glowjet

"My Very Elderly Mother just Sat upon Nine porcupines", that used to be an old standard mnemonic for the Planets. Now I suppose we shall have to change it with an ending something like "Sat Upon Norman" with Pluto being downgraded. Very useful though, I made up my own for remembering the main stars in the Pleiades : "My Mothers Elderly Aunt Alice plays the Cello atrociously". Merope , Maia, Electra, Atas, Alcyone, Pleione, Taygeta, Celaeno, Asterope. you can do it for anything you want to remember, helps the little grey cells, especially when age is getting the better of you lol

John.

Astronomers the World over will be saddened at the news of the passing of the great man, through his inspiration many to-day enjoy the hobby because of his enthusiasm for the subject. The BBC Sky at Night has lost it`s foundation stone, I only hope that they respect his memory and continue what he started.

RIP Sir Patrick.

That is most interesting Steve, that means, if I am right, it joins the Losmandy types that you can manually " shove to " without losing tracking or in this case encoder data. At under £200 that might just put a dent in the Prodigy market

John.

Another heads up for small amounts of stainless Metric cap head screws and nuts. A Bolt ( A Bolt From The Blue ) sells the smaller sizes in quantities of 10 for less than £1 post free.

John.

The neatest replacement idea I have seen on these threads in the past is a series of tight fitting rubber O rings. Chinese rubber is something of a mystery, but there is one thing for sure it does not last long

John.

I have recently been dealing with a company called "Grove Components" they deal with such as hard to come by UNC/UNF, BSF,Cycle, metric etc, in stainless threaded rod, cap screws, bolts and many other bits and pieces, involved in old British car restoration work.. A 12" lenght of 1/4" UNC threaded rod for my Barn Door project was very reasonably priced

John.

As this is only a very temporary thing while the Soc is repairing the finder, you might try the Blue Peter approach, two blobs of bluetack on the top of your scope tube, one at the front, the other at the mirror end, then insert a couple of short small diameter nails with a large head, or you could use a small screw eye at the mirror end, paint the tips with tipex or white paint. Set your scope up, focus on a distant object till it is in the center of the FOV, than adjust your pins till the tips align on the target as you sight along them just like a rifle. If you shine a red light on them at night you should see what you are about and get fairly close to what you want to look at, this is just an idea and could work for you, have fun

John.

Hi Mr Binary and welcome to SGL, ToxoLight`s welcome message made me laugh, but very true though, enjoy your Astronomy

John.

To give you some degree of perspective, Charles Messier did most of his work, when he created his lists of objects to avoid, with only a refractor of some 3/4" bigger objective than yours, and the quality of Glass would not be in the same ballpark, but he would have had nice dark skies. If your interest lies with Planets, double stars etc, then a good Orthoscopic ep would serve you well, something in the Circle T or better, the Badder Orthoscopic MC range, these often appear on the s/h market and you should see a major difference compared to the H ( Huygen ) and K ( Kellner ) eps you have, or for general work or some good quality Plossls in various powers

Eddy, if you Google the scope you will find a lot of info and some good write ups from the Cloudy Nights forum, but at the end of the day, what you have purchased seems to be the Achro cemented doublet and not an ed/apo as advertised, as you want it for AP, although I have not ventured into the dark side yet, from what I have read you may encounter some colour problems with your end results. As has been pointed out, if you want to change your mind, you have recourse to challenge the seller and recover your money

Hi Steve, As for your shellac, this should be obtainable from John Boddy`s fine wood and tool store in Boroughbridge in North Yorks

John.

You all do realise, of course, by this very imaginative DIY of red lights that you are taking the bread out of the mouths of the Astronomy retailers who are trying to earn a meager crust during these very hard times, we could end up being flooded with unused red torches, something els the European Common Market will no doubt have to legislate for, he he he Happy New Year everyone

If you want some encouragement have a look at Gina`s obsy build, now theres a lady who has gone it alone and for which I for one, have full admiration for her achievements

The government is helping to curb this fever by having to introduce the current financial climate for us all, we should all write to the PM ( Prime Minister not Sir PM ) and thank him

I have a pair of Jap, Carlton Adlerblick 10x50, superb optics, also 15x70 Celestrons, will be in the market for 25x100 when I have finished my parallelogram mount

John.

American astro equipment is often put together with imperial nuts and and bolts, BSW , BSF etc, this causes problems when you want to adapt or alter things, a good source for these products in stainless steel, and reasonably priced for small quantities, can be found at : stainlessautomotivefastnings.co.uk

In case anybody wants a good deal on small quantities of stainless goods, the eBay shop, Tek Hardware, is about the best, massive stocks of all types, the only place I could obtain some of the old type penny washers in stainless, post free.

John.

Hi Claire, a warm welcome to the SGL forum from North Yorkshire,

John.

Hi,Paul,

A very warm welcome to SGL, hope you enjoy our company.

John.

Hi Revs,

A very warm welcome to SGL, hope you enjoy our company.

John.

Hi Pozdrav,

A very warm welcome to SGL, hope you enjoy the forum.

John.

Hi Kevenh,

Welcome to SGL, hope you enjoy the forum.

John.