Ratlet

That's cracking!  Both the model and the mod.  Got the ideal thing if you want to try imaging your model during a flyby.

23 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Sadly I'm out of action for a week following my (successful) angioplasty. I can't drive for 7 days and I'm absolutely not to pick anything up - including mounts and scopes 🤕

Clear skies too 😭😡

Major surgery should come with a FLO-like sticker "Warning, may contain clear skies".  Hope you are feeling better soon (and follow the Dr's guidelines on waiting!).  Looking forward to the resumption of your reports!

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

I've seen M33 from a dark sky site. I used to be able to see M31 from here until those pesky LED streetlights appeared a few years ago 😡

I can just make out m31 with averted vision on a good night from here.  Wonder what it was like before the LEDs.

Exceptional sketches.

1 hour ago, bottletopburly said:

Taking a punt on a cnc spider vane for my 200pds from AliExpress 

Where did you get these on AliExpress?  Been looking in to something similar

@Elp has pretty much covered everything.

I use mine with a m42-canon adapter then canonzwo filter drawer which gives the correct spacing, however still needed to adjust infinity.  It's not massively uncommon on a lot of older lenses for infinity to be out, but fortunately the takumar 200mm is super easy to adjust.

Stopped down it's an excellent performer.

I will title this image seconds from disaster...

Very light up here the now and couldn't get sufficient stars to polar align until about 23:30, however the mount had a dodgy zero position lodged in it from the last time I used it so when I asked it to slew to Vega, it slewed to try and look at the core of the earth, fortunately I was sat beside the mount before anything collided.  Managed to figure out the issue, but by then the clouds had arrived.

Still, not a complete waste.  Setup was very quick as I've adopted @Elp technique of having everything ready to go, just move the mount, pop the imaging rig on and connect a couple cables.  defo a winner that.

They're great quality and very comfortable to use.  I've got the 12mm and 8mm.  I prefer my svbony 3-8mm for planetary as it gives better contrast, but the 8mm BST is better on DSO due to more comfortable eye relief.

I just got a Morpheus 17.5mm and I see no need to replace any of the focal lengths the Starguiders occupy.  If I'm being honest, I currently prefer the 60° view, but I'm still experimenting and figuring this stuff out.  I do like a nice flat field though and the BST's are great in both my F5 newts.

Everyone's favourite ruler wielding guru had a great review/comparison with Meade hd-60s here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/336709-meade-series-5000-hd-60-vs-astrotech-paradigm-bst-starguider/

Two lens heaters from bhf.  For the princely sum of £10 for the pair.

Presumably some people got lost at some point.  Pretty sure I've done it at least once.

I'm guilty of also posting a snap through the eyepiece of the moon.  Just discovering the magic of lunar observing, but I've found other people's quick snaps to be most informative and very helpful as I've no idea where anything is in the moon (waiting till I need something else from Flo to bulk out the order before I get the duplex atlas)

I seem to remember @Chris and yourself @vlaiv having some really interesting discussions about filter use to reduce chromatic aberration in fast scopes.

Hmmm.  I might take the ST80 out for its first spin.

Very exciting this!  I'm looking forward to seeing what we see.

I found this data which aside from nicely showing the various photmetric magnitudes.

It's impressive how much brighter it is in the IR! ( pink dots) although those observations are 20 years old now.  Details of the wavelength of the dots below:

I wish I hadn't found that AAVSO website.  I feel a dangerously deep rabbit hole opening up.

17 minutes ago, Sarek said:

Looks very good. I hadn't been considering this filter but it does seem to get very good reviews.  Some say its better than the L-eXtreme for halos? Where did you buy this from?

I ordered mine from AliExpress.  Ordered loads of goodies from there with no issue.  I've heard it might be better for halos but I'm not completely sure of the cause so would be reluctant to voice an opinion.

I'm taking my 130pds out tonight so I'll try pointing it at vega and see what it does.

From the cloudy nights thread that particular star is bright in IR.  The hypothesis put forward on the cloudy nights thread is that some filters have a drop off in the IR range blocking which means that the sensor can then see light with that filter.  Applying it to your images the o3 filter would have a drop off in o3 doing but the h-alpha does not.  

If only this star is bright in IR compared to the others then the other stars would not exhibit this phenomena.

To disprove this, imaging with a uv/it cut filter in the train should remove the ring.

Personally I don't know the answer, however this seems an exciting opportunity to so some international science collaboration!  So (clear skies pending) I'm going to setup my 130pda with dual band filter, uv/ir cut window on a 533 sensor and see if I can see it too. 

I'm hoping very much that I can since this would eliminate the IR theory as well as chromatic aberration as I'm using a Newtonian.

We're pretty far from astro-dark up here but you are at a similar latitude so it gives me hope that I'll see something.

I think with the dual band rather than triband filter you get a smaller band pass therefor less light from other sources.  I'm in a similar boat to you (Bortle 4-5 skies, Altair 533 Hypercam which has a built in UV/IR cut filter).  I recently got the SVBONY SV220 filter and it did a really nice job on the horsehad nebula at only 10 x 1minute subs with a vintage Takumar 135mm at F5.6 or so.  The SV220 is a dual band filter with a 7nm cut similar to the Optolong L-Extreme.

I found that it worked very well in my case and gave an acceptable amount of data for the length of time imaging.  I also think that it might have helped with chromatic aberration in my case

What filters are you using?

I did a bit of a deep dive on this because I'm curious.  No definitive answer, but it could be an IR leak in the filter.  ie the OIII filter is letting through some IR light which is causing a halo.  Apparently that star is a bright IR source.

This thread on cloudynights has a good discussion. 

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/845883-rs-cygni-identification-of-unusual-structurenebula-in-oiii-by-ngc-6888-crescent-nebula/

So it has been observed before but only in the last year or so and those who have seen it are still trying to nail down the cause.  My camera has a UV/IR cut filter on it and I do have a dual band filter.  I'm slightly futher north than you but might be able to pop out and try imaging it to see if I see anything.

Had a good few nights of this on the moon.  It works very well.  Imaging the moon quickly is very addictive.  With my 3-8mm zoom you can rotate the holder to adjust then power, the unlock the eyepiece in the focuser and let it rotate back down to keep the zoom locked in.

No real complaints with it.  If you are using android I suggest using proshot from the app store as it lets you manually set the parameters of the image and disable autofocus too.

Think you're going to really enjoy the dob.  Sounds like it might be the same as the Stellalyra 10"?  That's what I've gotten.  My only regret with it was that I got allured by astrophotography at the start of this hobby and didn't buy one sooner.

I think you and Monica are on a winner.  I've yet to actually use the 35mm extension that came with my Stellalyra, so you'll probably not miss it.  

With regards to the weight and bulk, yes it is heavy and yes it is bulky, but you both have obviously used one and are aware but agree that is a small price to pay for the views (I agree, though i use a sack barrow to move mine).

I was going to have a night off.  A quiet night in, but all this talk of dobs has gotten my blood up and I'm going to pop out for a quick look at the moon!

2 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Just arrived. 38a blue, and 47 violet.

Unfortunately, as you can see, they are both the same blue. Sigh. FLO already contacted.

This is how they should look

 

 

The only logical response to this is to get a binoviewer.

Man alive I'm enjoying the moon.  Going to have to get that duplex book.  Seeing wasn't quite as good as yesterday at x200 but it was very enjoyable none the less.  Seems to be a bit less going on along the terminator today than yesterday, but it's surprising how much is still changing on the illuminated side.

Edit:  changed the image as the background was a weirdly glowly dark gray.

I'll need to have a rake around for a usb power hub in the house.  Better safe than sorry.  I'm sure there will be a spare one.  Rather not detonate the camera.  Just means an extra cable to route.

  I'm all mains powered so power consumption isn't an issue.

I was going to have a quick session tonight just because I've managed to get the moon for the past 3 nights.  That was an hour and a half ago.

Threw the dob at it and my 3-8mm zoom.  In the end I threw my BST 2x Barlow at it and it sat happily with x600 power!

Even though there was some persistent wispy high cloud it was incredible.  Craters on the fully illuminated side that felt like they were to size of pin heads and walls of craters that looked like layers on a vienetta ice cream.  Incredible.

Just now, Franklin said:

Plug it in and see if it warms up. 

 

That's pretty sensible tbh.  I can't imagine it'll break the camera.  I have had issues running the guidecam through it but I suspect that because it's trying to pass data along the same cable as the 533 is passing data along.

5 minutes ago, Franklin said:

I think the Hypercam is powered itself from the USB connection, I use a USB powerbank to run the 5vDC dew strips.

Should have said in the OP, hypercan 533.  It's got an external 12v power.

13 minutes ago, Ravi Hegde said:

Thanks. How is the performance of the 130mm reflector for DSO visual astronomy?

I'm very happy with the performance.  It gives good views of everything I've aimed it at so far.   It performs well on planets and the moon too.  My skies are dark so it has worked well on faint objects such as M33.  I still use it frequently.

It is a different beast to the one you are looking at, I'm not sure how much of a difference in mirror quality there will be.

One thing I just realised is that you are looking at a Newtonian on an eq mount.  I've only tried that once (I normally use an alt az mount) I found a reflector on an eq mount to be not great as the eyepiece can end up in some interesting places and heights and can be a bit awkward.

I'm not going to push for reflector or refractor, but just to give my opinion that collimation isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be.

When you are starting you will have so much to learn (I'm still learning) and whichever you choose will most likely bring you joy.  You will have a steep but fun mountain to climb 🙂 but there will be lots of people to help (and help you spend your money)