pixelsaurus

Hi Nick. Welcome aboard.

Kia ora. Welcome aboard. I lived in Windy Welly for a bit a while back. King Country is home now. 👍

Welcome to SGL Peter.

Hi and welcome to SGL.

Welcome to SGL.

For me it was Sputnik. I was 5. My first telescope was a 20x50 Carton refractor with a desk tripod. I used to perch it on a table outside and look at the moon. This was in 1969, the year I saw my first comet - Tago-Sato-Kosaka (1969g).

14 hours ago, LuckieEddie said:

It's identified further down the astro bin card

Cheers. I completely missed that.

Awesome. Anyone what the blue nebula at the bottom of the frame is?

Mel Bartels has something to say about viewing the Horsey.

http://bbastrodesigns.com/6inchF2.8/6 Inch F2.8 Telescope.html

Welcome to SGL Chris

Welcome aboard. Gotta love a 12" so long as it is not too big/heavy to manage by yourself. 😀

On 03/05/2020 at 08:46, Arneb said:

Thanks Mike. Funnily enough I think I passed through Te Kuiti some years ago when I was doing a bit of back packing - I had just visited Waitomo Caves and was heading to Taupo. Details are a little hazy due to the time elapsed and, likely, a few too many handles of Monteith's 🍻!

Cheers. Haven't been to the caves yet as only been here just over a year. Monteith's is OK but I prefer Orchard Theives Cider myself. 

😀

Hi Sam,

Welcome aboard.

Mike.

Read cumets - cubic metres.

I think I will resort to a jig. If I cut anything by hand, I'm just asking for disappointment. So I guess the next question is: what kind of drive did you settle for? Tangent arm, friction drive on the sector rim, rack and pinion? As soon as I get the garage cleaned up and stack the 3 cumecs of firewood to be delivered Thursday, it will be time for me to make a start. You give me hope.

hi i used elliptical north sector from a template i copied and printed from a website 

thanks

Thanks for that. I assume you mean the templates on reinervogels site. Not sure they would work for me as my latitude doesn't coincide with those listed. Also I do not trust my manual skills enough to try and make them. I was sort of hoping an elliptical sector could be formed in a similar fashion to the sectors on the cylindrical bearing platforms ie on a jig. Thanks anyway.

Did you shape the north sector circular or elliptical?

Great stuff James.

Thanks Gina. The bright star above the fencepost and between it and the shed is Fomalhaut. Grus is standing on it's tail in the comet's tail, I should have known that as Grus is one of my favourite naked eye constellations.

There is always refridgerant spray. Perhaps freezing it will cause the epoxy to give up.

Keep up the good work. I find this thread riveting.

My first serious attempt at astro back in 2007. It is Comet McNaught setting over the Awhitu Peninsula, Auckland,NZ. I was lucky to get this as it was the worst summer I can remember. Extremely wet. In the 6 odd weeks McNaught was visible, I only saw it on 6 occasions. This particular image has bugged me ever since. The original was shot at ISO 3200, 30 secs, Pentax DA 18-55mm at !8mm and f/3.5. Shot on a Pentax *ist DS. Image is very noisey and it is only recently that I have started to come to grips with it. I found some old darks and used IRIS to remove noise. I'm still not happy with this image but I do feel I'm getting betterer. I think the starfield behind the comet might be Columba but still waiting to Astrometry.net to give me an answer.

Before you buy an extension tube, you need to find the focus point of the scope. It may be that the image plane is not far enough along the drawtube for you to use a DSLR . The camera mount to sensor distance is usually around 45mm (depends on the camera make http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/mounts-by-register.html ) and you need to factor this in. You only need an extension tube if you have to extend the drawtube distance. If the image plane falls short, you will have to optically transfer the image plane further down the drawtube or physically modify the focusser. I have the same problem with my 150mm Newtonian. Currently I can't put my DSLR at prime focus but have to use eyepiece projection.