RobertI

Superb Alan, what an interesting and varied day. I’ll keep an eye out for the next one as it’s just up the road from me. What did you think of the views through the venerable refractor? 

Interesting to hear about your plans Alan, sounds like some nice opportunities for better observing and potentially darker skies ahead. I’ve never owned an observatory so can’t really give any in depth experience, but I did use a dome observatory for few years in my late teens and early twenties - it belonged to my local club, was made of wood and brick, and housed a 8.75” reflector. I remember the excitement of observing Saturn, Jupiter and many DSOs, and I have a real soft spot for dome observatories as a result. What I do recall is that it allowed for the possibility of observing in comfort, regardless of how windy, or frosty or cold it was. I suspect the dome had to be rotated away from the wind, restricting which objects could be seen, but can’t remember or sure.  It was a faff to get it ready, but a joy to observe in. But it was a long time ago and I have probably forgotten all the downsides. 

3 hours ago, Elp said:

You didn't by any chance observe in CaK?

Inspired! 🤣

3 hours ago, Alan White said:

Based on my luck in seeing all of last nights Aurora as I was out observing,

Well my run of luck continued today with my telescope given a lucky blessing while solar observing 😉

 

So another first, cleaning bird guano from my telescope!

That isn't Lazarus by any chance is it Alan? That telescope doesn't have the best of luck!!

1 hour ago, Hughsie said:

But the main issue here is you only live 5 mins from me and it should have been you on the ground with the Allen keys and me watching the laptop screen!

Ha ha, well I’m more than happy to help out for the “final tweaks”, I might learn something for when I collimate my RC6!

Interesting to see the image was at the native F8, not bad for 34 minutes and better image scale too I guess? Just realised my RC6 is an F9, but the RC8 is an F8. Wonder why?

That looks excellent John, I think you might have finally nailed the collimation. 

Lovely report of your visit. 

9 hours ago, FLO said:

Tele Vue will happily repair and restore a TV eyepiece or telescope, regardless of age. So if you accidentally damage yours, please get in touch with them or your supplier. 

This demonstrates their dedication to their products, and reinforces that Televue products are for life. Good enough reasons to buy from them. 🙂

I’ve often wondered whether remote EAA could be a thing.  I think it’s something I would have to try to see whether it provides the same kind of thrill as a home based EAA system. Sadly, I think even with a simple low cost remote setup, it would still be expensive for our humble EAA needs. 

57 minutes ago, dweller25 said:

I think the draw tube is on the front dust cap for some reason.

Ah yes, well spotted. 

Looks like the draw tube is missing from the focuser, will need some attention at some point.  

Very sad news. 

Great idea John, perhaps we can build this into the “SGL 100”! Great suggestions so far. 

My suggestion is to see a “two in a view” where Jupiter, Saturn, Mars or Venus can be seen in the same field of view as another well known object such as a DSO. I remember seeing Venus lying in the Pleiades and it was a spectacular sight. 

Lovely captures and informative comments. Thanks for the link too! 👍

Nicely captured!

2 hours ago, quasar117 said:

Perhaps there could have been a thin cloud as others have suggested.

I think it must have been something like that; if you saw no belts on Jupiter, something was seriously amiss! 

Could you see the two equatorial bands on Jupiter? 

Well so far I haven’t found another 4” I would rather have bought for the money (I have the Altair Astro version, it also comes branded as Technosky and TS). The Askar 103 triplet does look incredibly good value, and has a tube that can be shortened for using binoviewers without a GPC, so I would definitely have shortlisetd that if it was available at the time, not sure whether I would have forked out the extra though. I’m sure there are other interesting alternatives out there, like this one which, at F11 with FPL53 glass, presents the possibility of even better solar system views than the F7 Starfield, but at the cost of being more unwieldy: https://www.altairastro.com/altair-planeta-101mm-apo-refractor-telescope-13522-p.asp

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

So... it's been a while. What with the terrible weather I've had few occasions to commit astrophotography, but the odd night that has been clear, I've just no interest. Having spent the last 3 years accumulating 20,000 quids worth of kit and building a bespoke 2 pier observatory in my garden..this is a bit of a set back. I've read of others over the years losing interest, and thought 'pah..that will never be me'.. and yet here I am.

There's a clear night tue maybe. So I'm trying to kick-start my interest again. Maybe a wide view with pons brooks ? Any other suggestions ? Sonething to really energise me into the hobby again ? I feel some of it might have been general crappy weather, S.A.D. and stuff..but if it doesn't come back I might have to face up to it. 😕 there's not a lot of other hobbies that cam make use of a solid concrete based roof off shed. 😳

Sorry to hear this @powerlord - hang in there and don’t put too much pressure on yourself. It’s a very common problem and my experience is that it’s rarely permanent, and people find something to inspire them to go out again. I am also going through exactly the same luck of mojo  - I decided to have a six month break from work last September and one of my key goals was to do more observing - well strangely I have done hardly any observing during my time off and have had no desire to go out on the rare clear night. Just don’t know why. But I’m pretty sure my mojo will return and I’m sure yours will. 

I’ve just cleaned some eyepieces which were used during an outreach session last night (people must have really greasy eyelashes!). Whilst checking my other eyepieces in the case I noticed my 38mm Panaview had three or four spots of fungus on the outer edge. After cleaning with Baader Wonder Fluid, the fungus is gone, but there are areas which look like water marks which cannot be removed - I am assuming this is permanent damage to the coating? Interestingly the ‘watermarks’ appear more widespread than the original fungus so I’m wondering if some of the fungus was not visible?

I’m not bothered, I’m pretty sure there will be no impact to the views and it’s a cheap eyepiece anyway, but just wondering what people think. 

PS: I don’t normally remove lenses, but the fungus was creeping under the retaining ring. 

I’ve just cleaned some eyepieces which were used during an outreach session last night (people must have really greasy eyelashes!). Whilst checking my other eyepieces in the case I noticed my 38mm Panaview had three or four spots of fungus on the outer edge. After cleaning with Baader Wonder Fluid, the fungus is gone, but there are areas which look like water marks which cannot be removed - I am assuming this is permanent damage to the coating? Interestingly the ‘watermarks’ appear more widespread than the original fungus so I’m wondering if some of the fungus was not visible?

I’m not bothered, I’m pretty sure there will be no impact to the views and it’s a cheap eyepiece anyway, but just wondering what people think. 
 

How very interesting. I assume this requires fairly accurate tracking to work well. I wonder how ‘real time’ the stacking is - I think it would need to be very fast, of the order of a second or less to recreate that feeling of visual observing and make it worth while going to the effort of squinting through an eyepiece. Even then I assume it takes many stacks to reveal dimmer objects. Not sure about being a replacement for visual eyepiece observing, or a competitor to Night Vision (though hopefully cheaper), but I can see the benefits of the eyepiece view to help quickly setup for some quick and dirty imaging. 

Very interested to see what they have come up with as Unistellar have ditched the electronic eyepiece on their scopes I think. I wonder what the patent is for.

I bought this very scope in order to cannibalise the Starsense unit (which is fantastic by the way). The tripod and mount are next to useless, but the F10 achro optics are actually pretty good, with a passable focuser and RACI diagonal. It’s mostly plastic but very lightweight. Before I removed the Starsense, I mounted the scope on a decent mount and had a nice time using the Starsense app to guide me to various DSOs and doubles. The Starsense now sits on my 102ED but I have kept the 70mm OTA for lending to friends. 

39 minutes ago, Alan White said:

And just to show its not all Refractor mounting, here are my two 150mm Newtonians on the AZ75.

Very nice Alan, the OO looks particularly good on that mount 

I only had a few hours of hazy skies one evening out of three, but still managed to see some good things, mostly through my neighbours' enormous dobsonians.