az adjustment bolts on the mount... I quickly hit the clutch and stopped the OTA before metal hit metal.. The OTA is slid quite far forward so it's weight (with diagonal / eyepiece etc) is balanced so I was surprised about this - I've not noticed this when slewing with the skyscan app and with a much longer OTA.. Any thoughts?? is there a software setting change I need to make ??

yeah, that would be expensive !! looking further down this page they have built a box around the OTA so that would be possible and cheap https://theselfsufficientliving.com/diy-telescope-build/

Yeah - I did read the same and went looking but as I had the OTA out I measured it...

I've just weighed mne - the OTA is 2.8Kg 160mm rings - FlLO has them but £45 !!

I was given a powerseeker last weekend - my mate goes "you've got a telescope, here, have another" Not sure I get the logic but I was too polite to say no... As mentioned above it isn't a great telescope and the mount also isn't good (it looks like one of the slow motion controls on this needs re-seating / sorting). But - if it is some use to you then you can have the mount for the cost of postage but keep in mind the above advice as even the postage won't be cheap...

Apart from wednesday night the weather since my c925 arrived has been poor to say the least. The forecast for last night looked patchy but I really wanted to get the new ota out so I figured it was worth a punt. OTA outside at 3pm to cool down. Hauled it back in at 640 just before it rained... However an hour later there were some gaps - not enough to align the mount but enough to release the clutches, point at some stars and check the collimation etc so I went for it. I literally had maybe 2 mins on Jupiter - enough to check the alignment of the RDF and the OTA and enough to check the collimation which was pretty good considering it had been in the post. Hopefully this week will bring some decent gaps !

Sit down and let me tell ye the tail of Ushtey Bea, whisky and whiskey Distillation was brought to the UK and Ireland by monks. Ireland and Scotland developed their own processes at roughly the same time. Whisky is Scottish, Whiskey is Irish. Immigrants to the US took their stills with them, any surplus corn / wheat etc was turned into whiskey - which was much easier to transport across the US than the thing it was made from and more valuable. Initially whiskey was not taxed in the US. And then it was. Japanese whisky came about as a result of scottish engineers travelling to Japan and teaching them how to make it whisky. And pretty nice it is. Generally I prefer Irish whiskey, then Rye Whisky, then heavily peated scottish whisky, then bourbon etc etc Whisky is very specific, whiskey is not, bourbon is very specific, rye whiskey is not. Rum tastes like rum because of the US involvement in the slave trade. Plantation owners in the Caribbean liked to drink their own US product - which led to a surplus of used bourbon barrels - which Rum was then aged in or shipped to the US in - which is why these days a significant proportion of rum is still aged in bourbon barrels. Here endeth the lesson - no test just a 50 word essay entitled "the whiskey/whisky/bourbon/rye that I drank tonight was..."

when I win the lottery.... https://www.mackenzienz.com/visit/pukaki-wine-cellar-and-observatory/

First light on my new setup.. lol.. Solved the issue with the finderscope I put on the C925 last night. - I'd added a Diagonal to make it easier to view but to get it to focus I'd had to put a barlow ahead of it. So the FOV was to small to really be useful (and the eyepiece I was using was not very good..) So tonight I swapped a RDF onto the C925 and obvs had a spare finderscope. Removed the diagonal, put a decent eyepiece in, pointed it out to sea and said "yaaar" a few times.. but then I figured a plan... Diagonal and barlow back in, decent eyepiece and a camera tripod later In all honesty it was surprisingly good.

First light on the C925. Not great seeing, cloud cover on Polaris led me to try to manually slew to Jupiter but issues with the finderscope meant I aimlessly drifted around in circles.. Might put an RDF on for now and then double shoe it with the finderscope. Got aligned just as the cloud rolled in but had a bit of a manual wander round jumping from star to star and just enjoying being outside. And then the corrector plate dewed up - which I guess is why a dew shield came with the OTA I have a dew heater controller on order A good evening - I can't wait to get outside again.

The postie brought me a shiny new (to me) OTA. A Celestron C9.25 - I am very happy !!!

One of those nights... Slow start as decided to let the mount decide my alignment stars. Capella as the 3rd ?? Really ?? Right now I'm laughing but the tube was vertical and I couldn't get my eye onto the finderscope, kept on trying though before eventually swearing a lot, giving up, restarting alignment and picking my own dam stars... Once aligned I slewed to my first target of the night - Jupiter. Looked lovely and clear so decided to do some imaging, Laptop out, camera on, in focus and then the screen went dark. Clouds.. I stuck with it for 30 mins hoping for a gap but every time the clouds parted there was something affecting the viewing so I'd get a clear image for maybe half a second, then the image would soften before going back to clear.. Thought I'd pause for a bit, so packed the camera up and left it tracking for 30 mins while getting a cuppa.. Came back out to total cloud cover so called it a night. Packed up, got everything back in and you all know what happened next... yep, it cleared up ! Still a good evening though