RobertI

26 minutes ago, Lockie said:

several months down the line

That long? 😂

A nice addition to the range, I love my H130, so I'm sure this will sell really well. Being so light the OTA should sit nicely on smaller goto mounts like AZ-GTI too. Shame the OTA doesn't have similar decoration to the 130P, which I rather like as it makes it a little bit different.

6 minutes ago, andrew s said:

I do wonder if the light shield will stop sky flooding looks a bit small to me but maybe there are baffles in the focuser tube?

Unfortunately stray light does get into the focuser tube on the H130P if you're line of sight is towards an illuminated window or streetlight, so I imagine its the same for the H150. I've not worked out whether the stray light comes in via the front of the OTA or around the light shield, probably both. Not a huge problem if you are in a dark spot though or viewing bright objects like moon and planets. I have a simple homemade shroud and dew shield which has solved the stray light problem.

Great vid Chris, nice demo of the imaging capabilities of a budget setup. Nice guitar playing too - you're hired!

17 hours ago, Kathie said:

Hi, sorry for the lengthy cliffhanger. It sometimes takes Unistellar a while to respond and I live in a very cloudy area so it takes a little while to implement. I was most definitely leaning in the direction of replacement so I appreciate the comments.  Then a very interesting thing happened.  They wanted me to take yet another video of the mirror as it went up and down. Then one of using the Bahtinov Mask. I had the mirror assembly out of the telescope 4 times prior,  making various videos for them & running the assembly to full travel and back dozens of times.  After replacing the mirror assembly each time I would again try and focus always to no avail, the center line on the Bahtinov Mask never moved. This last time after replacing the mirror assembly - guess what - yup, the Bahtinov mask worked exactly as it should and I now have focused pictures and round stars. Go figure. They are equally mystified. So big problem fixed, for good I hope.

The focus wheel does turn only 90 degrees counterclockwise and 270 degrees clockwise from the 12:00 position. They explained the 90 degrees is for seeing deep sky at night and the 270 degrees is for seeing "near" objects during the day.

Some software issues to be figured out:

 1.The mislabeling continues but is infrequent, every dozen or so times and always an image I am saving captioned with the label of a different object I had been looking at earlier in the same viewing session whether or not I had saved that earlier object. Unistellar is not sure what I mean even though I have sent pictures.

 2. The goto option for the planets is always greyed out even when they are clearly visible. No one is sure why.

I am going to delete and reinstall the app before the next session to see if that changes anything.

So here are a few images. the Eagle Nebula through the basic telescope then again with the enhanced viewing turned on.

Glad you got the main problem fixed. Very nice image of the Eagle, focus and tracking look very good.

Lovely result Matt. 

Sounds like you have a great setup there and a good location! Nice M51. EAA can be very liberating in so many ways. I got into EAA when I found myself living in the centre of a small light polluted town with no hope of visual observing from my back yard. I had already dabbled with astrophotography and had a very sensitive Lodestar guide cam. I read about some software (Lodestar Live) which allowed people to use the camera view objects in near real time on a laptop, so I downloaded it and set up. Although there were three very bright street lights within 100 feet I was amazed at the results. So simple and so effective. Not only was I observing from my heavily light polluted yard, but I could see REALLY faint stuff and keep a record for good measure. I now have reaonably dark garden and have been doing more visual observing lately so EAA has taken a back seat, but I will return to it in due course and it's reassuring to know I have it available if one of my neighbours decides to install a 1000 Watt security light and destroys my dark sky!!

Just did some UK/US price comparisons, and interestingly in the US, Maks are more expensive than their SCT equivalents, in the UK the reverse seems to be true.  Not quite sure what conclusions to draw (it's late!). 

• Celestron C8 - £1067 in UK, $999 in US
• SW MAK 180 - £805 in UK, $1200 in US
• Celestron C6 - £649 in UK, $599 in US
• SW MAK 150 - £485 in UK, $750 in US

I love that video. Steve Buscemi takes his telescope to be sawn in half by Chris Squire (bassist from Yes). Surreal but entertaining.

58 minutes ago, MattJenko said:

Hi Rob,

To my eyes, its got better contrast, tighter stars and just has an overall crisper feel to the views. Its way more tunnel visioned given the different optical characteristics. The 250px is brighter with the huge aperture advantage, and I use it more than the Mewlon as its a Dob, and I have yet to get a simple AltAz for the Mewlon, but whether its imperfect collimation or something else with the 250px, I just think the views through the Mewlon do it for me. My first light report still holds true : Mewlon First Light

 

 

 

Nice first light report Matt, sorry I missed that (now four years ago 😲). Hope you're getting out under the stars. 

10 hours ago, MattJenko said:

All the secrets coming out. Must limit the visibility of this thread.

1: Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ. Purchased with my wife as we lived out in countryside and wanted to give astronomy a go after years of little interest. Rapidly hooked. Sold.

2: Skywatcher ED80. Bought as a move into imaging was inevitable. Eventually sold after years of loving use. Regret letting it go. Not that I want this model again, I just want this particular scope back!

3: ST80. What a scope. Arguably the most used scope in my whole collection. Has guided pretty much everything.

4: Skywatcher 250px. Sometimes you just have to see for yourself!

5: Altair Astro RC6. Awesome purchase as an ex display from AA at Kelling. Best astro bargain ever.

6: Altair Astro Starwave 60. Despite my best efforts, we sucked as a couple and this one moved on.

7: Altair Astro Wave 115. Bought off a lovely chap down Gatwick way. Now my main instrument. Not letting this go.

8: TS60ED. This scope makes me smile. Keeper.

9: Takahashi Mewlon 180. Bought just because someone was selling it and I wanted something classy. That it is. Imaging with it is "interesting", but the views, my god the views!

TBC...

Nice history Matt. Shame I never got to properly try the 250px when you lent it to me 🙁 Interesting to hear about how good the Mewlon is visually. How does it compare to the 250px?

Azure blue sky + Venus + Luna + earthshine = nature at its most beautiful (even with a lampost in the way )

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

120mm F4.3 newt

Should be a really nice scope for EAA.

Thanks for sharing, looks very promising, should look spectacular when focus sorted. What camera and scope are you using?

22 hours ago, TSRobot said:

Does increasing the exposure time reduce all the coloured pixels? I tried a longer exposure of several minutes to no avail. Might be my bortle number. 

Does the app allow you to view the image in black and white? If so you might find the  coloured noise less noticeable - that has certainly been my experience with my EAA camera, although very different setup. For galaxies it you don’t lose much by viewing in black and white imo. 

14 hours ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

Hello Ciaran yes it was the main primary star with the close separation. Perhaps it was easier because I had seen it with the 12" scope. However, the attached document from Sissy Haas's book on double stars gives more information on splitting doubles.

 Very useful table thanks. It’s interesting to note how the difference between the resolving powers is quite large for smaller apertures, but the difference is quite small for larger apertures, surprisingly the 150mm and 200mm are quite close, although I imagine there are some effects of rounding up and down of numbers. 

Nice report, glad you enjoyed using your scope. 6” is a versatile size for a Newt, especially portable in F5 form - I was after the same scope recently, but ended up getting the F8 version, partly as homage to my old Fullerscopes 6” F8 from the 70’s and partly due to its potential for binaries splitting. I had a similar experience with you on Tegmine during a recent windy session and was surprised by its DSO capability. 

Spectacular, thanks for taking the time to share Stu. 

3 hours ago, Stu said:

not sure why

Perhaps you're worried that people will think you're boasting! That's a lovely selection of fracs.

42 minutes ago, Stu said:

Thank you Robert. Yes, definitely. My skies are not amazing, so I find using a variety of different scopes on the familiar objects I can see well keeps my interest going. I have a range of nice refractors now which I will hopefully continue to compare over the coming months.

I shall look forward to that! I guess the signature area will not accomodate your full list of equipment?

Lovely report Stu, the Zeiss sounds like a special scope. I also find it fun using and comparing different scopes on different objects, adds another dimension to our great hobby.

Very nice results, nice image scale for those galaxies, glad your managing to network and share the hobby with friends during lockdown.

A fascinating and useful introduction with some great resources, thank you Martin.

You've definitely got some structure of the foreground galaxy, I had to look at a version of the Hubble image which has the nearby star in order to orient myself, but there's definitely some structure there.

Beautiful sketch, thanks.

Good news, looking forward to first light. 

Thanks Alan, the sort of list which might encourage me out for some EEA again. Much appreciated.