Chris

Thank you Rob, very nice of you to say The fear of the bad autumn/winter weather helped speed things up 😄

Excellent Rob, and I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on with the BVs

RC's in the Obsy

🤗

Thanks Alex, if I notice any movement I now know what to do, thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks Steve, It's very black themed, but the packs of interlocking foam flooring were a choice between either black or bright yellow, pink and green lol

Still a number of little jobs to do, but it's ready to rock with battery power at least.

Hi Steve, I agree with the above because with the product you've linked you'll be using a battery with inverter to get to mains voltage, then you'll plug your mounts mains adaptor in which will then convert that mains voltage back to 12V DC. I'd go for a power tank which is 12v to begin with mate I'm not saying this is exactly the right thing, but maybe look at something like this? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/celestron-lithium-lifepo4-powertank-pro/ref/diyastro/ Reviews of the above "The tank needed charging upon its arrival and initial charge took more than 10 hours to charge (left it on charge over night). I guess abiut 12 houts in totalI was able to charge both my Neq6 mount and USB hub for 6 hours on an almost frosty night with plenty of power remaining. Recharge was about 4-5 hoursThe power cable is for a Celestron mount and has a screw adapter however I found the cable to be a snug fit for the Skywatcher EQ5 and NEQ6 mount. There is another cable available from FLO if preferred.The tank is light, rugged and can a few several devices simultaneously using mount power feed, cigarette socket and USB sockets.I recommend this powertank" "t’s very small, and it’s very light. So small and light that mine lives permanently on one tripod leg, with the lead cable-tied up to the top.My old lead acid battery was rated at 17amp/hour, and would last about 2 hours with my gear. This one is rated at 13amp/hour, but it will power the same kit for 4 hours and still be at half power, according to the built-in battery level indicator.Yes, it’s eye-wateringly expensive, compared to a car battery, but the massive run-time and the lack of weight, certainly mean you’re getting what you pay for." It's 13 Amp hours so you would need to check how much power your equipment draws. E.g. if it draws 5 Amps then it will last just shy of 3 hours but you maybe don't want to run the power supply completely flat as I think it effects how well it recharges and it's shelve life. EDIT: had another look the item you linked and it does seem to have one or two 12v ports as well as the mains sockets, but maybe check if it will be ok out in the damp for hours? It could be fine.

I've put together another tutorial for Explore Scientific's ExploreStars App for controlling PMC8 mounts. This tutorial covers connection, alignment and features. First Light Optics now sell both the EXOS2 and iEXOS 100 PMC Eight mounts, so hopefully this will be useful to some.

I was going to say, Moon yes, but you do get diffraction spikes on the planets, they just tend to be wider but more faint as the above picture demonstrates.

No worries. Lack of Skywatcher/Celestron availability is one of the reasons I decided on the EXOS2. Also Some of these Skywatcher mounts are fairly long in the tooth now days so I feel it's good to explore other options. So far so good with it, I've controlled the mount using the ExploreStars App for Windows 10 and all went well.

Thanks Jeremy, I think it might be the longest video I've made so far lol Hey Mark, wow that's really kind of you to say! I'm very glad you enjoyed it! The Stella Lyra 8RC has a lot of potential as an obsy scope I feel, I'm pretty psyched about it! Cheers Mikey, You don't need to re install the Losmandy rail. I just did this to help with handling the telescope in terms of grip, but I did consider leaving it off.

I'll just leave this here:

Hey Gus, just follow page 6 of this instruction manual and all will be well. https://www.telescope.com/assets/product_files/instructions/IN621_Classical_Cassegrains.pdf

It's a real stunner, Steve. Congratulations, I'm sure it will give you many years of enjoyment and some wonderful sights! Fingers crossed the truss rods will be sorted out quickly for you.

I've got to admit, that looks very good, John.

One more rain drop 🤣

Thanks, and that's interesting! There is a second threaded hole for a second screw but I'm sure one will work just fine. Maybe that's how it's meant to be

First impressions and a few pics now I've unboxed the Stella Lyra 8" RC, mounted it, checked collimation etc Fit and finish appears generally very good, It's a very solid well finished scope and feels more premium than the price suggests. The only minor faults are a single bolt missing from the finder shoe (missing in action somewhere other than the packaging) and a fleck of paint? on the secondary which wont effect anything (This didn't cost Tak Mewlon money!). I love the piano black and the Stella Lyra logo not only on the OTA but on the dovetail and focuser too, nice touch! The focuser is pretty good considering the price point, there are no rough spots and it's fully rotatable, but you obviously get smoother if you spend more on a third party higher end unit. One concern was not being able to switch the Losmandy and Vixen rails around to fit mounts with only a Vixen saddle, but thankfully the screw positions are the same top and bottom of the OTA so it was an easy job to switch them around. Come to think of it, the spec of paint on the secondary could have been the result of me doing this!? The rails are on par with ADM quality which was a nice surprise! The Orion GSO version comes with two finder shoes whereas the Stella Lyra comes with one. The Orion may well be a tad bit more expensive though. The primary mirror looks mint and super reflective, and the external paint job looks good. Baffling excellent, it's very dark in there! The back focus extension rings are very nicely machined with lovely threads. I checked collimation using my Cheshire and self centring adaptor and both the primary and secondary were quite far out which isn't surprising considering the distance the optics have travelled. I made some adjustments and the collimation screws appear to be spring loaded, smooth and accurate. Making adjustments was intuitive and I soon got the secondary and primary lined up according to the Cheshire. I needed to over correct the primary to make up for a bit of malalignment caused by the focuser I'm guessing? so I may need a third party tilt plate? of course I need to properly star test before deciding on further action there. The dust cap is quite tight and can be tricky to get on and off, but I prefer that to too loose. The 2" to 1.25" adaptor on the focuser has a brass compression ring so it doesn't mar accessories, max points for that one, I really don't like pointy scratchy set screws. I couldn't see any paper work with the scope but pretty much everything you need to know is online anyway so happy to save a fraction of a tree lol The secondary obstruction isn't as big as I had imagined or worried about, so it might even be ok for a spot of visual once I've got the collimation spot on. That's it for now. I of course recorded a video whilst I was doing all this so that will follow. Here's some pics (I Know, I know, I'm under mounting it for DSO imaging but we'll see how that goes)

Maybe to clean up the messy edges of the mirror figure wise to improve Strehl? It's one guess.

Definitely worth throwing a Classical Cassegrain into the mix for consideration, it could be the best compromise of aperture, contrast, sharpness, and cooling time.

FLO are stocking a couple of these PMC Eight Wifi mounts by Explore Scientific now, the EXOS-2 and the iEXOS-100. There are a couple of not very obvious steps to installing the ExploreStars control software so here's a straight forward guide:

Natively, this definitely points towards the Newtonian over the RC. Imaging Newts tend to be around f4 to f5 with focal lengths below 1000mm, whereas an 8RC for example is f8 @ 1600mm focal length. The RC can of course be reduced down to f6 @ 1200mm with the 0.75 reducer from FLO or f5.4 @ 1070mm with the CCDT67 reducer. The RC has a much flatter field of view natively from what I read, whereas fast Newts have quite a bit of coma, but again there are coma correctors for Newts that do a good job.

Ooops! The collimation video I saw was for the CC come to think of it. I didn't realise the RC would be a trickier beast! Still I'm hoping by making any adjustments small things shouldn't go too horribly wrong.... in theory 🤣

Anything new or different is worrying until you know how, but I think you just use a Cheshire to check the inner rings are concentric for the seconday mirror, and if the outer ring is out you can adjust the focuser tilt plate at the base of the of focuser.