Ratlet

8 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Welcome to the forum .... have to say the starfish cluster is one of my favourites 

Mine too.  The feel of it changes completely at different powers.  Corker for the first session.

Think I might have a late one and see if I can catch M3.  One of the first globs I saw with the big dob and always a treat!

Depends on the item really, I usually ask for additional pictures for any optical equipment as well as any photos with blemishes.

Big ticket items I normally collect in person.  I did get a 102F7 ed earlier this year that was couriered.  That was honestly pretty scary.  Seller (on here) packaged it really well but never doubt the ability for a courier ape to break something.

Honestly, if it's not urgent you are better waiting for it to show up on the forum as you'll almost always get the beat price and top notch condition to boot.

1 hour ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

... true but you cant eat the EP 🤣

I mean, you probably could.  Once 🤣

Great review.  Do you think you'll add to it when the planets get back on display? 

12 hours ago, bosun21 said:

What motor in an ASIAIR?

Motor in the eaf

I was looking at stepper motors for use in a focuser over the weekend.  Found something very similar to the motor in an asiair, however it is unipolar rather than bipolar.  Was going to order one to see if the motor can be modded to make it bipolar.  Theoretically possible, but potentially not worth the hassle.  Would help keep the weight down though as the 120 reduction means you get more oomph from a smaller motor.

I had something similar happen with my gem28.  Came very close to ripping the power cord out of my camera sideways.

Basically it got confused about where home was* (my fault) so why I moved it to manually it thought it was point about 90° away from home.  I'd then move it to a new target and it would completely miss, and eventually went for the legs.

Is there a feature like 'set home' position on the software?  Gem28 has a version called set zero position.

*By got confused I mean I had been imaging with a side by side mount and swapped to a normal mounted scope.

Out of curiosity, is this field curvature?

This was taken through the svbony 3-8mm whilst testing my moveshootmove phone holder.

Never noticed it at the eyepiece with my 130pds, so I assumed it was because of the phone lens.

Still a great eyepiece.  Think this will be the default 'beginner planetary eyepiece' If you don't wear glasses.

I've got tomorrow off.  Hoping it stays clear and I can get out with the 102.

Also hope it stays clear for the rest of you.  Strong aurora tonight.  Still to bright up here tho

I'm a big fan of the svbony 3-8mm but if you wear glasses I'm not surprised you don't get on with it.  Very tight on the eye relief.  I'll still rather use my starguiders for DSO as it's just more comfortable.  I also find it brighter.  Only 60° fov.

The Morpheus are winners though, although they are quite heavy compared to other 1.25" eyepieces, but they are very comfortable with glasses.

F5 is so easy I can do it.

You can always get more data with an F5 you can collimate than one you can't.

I don't image with my 130pds often (because it's really quite good for visual and I love visual) but when I have a £13 laser collimator works every time.  Every time.

But the flip side of imaging is thus:

"He had acquired good data.  That's when his problems started"

43 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Er, why would my pc performance make a difference on reading a guide?

Also what is jtol ?

I think he means it'll take about 30 minutes to process your images the first time and once you get the hang of it, and with a decent computer you can do it manually pretty quickly.

I tried figuring out how to run scripts, but in all honesty doing the manual siril guide linked is easy and gets updated.  It also tells you why you are doing the steps as well as alternatives.  You get really fine control so you can mix and match different processing, stack sizes etc. and get the best out of your data.

I find a greedy session helps if I've not been imaging in a while.  Don't worry too much about getting a target, but rather try to get a little data on a few targets.  Less of a blow if the session gets cancelled early or you have technical issues.  Sometimes it can be interesting to see what you can pull with only a half hour or an hour of data.

11 hours ago, YogSothoth said:

I’ve only managed four sessions this year and observed the sun three times. Oddly, I seem to have clearest skies during a full moon. 

I've long maintained that the clearest skies are +/- 3 days of. Full moon.

Depending on the size of your 3D printer and enclosure can be pretty simple to make.  I built mine out of a couple of IKEA lack tables 

I went for a prusa mini+.  Small print area, but I rarely need to print larger items than it can handle (so far at least).

It's a bit long in the tooth now (an older design, although prusa still support it, they've just released input shaping which makes it much quicker) but I've heard good things about bambu.

It is a good hobby.  I like designing parts.  Especially useful in astronomy as quite simple parts seem to have lots of zeros attached when you buy them in this hobby.

1 hour ago, saac said:

I enjoy the physical side of using Arduino and building the kit but I do not have a head for coding. I used to find it ok but now I just don't seem to be able to find  enough motivation to learn the syntax and commands. ChatGPT, You Tube and Instructables are my Arduino project friends. I was quite chuffed with the digital setting circles we made for the school Dob, the coding was all the work of a very gifted pupil while I did the hardware side   My next project is to try out an all sky camera but I may use a Raspberry Pi for that - lots of examples available for me to learn from  

JIm 

If you ever have the time could you make a post showing the digital setting circles?  Sounds really cool.

19 minutes ago, saac said:

You are going to have a mass of fun with that. Don't forget that you also get the likes of ChatGPT to write some scripts for you to help out with the learning process. Despite ending up buying a ZWO autofocuser I went down the road first of building one using the arduino - well worth it and great fun. 

Jim 

I'm having fun already 🙂.  Thus far I've made a variety of flashing lights, but I'm getting there.  For some reason electricity has always eluded me so it's kind of a challenge to myself this year to understand it.

Also got an eq platform on the build list and maybe an onstep setup.  The really nice thing about it is that I can potter with it whilst it rains!

Edit:  chat gpt is a godsend.  Especially when you can ask a question and then either ask it to rephrase it or (in my case) just say 'make the answer dumber'

I bought a cheap yi webcam (had it already to be fair) and with a wrap of craft foam it fits perfectly in the 2" focuser.  This let me do my secondary position as you can get software to overlay circles on the live image.

Positioning the secondary is something that needs doing/check infrequently so it works for me as it's cheap.

After that it's the laser.  I got a cheap one of Amazon.  Just need to check the collimation or the laser every so often and all is good.  Takes seconds to check the collimation at night.

I'd question whether you will get much bang for your buck going from 10" to 12".  Why not look at quality of life improvements for the 10"?  Like an eq platform so it tracks targets or picking up a cheap starsense scope so you can scavenge the starsense off it for easy push to.

Jeepers.  I can see some people on CN having a sense of humour prolapse over this 🤣.

I thought it was cracking.  A slow build up to an increasing level of catastrophe.

I suspect I need to improve my humidity control in the shed.  I put a telgizmo cover over it to keep dust off but I'll start more rigorously putting dehumidifier packets in to keep the humidity under control.

Oh dear.  1 year up the shed and the 10" is being eaten!  Didn't want to be spending my Monday cleaning my mirror but I think this needs to be dealt with.

Looks good now it's be cleaned, but I think some of the coating might have been damaged slightly.  Looks absolutely fine but the water beads on it rather than runs off, so either they've damaged the coating or deposited something on it.

How is it falling off?  I found with my quickfinder it stuck to the dob fine, but it wouldn't stick to the plastic.  If you aren't using the findershoe, or have a spare one on the dob I can print you up an adapter for it.

https://www.printables.com/model/55851-telrad-dovetail-mount

Or I could do something like this:

https://www.printables.com/model/116497-telrad-reflex-sight-mount-for-telescopes

And you could use straps to hold it on.  Or I could give it a larger surface area where it meets the mount so it will stick better.

If you buy a model that is not conductive to having barrow wheel/handle fitted myself and @bosun21 used a sack barrow with a fold out toe for moving our dobs (he put me on the idea).  Only mod needed is some slightly longer rubber feet so you can get the toe under the dob.

I find it very easy to setup when moving from the shed and a bungee cord stops the tube from moving around.