RobertI

Really super sketches. 👍

Looks great Paul. A six inch F8 dob is a is a very versatile and hugely capable instrument. I’ve had some tremendous views through my 150PL, particularly DSOs and close doubles. And of course it’s really quick to cool down.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with this. 👍

Perhaps not a bargain as such, but I reckon SkySafari is incredibly good value considering the depth of functionality, usability and the fact that you can also use it to remote control telescopes over wifi or use with Celestron’s Starsense.

Some droolworthy telescopes here to be sure, I’d love a really big frac in an observatory in my back yard, but to be honest, I’d prefer to use my 4” APO on top of that mountain in Chile!

This thread could get interesting….. 😉

I think my worst astro purchase was two nights at Kelling Heath Star Party - totally clouded out and not a star in sight! 😆

I think the people in my queue would have been happy to see Saturn through a toilet roll tube! 😆

Nice choice. My initial reaction was an 8” SCT or Classical Cassegrain might fit the bill for you, but the F4 newt sounds like a very capable alternative and cheaper too I imagine. I’m guessing that collimation isn’t such an issue for most DSOs. Very interested to see how you get on with it.

The youngest was around 7 years old, there were also a group of teenagers on a field trip nearby who turned up (I loved their noisy enthusiasm), and also adults all the way to their 80’s I would guess. So a good cross section. 🙂

I helped out with an outreach event last night run by the Dedham Vale Society at Flatford. Skies were clear and I met a lovely group of fellow astronomers who also had their kit available. When night fell around sixty people turned up to look through our scopes, at one point I had a large queue of people waiting to see Saturn. Without fail each person peered into the eyepiece and let out a loud “Wow”. Saturn really is a memorable object to see and some people came back for a second and third view. We packed up at 10:00, by this time the dew was heavy and the mists hanging like a ghostly should over everything. Fortunately the dew heaters worked perfectly to keep the eyepieces and corrector plate free of dew. A very enjoyable evening all round.

Interesting to hear what’s happening on CN, but making these kinds of claims is always going to be contentious, and probably best avoided on SGL in my opinion. Although Stellamira are very good, I’d point out that there are a wide variety of excellent refractors available in Europe that could be added to the list! What is it you prefer about the Svbony 80 to the Astrotech?

Very nice! What does WT stand for? The smaller scope is vey fast at F5.7

Can’t you unbolt the arm of the AZ5 and pivot it to the other side - that way the finder shoe should be at the top when you mount the scope?

I think this webpage may be incorrectly calculating the effect of the pupil diameter / age - according to it, the older I get the dimmer the stars I can see. Can’t be right can it? Apart from that, it’s very useful. 🙂

Well done for getting the Veil so clearly, good result. 🙂

Exciting times!

Did you it getting working ok again? I had a similar problem, but realised I had the time and location set to my holiday destination in Turkey, and it worked fine after that. I did have one issue last time out where it failed to find stars pointing towards the square of Pegasus, but was fine everywhere else, which was weird, as it’s been 100% reliable apart from that, even in moonlight. But pointing the scope in a slightly different direction picked up stars and allowed me to navigate to my target.

Couldn’t agree more! It seems to be a situation where three technologies (mobile phone, Starsense and SkySafari) just work so well together and result in a simple to use product that maximises observing time and minimises hassle (at least for those with compatible phones!) whilst retaining the simplicity and “purity” of manual observing. I’m starting to sound like the Celestron marketing department! 😆

That’s a neat looking solution. A fortunate coincidence that the angle of the finder shoe on the OTA and the angle of the multi-finder shoe produce a horizontal result??

Is the eBay supplier making them to order or is it a one off? If the former, can you post a link? Thanks. (Sorry OP for diverting thread 🙏)

It’s an iPhone 12, and seems to be working, ok at the moment, although it seemed to have trouble recognising any stars in the square of Pegasus the other day, everywhere else was fine

Oh that’s odd, they were still running one in November when I spoke to them a few weeks ago.

Why do stars look so colourful with binoculars? Just been out for a quick session with the 10x50s, and as always, astounded by the beauty of heavens through binoculars. Open clusters in Perseus and Cassiopeia, colourful doubles everywhere, asterisms, galaxies in Andromeda and Triangulum. And all in the time it would have taken me to set up my “grab and go” setup!

Just out of interest, do you think the pillar extension increases the vibration? Im wondering how it would perform if bolted directly to my 1.75” steel tripod for example.