Ratlet

Mary McIntyre is brilliant.  I used her videos to do sketches of some my astrophotos.

There is a really good Rasc (royal astronomical society of Canada) video on lunar sketching you should check out.

That's a cracking sketch though.  Was that done at the eyepiece or from a photo?  I've not been brave enough to attempt it at the eyepiece.

57 minutes ago, Nicola Fletcher said:

Just that I’ve been binge listening to the Real Astronomy podcast and I think they mentioned it in two episodes today. I felt like the only kid in the room who hadn’t heard of it and I got curious.
 

I have Celestron coloured filters and I really don’t like them. I’ve had some fantastic unfiltered views of the planets through my FC76 and my Starwave 102mm. I’m sure the 100mm Tak will be excellent too but I just wondered if this was some super duper game changing accessory. I had FOMO!!

(Fear of missing out)

Do you mean the Actual Astronomy podcast?  I absolutely know what you mean if you're talking about those guys.  They're brilliant and got me fired up for visual astronomy in a big way.  It's not so much what they say about observing, but how they say it.

If you're happy with the views you're getting them it might not provide that much of a benefit.  I was very much not happy with my planetary experience.  The baargain contrast booster made a big difference for me, but from reading other reports it brought me up to a level that made me able to relate with what everyone else was seeing.  I think if you have a good view (I couldn't easily see banding on Jupiter, it was too bright) it might only provide an incremental improvement.

It does provide a strong yellow cast, but I really don't mind it as it always makes me think of the gas planet images from the early 90s.

@Louis D I think put me on it.  He does a lot of really interesting testing with filters.

4 hours ago, wesdon1 said:

@RobertI May I ask, Rob, are you a school teacher or university professor? The reason I ask is you dealt with the weather problem so constructively and positively, unlike myself ( I'm a builder! LOL ) who just starts whining and complaining! LOL.

I've wanted to buy Bino's for a while, so after reading this i'm going to finally take the plunge! Thanks Rob!

Constellation binos are the dogs danglies.  It's like having bionic eyes.  They're not something you would use every night, but they're one of those things that you'll be glad you had if you had them.

I can't comment on the Baader contrast filter, but:

I view with a 130pds 5" Newtonian reflector and use a "baargain contrast booster".  It's a cheap yellow and 'moon and skyglow' filters used at the same time.  literally the cheapest filters I could find on eBay with threads on both sides of the glass.

The difference it made to the contrast was, to me, astounding on Jupiter and Mars.  I struggled previously to see much beyond a washed out image (it was like someone had put a picture of the planet over a torch and I was looking at that), but using the filter showed much more detail and on a night of really good seeing it was like looking at a tiny photo.

I'm a big proponent of it lol.  It costs like £12 and was a bit of a game changer for me.  Your milage may vary.

I got the Stellalyra 10".  My only regret is I didn't get one sooner.  Very well made and a pleasure to use.

I did upgrade the az bearing on mine and it does provide a better experience but the bearing that comes with it is very smooth anyway.

It feels very well built and the dual speed focuser is very nice to use.

15 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

I got it used but this is the one

The Starsense 80 focuser is a bit plasticky but has a long focus tube.  Hence fitting another focuser may need the use of an extender or 2" diagonal. Waiting some clear skies to really try the Celestron out properly - it's a lot lighter than the Lyra 102mm achro I'm aiming to use the Sabre/Starsense setup with.

Cheers for that.  If you do get out with it and give it a good run, please post an observing report and let us know.  Couple people have said the optics are actually pretty good.

15 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Extended my Altair Sabre/Tripod setup with an EQ6 extender from RVO:

 

And an 'as new' Omegon 2" Diagonal from Ebay. May have been a demo product as pristine inside with just a nick in the nosepiece.  Needed this to extend the focus length on the GSO focuser now on the Celestron Starsense 80 refractor. I had the focuser on an ST80 and moved it to the Celestron, together with some decent scope clamps, so the ST80 is back to its original setup.

 

Apologies for extending this wet/cloudy weather period (it must end soon surely).

Do you have a link to the focuser?  I've been enjoying my ST80 and will be picking up a Starsense 80 in a month of so.  Could be a nice wee upgrade

14 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Here's the base on the bearing.

And here's the whole thing.

No space left over 

These bearing do come dry, so you have to grease them. Once done you can tighten the central knob as much as you need and it remains really smooth.

I should probably have checked mine.  Never greased it lol.

I stuck a teflon pads (b&q ones for sliding furniture) stuck back to back in the the centre.  It provides just a hint of friction when tightening the central knob and was just the right thickness.

It's always weird when you try to explain nice doubles.  I'm not sure what the criteria is but some of them just look amazing!  I'll need to check these out.  Next purchase is going to be a Starsense and hoping to get more doubles in with it.

Great report and delighted you got some clear skies.

I suspect that at least on the short term, a 1.25" will do.  Is there likely to be a difference between a prism and a dielectric?

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

You ideally need to use the starsense on an Alt/Az mount. I tried it on my EQ mount and i couldn’t contort myself enough to even see if it was working not being on the level. I hastily abandoned the idea and put it back on my dobsonian.

 

That's a good point I hadn't thought about!  

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

Perfect match for a Starfield 

How do you use the eq5 with the scope?  I'm going to migrate to Starsense and trying to figure out a way of doing manual aiming with tracking when on target.

I'm planning on picking up a Starfield 102 fpl-53 in the future and considering what additional kit I'll need.

At the moment I've got a circle T prism diagonal which (to my eyes) works well with my ST80 but wondering if a dielectric would work better with the bigger scope?  I'm currently on a 1.25" diagonal so a 2" might be useful, but most of my eyepieces are 1.25".

I should have gone to bed...

An impromptu BBQ at a friedns filled me with melancholy as the skies were pretty poor but the cold chased us inside and by the time we had walked home I was greeted with the familiar horizon spanning field of stars.  The only thing affecting the view was 7 cans of hazy IPA.

I risked setting up the ST80 and azgti in manual mode.  I had already managed to set off the car alarm and didn't want to risk the coffee grinder slews of the azgti and trialled M13.  The view was probably on bar with my first observation last year with the 130pds.  Better than nothing but making me long for the dob. 

M31 was similar: a fuzzy blob and not much else.  Perhaps I could see a satellite galaxy, perhaps it was brewdog.  

A bit 'nor good but good enough' alignment got me on m57 and despite the lack of detail, I was still happy with it.  This was the first time in months that the sky has been clear enough and big enough and dark enough that I've felt familiar and been able to eyeball the scope with an red dot.

I decided to check round the side of the house and clocking a lone bright dot I didn't need skysafari to know what was there.  The 32mm plossl showed a bright oblong.  I skipped the 12mm BST and went for the 3-8mm svbony.  I went for broke and wrapped it right up to 3mm.

Saturn in all its glory.  The angle isn't the best and a 400mm focal length scope isn't going to show much of detail but man I've missed the planets.  The seeing was great (considering the equipment) and it looked almost like a star trek badge. Bloody marvelous.

The weather has been dire for so long but it's amazing how quickly you forget about the gaps in observing and focus on the observing.  I just wish I had thrown the observing chair in the car.

On holiday in Aviemore and as a last-minute effort I chucked the ST80 that has been languishing, unloved since the start of the year, over shadowed by the dob.

This is the first refractor I've looked through in a decade.

In terms of observing it was a bit of a bust.  Setup the azgti the wrong way round.  The focuser is, to be frank, awful.  However the image was phenomenally sharp.  Albireo was phenomenal.

This is going to do nothing to help with the number of times I go the Starfield 102 site on flo.

31 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

Thanks Ratlet, I've done a test indoors with the EAF conected to the main camera and will see if additionally connecting the guide camera (ASI 120MM-mini) works under the stars. A friend has sucessfuky run his guide camera, a 224 through his ASI 533MC-PRO along a single USB cable and which has prompted me to just try.

Cheers,

Steve

Hmmmm, I might have to try again.  A couple of my cables are pretty cheap and old.  That might be the issue.

Never thought of testing indoors though.  That's a good shout.

I had issues in the past trying to run my guide camera through my Altair 533 camera.  Hopefully it'll work in your case, maybe better internals on the zwo, but it frequently lost connection for me.  You'll know quick enough either way.

I'm going to level with you all.  The lack of clear skies is probably the only reason I've stuck at this.

I have a bad habit of getting obsessed with my hobbies and then doing it constantly until I begin to lose interest.

The drip feed of clear nights is just a constant tease that keeps me hungry to get the scope out.

On balance though, this summer has been pretty dire.  Fortunately last summer was even worse and on balance at 56° north there are worse things to lose than civil darkness/nautical darkness observing.

Let's just hope the universe continues to remain consistent...

Does the Starsense require online access to do the plate solving or is it all done on the phone?

1 minute ago, Louis D said:

I ask because I'm used to uninstalling a license from an older machine and reinstalling it on a newer machine as with Photoshop.  Apparently, that's not how Starsense works.

That is a bit disappointing.  I'm kind of used to software on mobiles linking to the account rather than the device, or with desktops as you describe.

Still, going to pick up a Starsense at some point.

6 hours ago, Rodd said:

Good question. I’ll have to look. Computer is at the scope currently. 

Someone posted a planetary looking nebula in Cygnus a while back.  It showed up more strongly in O3 than Ha.  Did a bit of digging and it turned out it was an IR leak in the O3 filter combined with that particular star being something like the 6th brightest IR source in the night sky.  Basically caused a halo as the IR was poorly focused compared to O3.  That particular star was a variable and was easy enough to find magnitude info on visible and IR wavelengths.

Not saying that's what it is in this case (given that the object isn't circular and after post processing appears to have lobes rather than being circular) but it's something to eliminate.

If your imaging train has an IR/uv cut filter in the train then it won't be that.

I love these mysteries.  Love it.

How does it appear in each individual wavelength?

I like the narrowband channel.  Seems very much a 'perfection is the enemy of good' sort of attitude.

RASCanana probably does qualify as an adtroinfluencwer, but their videos are great.

Yeah, the camera definitely has a fault.  I picked up a 533 Hypercam last year from Altair that had a similar issue (with the amp glow) and was asked to return it.  I'd get in touch with SVBONY and sort out a replacement.

I run my 533 at -5C and it just don't care.  Produces acceptable images really easily.  

Something I discovered that isn't frequently mentioned is that the small sensor effectively pre-crops images.  I used mine with a 130pds and honestly a coma corrector would provide minimal benefit.