Chris

Too tired to go out myself but glad you guys got some great views. We're really having a decent run at the moment! I'm trying to remember when it was last this good? : )

Thanks, I just try and say what I see I think an Huygens wouldn't be a bad idea on a budget f10 scope, but f/3.95 hhmm? I may have to try the modified achromat eyepieces supplied with skywatcher scopes and see how much better they do. MA eypieces must be pretty affordable to include also?

lol I read down to the third line before realising Jeremy was on one again 😁

Yes, similar thoughts John. It seems to fit the bill for that kind of thing

Ok confession, I bought this 'mini beast' telescope partly in case it tempted any my kids to join me under the stars, but also I'll admit I also wanted to have a play 😃 In summary, the mount and focuser are both great for a telescope costing just £69, a very smooth mount to use on both axis. The 76mm spherical mirror and eyepieces are what you might expect, well, with the exception of one thing mentioned below that you definitely wouldn't expect lol. If there was an award for most needed eyepiece upgrade this scope would win it, what a difference when I popped in the 8mm BST! It arrived very well collimated which is great, I think this is maybe the 4th? telescope I've tested with a factory fixed primary mirror and all have arrived a ok. I think the funniest thing was when the 4mm Ramsden eyepiece became stuck in the focuser due to the slippy low profile volcano top. I would say this is a bit of a design faux par lol It wouldn't even come out when I turned the scope upside down! I very nearly donned marigolds for extra traction 😆

I really like images where the background isn't too black clipped hence I'm really liking the velvety grey/brown rich background with this one. The various shades of pink to red give the image lots of depth too! Sometimes we're our own worst critic Carole, I think it's great!

Well done John! It really must be the case if you triple checked. We've had a couple of nights recently of excellent seeing, and you've definitely made the most of that, congratulations!

Well done Bill, excellent first DSO image I had a quick look on Stellarium and I think the galaxy is NGC6207 30 million light years away.

Yeah your right Stu, I was thinking that in terms of edge performance, 500mm at f/5 was simply 500mm at f/5, but of course the Genesis is a 4 element Petzval design which was know doubt optimised using TV eyepieces like the Nag31 (if the Nag31 came first?).

A can sense the elation, very nice post, Stu Hmm? Maybe ES doesn't give 90% the performance of TV at half the price after all!? This could be a very expensive thought 🤔😄

Such a cool sight!

I think prime focus astrophotogtraphy where no lenses are involved will usually give better results than the afocal method you've used until now. Also it will be less fiddly because you can simply push the camera and adaptor into the focuser. I've only ever dabbled with afocal but I found it awkward in comparison. Give it a go and see what you think

The Nikon 1 series is an interchangeable lens system so the lens will come off no problem. I owned a V1 for about a year and it was a fun little camera.

Well done both Great observations! I'll always remember the SN in the Cigar galaxy back in 2014 and what that felt like to witness!

There is that visual astronomers buzz you get when finding an object manually yourself I'm very intrigued by plate solving though. I'm going to try NINA and one of the many plate solving software programs out there, although I probably should get guiding up and running first.

Hey Carole, I've not always been quite this basic I promise 😀 Other than the guiding I used to image very similarly to yourself with the good old hand controller. Although I must say the Explore Stars app of the EXOS2 PMC 8 is actually very good compared to previous wifi controlled mounts I've tested out. It works well when I do use it

Many thanks, and er? well Rob, I've 'sort of' already done that 🙃 Does a shot of the Moon with an old SLR back in 1997 count? It was sort of in focus! 😃

I'm not entirely sure why I tend to skip some of the imaging aids which are designed to actually make life easier? I do get a buzz from finding objects and imaging them the old way, but maybe I should drag myself into the 2020's lol Does anyone else tend to keep things simple? (or more difficult depending on how you look at it)

Lovely night! Grabbed some shots of the Croc's Eye galaxy in Canes Venatici which I'm looking forward to processing.

I think you're right John. For starters not all sets of eyepieces have a 12.5mm, the black tapered barrel's are identical, and looking at the Altair page the specs are identical. 7 elements in 4 groups, 20mm ER, 55 degrees etc. It almost seems conclusive.

Update. I've just had a second night out with both the BST's and StellaLyra. There was no Moon this time around which seemed to solve the light reflection issues with the BST. They were a joy to use this time around. The large eye lens of the BST and flat field really is amazing for the price I feel. I did a 'glasses test' and I couldn't see the full field of view with either eyepiece. I could see more apparent field of view with the StellaLyra LER when observing the double cluster because it has a bit more eye relief, but the harder rubber eyecup when folded down felt harsher than the BST with glasses knocking against them. I don't normally observe with glasses but the glasses tapping against the eyepieces was by far the most distracting thing about observing with glasses, and I felt the BST did a better job of dampening this effect.

I find the Hue-chroma tool in GIMP handy for reducing background noise. There's a bit of red noise in the background still so I've popped it back into GIMP and dropped the Hue-Chroma to -4. I think it's reduced the red noise a bit?

I hope you don't mind me taking a liberty, but I very quickly dipped it into GIMP to bring out the blue stars a bit more. Only a 30-40 second tweak so not perfect, but long enough to see what lovely data you have to play with

Lovely crisp image! I can't help wonder what it would look like with the red channel dropped a touch and the blue channel raised? but the stars do sparkle like gold which is pretty cool

That incredible looking eye lens deserves an encore!