ukskies

Hasn't made a shred of difference in the hills around my home tho !😆

Yes you are correct, 12 volts x 17 amps is 204 watts. 12v x 17Ah is 204 watt hours capacity. More expensive batteries generally live up to their hype whereas the cheapie ones often don't and they usually live longer too.

As has been said if your hands are anything other than baby soft use the cotton wool. I cleaned my SW 12" mirror with warm water and dish soap, letting the mirror soak submerged for a few minutes then rinsing off with warm tapwater holding the mirror at an angle to lightly pressure wash any grit particles off without harming the surface. I did this 3 times before I even got the cotton wool out and I did what the vids show and stroked the surface gently without any pressure , just the cotton wool weight against the mirror. I then finally rinsed with distilled water with the mirror almost standing on its side and gently blotted the final droplets away with tissue, just the corner of the tissue actually. The finished mirror looked like new. I have recently tried to clean an 8" Orion Optics mirror which had grit particles seemingly glued to the surface and whatever I tried thet would not let go. The only way to remove them would have damaged the coating so be careful how you decide what is important and what is not. An undamaged mirror with a few grit particles will give a better image than a grit free one covered in sleeks from over zealous cleaning. Good luck and be very deliberate and gentle.

As they were suddenly appearing they were most likely exiting the earths shadow into sunlight which made them appear to "appear" First time I saw them a couple of years ago I was driving and they were disappearing at a certain point! It was one of the first starlink launches that afternoon and they were all in a line disappearing at regular intervals clearly under intelligent control. I thought they were alien spacecraft going into a mother ship or something !!😆

After seeing this I can't wait Mike.😃

Lovely scope Stu, do I detect it's not all original?

I have considered removing opposing halves of the figure 8 vanes to leave an 'S' shape, is that what you mean Stu?

Hi guys, yes the thick spider vanes will almost certainly be an issue and they are on the hit list possibly on both scopes. They are not near the top of the list tho as getting the scopes up and running is the first objective and unless things change the little 8" will be first up.

I have just read this thread for the first time and was thoroughly engrossed from beginning to end. What an amazing story, it was like a really good book, you know when you just can't put it down. An absolutely amazing big dob, with stunning workmanship! I'm in awe of your skills building this Mike.

Hi David, thanks for that, there's no rush to re-coat, the 8" mirrors will see light before I do anything, The 10" will probably also see light as is but only to help assess the mirrors. this will be my first attempt at re-figuring and I can't wait. Due to current circumstances this is still a few months away tho so don't get too excited. My problems are mainly logistics in the garage/ workshop which has become a storeroom for a lot of stuff left over from when we downsized into this current home, it needs sorting and then I'll get my workshop back complete with my newly built bench for optics testing. Other jobs will be done in the meantime during the clear out to upgrade the 8" a little.

Some pics of the 250. I don't think it's ever done much work, there's hardly any marks on the dovetail. Note the collimation knobs! 🤣

I've just taken a few more pics. This is the very nice tube cradle for the 8L.

I've always wanted to try an 8"f8.😉 Great planetary newt with a small central obstruction.

Thanks Mike, yes I'm very happy with both purchases, I'm out £135 for the two scopes atm tho more will have to be spent to get them up and running it's still a no brainer compared to the cost of blanks and starting from scratch. I see you are soon to be a close neighbour?

Thanks David. I should probably start a new thread for the rebuild in the DIY Astronomer forum?

Yes, that's how I understand it, the diffraction is spread (diffused?) over more of the image but much weaker and thus less noticeable than the more conventional 4 vane spiders produce, proof of the pudding is however yet to be sampled.

I have no idea but as they are curved they may not be too bad. One thing tho that secondary wont move a thou in any direction, it's very well located.

A few pics of the 8L.

Last year, as I was getting nearer to retirement age I decided that once I hit the 66 I would go down to part time working allowing some time to be spent on things I want to do. One of these things is making a telescope mirror, yes I'm a budding glass pusher. I have managed in the last 6 months to purchase a couple of smaller mirror blanks from Terry at Vacuum Coatings, one Pyrex 8.75" and one Suprax near 200mm with a view to having a bash at it. About 3 months ago I saw a project telescope for sale on UKABS, it was an old Orion Optics Europa 10" F4.8 1200mm FL from the 1990's with green trims on the (very) white tube, it also came with rolled tube rings and dovetail bar to match (green), the vendor wasn't too far from me but rather than put a price was asking for reasonable offers. I left it for a few weeks undecided and finally decided to contact him. The mirrors were not in the best of condition as the scope had been standing unused in a shed and looked like they would need re-coating, I immediately thought if the price was low enough of these mirrors (prob Pyrex) were basically preformed blanks for re-figuring. they are already ground and polished so it's going to be a lot easier than starting from scratch right? I went to view the scope as he was only asking £45 so I brought it home and put it in the garage. If you're reading this, Thanks again Lee. I plan to build a Foucault tester and have all the materials to hand for this and most of the materials I need to build a powered turntable for the mirror. There are some dents in the tube to address though it doesn't effect functionality and I have decided to stip, re-figure and re-coat the primary, either re-figure or replace the secondary and build my own Dob mount for this scope. I think it will make a very nice, lightweight 10" for a bit of general use and portable to some nearby dark sky locations. I will probably do a thread on it just to amuse you all because, well I hate being the only one laughing at me! 🤣 Finally the reason for this thread..... Well I've only gone and done it again!!! 🙈 Yes, another ad on UKABS that sat there for a couple of weeks, another OO reflector, this time a VX8L F6 and I've always fancied an 8" Dob. This one took a two hour drive but a quick look (well that's all you get isn't it?) showed it to be in almost unmarked condition. The focusser was a 2" single speed affair and felt horrible and a look down the tube showed a nice reflective primary., it also came with nice white rolled rings and a dovetail and I paid the vendor 90 quid for this nicer , newer scope. I decided on arrival home to inspect the glass and the mirrors were filthy and i stripped the focusser and adjusted the grub screws so that it runs smoothly. The mirror is labelled march 2004 and I have today attempted to clean it but there are many stubborn particles that simply won't give up their grip and any further work is almost certainly going to damage the coatings. The mirror is also looking like another candidate for future re-coating and may also get re-figured too however I had kind of hoped to give this scope a bit of light first and star test it. I still think this is possible but for now the primary is sitting in a sealed container as I am planning to upgrade the mirror cell to a 9 pointer and to relocate the poorly positioned collimation bolts and actually re-build the cell accurately as intended. This will centre the mirror in the tube too as it sits slightly off centre due to the cell halves not quite lining up. Anyway as I'm prepared to tinker, desired to have a go at glass pushing and being quite handy and practical I believe that these used OO scopes are exceptional value as projects for re-building and I also think it's nice in this modern throw away world to rescue something and breathe new life into it.

Don't saw the cat in half!😆

Yes Thank you Nicos, I'm looking forward to that first light report myself already. Hopefully i'll get it sorted sooner than later. No doubt I will need the assistance of the collective again before I'm finished.

Can I just thank all of you in this brilliant forum for your helpful well meant contributions. Weighing up the pro's and cons your posts have helped me to decide to stay with the Takahashi FC100 DZ. The costs of securely mounting the 125 is so much higer than the Tak that the savings on the optical tube are cancelled out by the costs for the mount to a large extent plus it will never be a Takahashi. I'm going with my heart this time and thanks again.

Thanks I think you're right Nicos but I will have to have the clamshell just because. 😃 I'm not overly impressed with the straight through finders, they are very uncomfortable to use.

Do you know I'm right with you here, That Tak will give me years of enjoyment and my heart want's it. It will mean I have to save a little more and for longer but it is, for me at least a dream scope. Not sure the 125 will ever make me feel that way as good as it may be. I will save a lot on the mount too so going for the 125 may not be the best way to go financially.

Hi Deadlake, thank you and my apologies, I meant to reply earlier. The problem is I really want an FC100DZ and the jump to 115 isn't quite enough to make me change that thinking tbh, I'd prefer the Tak 100 to a lesser 115 I think. The 125 at just over half the cost does though I'm still favouring the Tak.