Ratlet

I was an early adopter of the 3-8mm so I took a punt on their 2" sv223 click lock diagonal and the aluminium carry handle and finder bracket instead. Will be interesting to see how it goes, although at the moment my 102ed is fitted with a 1.25" circle T prism diagonal so I'm hopeful it will be an improvement.

I was an early adopter so I took a punt on their 2" click lock diagonal and the aluminium carry handle instead. Will be interesting to see how it goes, although at the moment my 102ed is fitted with a 1.25" circle T prism diagonal so I'm hopeful it will be an improvement.

If anyone me has been given the royalmail website and a tracking number that doesn't work on it, this works instead: https://t.17track.net/ I ordered stuff from them ages ago and that was the original site they sent then. Although thinking back to it I don't think it updates very often so it's not a great deal of use other than to know that it has actually been shipped.

5, not including vintage lenses. 10" Stellalyra Dob, ST80, 102 ED/F7. Those I'm keeping. Also got a Celesteon LT80 which I need to give to a mate who's daughter has expressed an interest and has bortle 2 skies. And a 130pds which has performed spectacularly for the last 2 years, but has been superceded by the 102ED. It'll need to go for sale but, believe it or not, it was my dream scope lol. Maybe I'll try and build a pocket dob with it.

Have a look for others raw data that has been uploaded and practice your processing. If you've got vintage lenses I could stick some of my data up, though be warned some is pretty bad lol. I'm currently playing with an online Arduino emulator as I wish to build an autofocusser for my scope. The instructions are pretty bullet proof but I prefer to understand what's going on in the background. So far I've made a simulated led flash...

I always transport the mount unlocked because I'm paranoid and want the moral high ground if it breaks lol. I usually balance it through the day in the shed then remove the imaging rig (marked up the dovetail so I get it in the right spot.). When moving I put the Allen key in the hole and that locks... One of the axis in place. That stops the counter weight swinging. I think there is/was a gem28 with encoders, but I've no idea how you would use it manually. The clutch doesn't really clutch. It's more an on/off lock for the motor. As elp said, making sure the mount knows where home is is important. Always zero your home when you power up.

Going to agree. That gentle curve on the roof looks ace. Imagine it will also cut down on the bulk/weight having that style.

There does seem to be a trend now of scopes being optimised for binoviewing, with removable sections. Either that or I'm noticing them because I'm interested in binoviewing. Must say, this one went under the radar till you posted.

A 130mm F5 newt would be another winner for a wide field scope at a lower price. Heritage 130p would do well but (I think) be limited to 1.25" eyepieces. 130pds would be more expensive and require a mount, but let you use 2" eyepieces.

I feel robbed that he used a ruler for scale rather than a tin of beans. Or is that just eyepeices? I thought about getting one of those, but went for a 102 ED. Thank God. My bank balance is suffering enough without a scope that is optimised for binoviewing. And believe me, I've been ogling the binoviewers with both eyes.

I get a thoroughly indecent feeling when I think back to first seeing the veil with my 5" Newt. Did it without a filter first and it was almost like one of those magic eye posters. I could just suddenly see this slight difference in the dark. Almost like a difference in texture rather than colour or shade. Dropped in my SV202 Dual Band (doing double duty as an O3) and it just popped right out. Magnificent. I can't even remember if I tried the dob on it. Or M33. That was a belter. Did a REALLY rough sketch because I was convinced I could see this faint blob but had a nagging doubt. I'd star hopped to it so confidence was low. Came in and checked Stellarium and there it was, the stars lined up. I also like the thought that the photons from stars have been flying through space, largely unimpeded and ignorant of the universe only to end their enterally brief existence on the retina of some teuchter. 2.73 million years of vacuum and sporadic hydrogen atoms, waiting to make a beardy weirdo smile. But, uh... back on topic. Rather than going up by 2 inches for more of the same, have you considered going down a few inches for a wide field view?

I'm with @bosun21. I had a similar experience with a Tair 3 used for imaging here: It was pretty wild with fungus, but cleaned up nicely. Had one of the elements in the wrong way round and you can see the impact on page 2.

Weirdly I was looking athe the same thing. A guy in the us is selling them: https://mwdastronomy.com/wp/product/autofocus-clutch-manual-release/ No idea on the quality, but looks good

Whenever I get carried away about astronomy at work I always make it clear that I have absolutely no idea why looking at various flavours of gray smudges brings me such joy, because that's what most of the objects look like, but it does. But Globular clusters in a big dob is something else. Just spectacular.

I'll guarantee that they did that because they knew someone would have a moan about the scope used lol.

Don't think you'll see a massive difference going from 8 to 10". It's pretty diffuse. I've not seen any detail with my 10" from bortle 4, but that because I've not spent a lot of time trying and as with any issues I have the problem is between the eyepiece and the ground. For me there are some objects that benefit from a wider fov than my dob provides and my 5" newt does better because the shorter focal length (big fan of Auriga open clusters at low power). I think Andromeda would benefit from a wider fov than the 10" could provide as you'll gain more context to make spotting the detail easier.

Since they are lithium ion does that mean if they hit you it would qualify as a salt and battery?

Don't have much to contribute of the light pollution filter side of things, but I'm a big proponent of stacking the moon and sky glow filter with a yellow. I use it all the time when I'm doing planetary and find it helps quite a bit. I like to call it the Baargain Contrast Booster because it's a fraction of the cost of the baader version.

I already work lots of night shift. Does anyone know the carrying capacity of a bat? Would be dead easy to get to a dark sky site. Ooh, but I'd have to give up garlic and replace it with neds. Pretty sure if I tried snacking on some of the locals who are out after dark round me I'd fail a drugs test at work. Swings and roundabouts eh?

Wouldn't that be great? Presumably if your head isn't causing a reflection, then you wouldn't interfere with the light path. You could replace the secondary with an eyepiece. You could do visual with a RASA at F2!

Thanks mate. Would be interested in seeing the control box also, or rather how you've mounted the box that controls the focuser

I think like a lot of things in astronomy they either bug you or you don't really notice them. Generally I don't notice them, but I really started with a newt and moved onto a dob. Just started with a refractor so check back with me in a year and see how I feel (assuming the clouds part at some point). To be clear, they are there, but i don't find they interfere (I've not had one cover a double star yet). I also grew up with Hubble and for me DSO images look more authentic with the spikes. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a trend in a decade or so for spiders making the JWST diffraction pattern. You can't get rid of them but you can make them worse by not having the spider aligned. Stu beat me to some of the links. More discussion here: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/495707-spider-and-secondary-diffraction-what-to-do-what-to-avoid/

That's what did me in for a lot of zooms. The fov generally is quite tight and only gets tighter as you zoom. One of the reasons I like the 3-8mm is it doesn't change. I've got the 8-24mm zoom. Good views but tight fov. Quite a heavy eyepiece though.

I suspect it's too bright as well. Had this for the longest time in 2022 with all the planets when viewing through the 130pds. Any and all contrast was gone and it was almost like someone was shining a light through a picture of the planets. I found that higher power could help, however the eyepiece made a difference. My BST 8mm is great for DSO but for some reason the image it produced for planets has terrible contrast and is 'over exposed'. My 3-8mm svbony at 8mm produced a much better image. I also found that using a cheap yellow and moon and sky glow filter helped, it gives a similar 'cut' to a baader contrast booster but with a yellow cast (it also costs about £10 for both filters. Just get cheap ones). You can also use a variable polarising filter which will dim the view. If you're using a Barlow put one bit in the Barlow and the other on the eyepiece and you just need to rotate the eyepiece to dim the view.

I love my glasses string. I wear a fishing vest when I'm out and if my glasses go in one of those pockets they're effectively gone forever.