RobertI

36 minutes ago, Lockie said:

As a fellow family man it was so nice to have some me time

Ha, don't I know it! I had a business trip away last week and had a night in a Premier Inn - the best night's sleep I have had in years - at home in my overcrowded bed, I have to put up with an elbow* in the back, a foot* in the face and a narrow six inch tract at the edge of the bed on which to sleep! 😁 I shall start negotiations for next year's trip!

* From my 5 year old, not my wife!

Great video Chris, I so nearly went, I had planned to drop the family off at the local castle so I could walk around the show in peace for a while, but I decided that the 340 miles round trip was not worth it for just a couple  of hours. Your video just proves that I should make the effort next year - looked like a wonderful gathering of our astro community. Great to see the retail stalwarts of FLO, RVO, Widescreen and our fantastic UK designers and manufacturers producing some outstanding kit. 
 

oh, love the hat. 😎

Lovely report and great descriptions. You bagged some challenging objects with that modest scope and filter, well done! 

5 minutes ago, Lockie said:

Also, he can't half write a book! I really enjoyed his Skies Dark Labyrinth trilogy.  

Me too. He's also a big fan of Rush, which makes him a top guy in my book.

Lovely report, sounds like you are really enjoying your visual astronomy and tracking down some very interesting objects. Keep sharing!

These are wonderful captures - I'm jealous of your Trius camera, some lovely detail showing through, and interesting comparison of scopes. What exposures did you typically use?

Amazing observations Gav, it must have been wonderful to see the crab like that, and to see the horsehead so easily Must have been a dream! 

A great post Bill with some very useful information and links. I’ve learned about yet another classification of DSO - flat and thin galaxies! Nice captures too, those galaxies are small and faint so pretty challenging. 

Wonderful report Alan, the Ha experiment was very interesting, another plus for NV!

Oh. 😂

There appears to be an update on their website, I am assuming it is for November 2019:

https://www.astrotrac.com/november-update

Cracking images and with such short subs. This has now become my dream scope for EAA! 

Lovely report of what sounded like a magical night. Some beautiful southern objects and I was pleased to note that a few of them are visible from the UK. I shall definitely add ngc247 and ngc1360 to my list. Shame that ngc1365 is just that bit too low though. Impressed you managed to get the HST. 

Well done for trying! It can be demoralising  to get shrugs and blank looks - had plenty of this those in my time too. You never know, you might have planted a seed.....

Great report Nick. Interesting to read about the use of an aperture  mask to improve colour - how does this work?

11 minutes ago, Lockie said:

Darnit! I probably should have mentioned this in the review lol 

😄

On 19/10/2019 at 16:34, Tyson M said:

My mount is perfectly level, but no, I wasnt ending my movements to the alignment star in up and right directions

I would definitely try ending alignments in the up and right directions, made a huge difference on my CG5, which I was ready to trade in until tried this! Admittedly this is nexstar not synscan, but same principle applies. I only polar align roughly and do a 3 star align and the gotos are within about 1/3 degree on nine out of ten objects. 

Great thanks Chris, that adds some useful flexibility to the mount. 👍

They have missed several delivery dates from what I can see, I was told they would be available early February 2019, still no sign. The scope of the mount (excuse the pun) is way beyond anything else they have produced from what I can see and I always felt it was high risk for them -  I really hope they pull it off. 

Cheers Chris. 

Nice review Chris, that gives a really good feel for what this setup is all about. At £175 that's terrific value IMO. A couple of questions: (1) Does the mount have a standard tripod fitting (3/8"?) and (2) do you think a sturdy camera tripod, like the Horizon, would be any better, or does it need something like a 1.75" leg tripod?

Love the beard by the way! 😁

It's just great to see a well run business continuing to innovate and prosper, and giving us even better astronomical goodies and advice!

Great report Martin, those clusters are coming out so well with that setup - I love WBL 692 and 685 - outstanding. I really like the eyepiece view btw, makes it seems more real somehow, hard to explain.

Fantastic detailed report Alan, quite a session - wish I could have been there, almost felt that I was!  Some wonderful objects.

For just 72mm of aperture, you've resolved a lot of stars there, looks promising. I can't answer your question about the cameras though sorry!