Chris

They look lush, Helen! yum!

I'll be sure to film as much as I can (if allowed?) and link it here maybe (if ok?) Then if you don't get to go at least you can take a virtual tour

Just about to leave the Stoneleigh lodge hotel and head over. So glad I booked a room as it took nearly 4 hours to get here with all the road works, and the windscreen wipers certainly got a good work out lol. very much looking forward to meeting some of you and seeing all the nice shiny kit! I'll be the one with a camera and shotgun mic, hopefully they'll let me film for my YT channel. I'm not sure what the rules are?

Google says just shy of 3 hours for me, but I've just booked a room at Stoneleigh Park lodge for tonight so I can travel up this evening. Then I've just learnt there are diversions on the A14 at Cambridge this evening so it might take a bit longer.

The 55 mile bit sounds good though

I'm looking forward to getting another ED apo once all the work on the house is completed...and build another obsy

What a scope that is (for the 20th time) why do I sell these things lol Well, it's a bond us three have...better than a blood oath

It certainly will Steve, but who is Paul ?

It kind of makes you feel better knowing others feel similar! Not that it's a nice way to feel, but I'm sure all the lovely kit will take the edge off our anxiety, and I certainly will say hi if I make it

What kind of thing would people do with our mug shots? Just wondering what your concerns were?

This is a good point and makes sense. So maybe the only reason my particular tool has lasted well is due to only grinding down around f6.7. DiscardedAstro - Nig is your man for advice

I might have the same beany

You should have taken the speed boat, Steve Drive safe!

Thanks Steve, I absolutely will come over for a chat if I go : )

Thanks Helen, that's good to hear!

I'll keep my eyes peeled for you Alan I'm 50/50 at the moment, crowded places tend to play havoc with my anxiety making me feel really sick and panicky, but I really wanted to be surrounded by a massive hall full of astro equipment and like minded people lol

I'm tempted to go for the first time on Saturday, it would be really nice to meet some SGLr's I've been talking/typing to for the last 8 years. P.s. I can highly recommend Stuart Clark as a speaker, he was one of my favourite lectures at Uni and always had the classes attention lol. Also, he can't half write a book! I really enjoyed his Skies Dark Labyrinth trilogy.

Freddie was a big lad wasn't he lol

Excellent and rightly so!

Wow! Is that a jet fighter as well? Excellent capture, well done!

Hello, I found a bit of time to put together a quick tutorial for the Classic 5D mk1. A very affordable full frame camera now days! Please let me know if I've missed anything vital? Bearing in mind this is a quick guide

I wish I had prepped for this, I literally have no means to observe or image the transit. I'll have to enjoy other peoples captures instead if the weather plays ball.

Sorry to hear about the accident. It's a lovely image at least.

Good progress. You certainly need good ventilation with the epoxy coat don't you, I nearly gassed out my family indoors even though I did the work in the garden! I think 4mm is enough for one mirror grind, I still have loads of depth remaining after reaching the polishing stage. 10mm should last several mirrors I should imagine. I don't know if you want to use this trick, but I melted wax in between the tiles on the tool so you can scrape the wax out after each grit size and then re seal it with wax. In theory this should help stop any grit which is lodged in the epoxy coming loose and scratching the mirror once you've moved to a finer grit. One of the fine gents on this thread told me this and it has worked well so far Good luck with the next stage, and I personally think it would be better if you can get the glass in smaller bits for more randomisation and extra channels whilst grinding. Things get caked up and stuck sometimes!

I think they were around 5mm maybe more? Might have picked them up at B & Q. I've just found some different tiles in the garage which I didn't use and they read as 4mm on my calipers. I can't find any of the thicker tiles, maybe I chucked them when I moved in the summer? You can kind of see how thick they are on the pics: