Chris

Hiya. Congrats on the new eyepieces, the BST's are superb for the money. I nearly went for them again myself but got curious about ES's newish 52 degree LER range. The BST's seem to have a similar dampening time to the ES 52's which makes sense. Glad you thought to use a delayed exposure for afocal imaging, I use timers a lot for astro imaging and wouldn't manage without it! I agree about the focuser verse the truss rods. I think the truss rods do a great job considering there is only two of them. There was a chap on my channel who was worried about the rods, and I hope I put his mind at rest. Are you using the extension arm to hold your phone with a gps night sky app?

Hi Garry, it's a great idea, I'm just wondering how I would do this as you would need the focuser for the eyepiece so it kind of rules the focuser out for a collimator. I could defocus a star (maybe Polaris so it doesn't drift) then look for any pinching of the doughnut when using EP's of different weights maybe? I would need to make sure the star is bang centre in the EP's but that should be fine with Polaris. My heaviest EP is my new ES 52 LER at 187g, but I could add my Revelation Barlow also. As there is quite a bit of play in the focuser I might also wait until I've got round to the PTFE mod so tilt is reduced. Very interesting question thanks for the suggestion. It's on the video list

I received a few concerns about the stability of the H 150p and it's ability to handle heavier upgraded eyepieces, so I upgraded the 24g Super 10 eyepiece to a 187g 10mm Explore Scientific 52 degree LER and did a little experiment:

Definitely an obsession

I modded a £14 Logitech C270 over a year ago and I was very pleased, using it exclusively until very recently when I upgraded back to a ZWO ASI 120mm. However, the C270 has now gone up in price to at least £25. I have a modding video for the C270 on my You tube channel - DIY Astronomy if you want to check it out. There are sample images taken with it at the end of the video using a small achromatic refractor. The thing is, I've recently seen SVBONY astro cams on ebay for about £40. So it would now cost you the same money to buy a Logitech C270 and adaptor as it would just to buy a complete SVBONY camera. For around £100 you can get into a second hand ZWO ASI120 which will be better still.

Welcome to the fun and games! The sky isn't even the limit with this hobby Garry, and it's totally normal to have lots of lovely expensive astro goodies sitting around waiting for the clouds to clear. Reading the above you might think it isn't worth it, but it is! Apart from the shiny equipment and the wonder of space, a big part of Astonomy is the community we have and share

Nice capture Dave. I noticed the conjunction from my bedroom window last night, but when I checked down stairs it was completely obscured by houses. I might need to start observing from the bedroom window

According to the link the Altair is out of stock, so this might influence your decision depending on the lead time. There will be diffraction spikes on the planets with the classical cas, how do you feel about this?

The reason for the temp drop is more likely due to me forgetting to add a Sun at 1 AU rather than the ejected dust shrouding the Sun. I'll add a Sun next time so I get a more accurate temp reading.

This is so much fun, I had to share just in case like me peeps hadn't heard about this before! Apparently this Space physics simulator has been around for a few years now. I can't imagine it's 100% accurate but it seems like a lot of fun for adults and children alike. I couldn't resist making a wee video where I recreate the conditions that wiped out the dinos. One thing can lead to another with this program! I'm now busy planning what other space antics I can get upto! When I bought this simulator online I wrongly assumed I could just download it onto my hard drive, but as it turns out you need to install and play it via Steam. Just something to be aware of. It took me a while to figure it all out.

Has John said, the optics are the same. I've used several factory fixed primary mirrors and they have all performed well arriving and remaining collimated

Great to hear about your kindness paying off! Thanks for sharing the story and sorry about the bad news.

Very nice Job, well done!

The astronomers light sabre. I'm tempted to Photoshop a Jedi holding it!

Glad you're all sorted now with the replacement RDF FLO sent. You wait until you upgrade the 10mm, you'll get an even better view You'll nail the Ring nebula now you've got the finder aligned. There are two bright stars a short distance apart just below Vega, just aim bang centre with you 25mm eyepiece, centre the round smudge, then put the 10mm in to see it as an oval ring

Yup! you would certainly think so considering all the wizardry they do with the optics!

I should have filmed it! It would have been a good lesson on what not to do 😂 RDF all sorted,,apart from the second dot, I'll just live with that

Thanks Rob, I've managed to sort out the finder by moving it as far back on the finder shoe as it will go, this seems to have done the trick! I only got a short look at Jupiter as I was balanced so precariously, but I could tell it would have been good with more time and magnification. I might have to try again from my wife's office on the first floor with the window wide open and see how the thermals behave, or even better jump in the car somewhere. Your H 130p looks a good match for the SkyProdigy, I'm going to try out the H 150p with the Starquest mount.

Excellent, as John says, your new RDF is what SW scope usually come with. They should have stuck with it with the Heritage 150p, it is a nicer RDF for sure.

Cool, I'm hopeful this will work for you, fingers crossed!

All fixed. Moving the rdf forward made it worse, so I moved it all the way back and voila! The TV Ariel was aligned in both the scope and rdf 👍 It only lightly skims the screw then loose so all sorted. Give it a go Dannomiss

It's my best guess too as there is plenty of adjustment on the actual RDF.

With the tube in the collapsed position it lightly skims the screw when the screw is tightened, but I have the screw loose when the tube is collapsed so it just misses. The bases are probably placed in very similar positions, maybe a little bit of inconsistency.

Thanks Jeremy, mine is fixed further back so it won't hurt to try various positions forward and backwards before I break out the shims, thanks : )

That's great, Jeremy, I'm not working today so I hope to get a bit of time to tinker with mine. I reached the full adjustment of mine but I reckon I can shim it easy enough