mdstuart

That trumps my answer!

Astro Noodles As I understand it, when we observe things such as stars going around galaxies, the amount of gravity acting on the stars is more than it should be. There must be something else "pulling the stars" that we cannot see...dark matter. Mark

Here is my image from Thornbury near Bristol.

So I now have anodised aluminium strips on my alt bearings. Thank you to Stephen my neighbour for the cutting and drilling. It's running on sash window wheels and it is better in terms of motion than before. Will test whilst observing and report back.

The led lights going in in South Glos are actually well designed and point light downwards. Even with a lot of new building in my town things are actually quite stable in terms of light pollution. Mark

Peter - Do you have a pic of how you used the PTFE pads to control the ease of movement with your bearings approach. Mine now still needs three rubber bands stretched by once inch on the corner of the mirror box to start motion ( not sure how many newtons per square meter that is :)) so I might not need control but I would like to see how you did it. Mark

So much advice, thank you. I will report back. Mark

Piero you may be right. I will try it out and may add some braking. Ultimately I can go back to ptfe maybe with soap etc as you suggest. It's interesting to me to try things like this. Plus it might be interesting to others as well. Mark

My big dob az motion is relatively stiff so I thought, despite prevailing wisdom to try a lazy susan bearing rather than Teflon on laminate. So here is the very cheap bearing I used. Before, using three rubber bands attached to a corner of the mirror box I had to stretch them 6 inches to get the box to turn. Now it's one inch! 20210526_182206.mp4 It might need a bit of braking now but it feels smooth but I have yet to check it at high power when observing though. Still need to work on the alt motion. Mark

Very interesting re the PVC ABS strip. I am going to trial a lazy susan approach to my scope AZ motion this summer to see how that compares to the traditional teflon laminate approach. I have also bought some sash window rollers which I will trial on my ALT motion. I wish you smooth alt and az motions Mark

Great news on the Astigmatism. Love the Shroud. What have you put on the bearings for the rollers to run on? How is the alt motion now apart from the bumps. Are you able to raise and lower the alt with just one finger etc. Mark

Interesting. I have fought Astigmatism at times. You can rotate the main mirror to see if the Astigmatism rotates to isolate which mirror is causing the issue. Good luck. Mark

Yes a lovely clear night. Just come in from a very enjoyable tour around. Ended with the starfish galaxy ngc 6240 in OPH. I could pick up the three brightest stars above and the glow of the core of the galaxy with averted vision in my 20 inch. It was low down so I was able to look at it while sitting down. Mark

Very interesting. The image settles very quickly. Slewing sounds like a car going past. Mark

I just got a bigger ramp! Mark

Great report. Those skies sound fantastic. Just amazing what can be seen with the right telescope in the right location in the right hands. You packed a months observing in to one night! Mark

Looks amazing. How is the alt movement? How smooth, how much friction to start and then maintain movement etc? Mark

I had a look at this area last night but the transparency was not great. I manged to find the field of view fairly easily. I logged the stars I could spot and managed to get down to 14.5. This was the star below and left of the red arrow above. Looking at cloudy night, the m15 figure is a red magnitude so I think its not going to be possible for me from my mag 5 skies. Something to keep a note of for the first star party that I next attend! Mark

I had a look at the supernova yesterday. Very similar in brightness to the mag 13 star nearby. Not the most transparent night. I certainly could not see the host galaxy. Mark

Well done John. As you know I am amazed how deep you get with your 12 inch. This again shows how much can be achieved with good optics by an experienced observer. So the Horsehead in a 4 inch? Mark

Looking forward to first light. Excellent work.

Fascinating. Interested in how your alt motion is with those bearings once it is all finished as I want to improve my alt motion. Mark

Neil I felt like I was there reading your report. Very jealous you saw M83. Very special evening. It is so amazing isn't it. I was also out last night pottering around. I let the globular M13 drift across the FOV in my 4.7mm x426 eyepiece again and again...am I the only one that does that? Mark

Sky hog I can get just over mag 15 on good nights with my 20 inch and town skies so I will have a go. Mark

Yes lovely and clear. Pleased you managed to see the fourth galaxy ngc 3187. I managed to observe some more markarian galaxies. Some of them are visible even up to 400 million light years away given their active nature. Mark