Ratlet

7 minutes ago, nige745 said:

Thanks for the info, it's really good to know. I think the hobnob tax is a must and very reasonable! 😃

I don't have a printer myself but could get access to one through work.

That's good to hear.  Hopefully you also have access to chocolate covered hobnobs (or their superior Aldi brethren)

An alternative mounting method for the SSE holder is this one that I designed:

https://www.printables.com/model/559841-starsense-explorer-finder-shoe-mount-holder

It doesn't require anything to be removed from the donor starsense telescope, and had a marginally lower profile.

I've done a few for people on the forum (cost +postage +hobnob tax), or if you have your own printer you can print your own 

9 hours ago, Elp said:

I know he reviewed the SVbony sv220, and he said just get it for the price, comparable to the Optolong lextreme. I have the latter so no need for it but would be an option if I didn't. The cheapest I saw it was around 60 for the 1.25 inch version but it's gone back up since, promos come around often.

I've got the 2" sv220.  Not done a huge amount of imaging with it.  I realised it works for OIII for visual and have been using it for that ever since lol.

1 hour ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Sshhhhh

Fixed 😇

In the same way that every tool bag needs a hammer, every eyepiece case needs a 32mm plossl.

1 hour ago, Elp said:

Get the agreement of how they'll ship in writing/email. The issue I have is that the prices aren't really any different from UK prices. Sometimes brands will outright refuse to supply directly due to pre existing local distribution agreements, otherwise companies would be going out of business left right centre. You can save a considerable sum by importing, but sometimes you weigh up local service and local warranty as a priority, especially for higher priced items.

Absolutely.  I've noticed that named brands tend to as expensive, if not more expensive that buying local.  The only time there is a saving is if it is something where they are a generic item that just gets minor tweaks or the name on the case changed.  Big ticket items I would have to have as serious think about, but for a full blown scope, I'd sooner go local second hand or just bite the bullet and go for FLO/Altair.

20 minutes ago, Elp said:

VAT is applicable on any value just as it is inland (obvs not VAT exempt items). You can import up to £135 value of item+shipping import DUTY free but VAT will still apply and the value needs to be under that threshold after VAT has been applied (so an item £134 pre VAT will go over once VAT has been added). Duty will therefore be added on top of orders of £135+ plus the handling agent/courier will also charge a small processing or handling fee (if duties are applicable on the item being imported the percentage can be found on the .gov commodity code website database, all items being shipped internationally need a commodity code or HS code to comply with exportation rules, you'll find couriers will refuse packages without this as well as attached invoice paperwork, some circumvent this via their supplier systems or however they process the packages I noticed this with my recent SVbony order). Applicable fees gets even more complicated for very very large consignments but isn't applicable for this case.

So to simplify items under £135, VAT at 20pc applies to item value AND shipping.

For items over that amount, VAT at 20pc, and import duty, and a handling fee will apply.

The above is of course if the seller is abiding by export/import rules and declaring proper item classification and value. I think in the above case it was fine, but customers ordering en mass they wouldn't get away with putting "sample" on every parcel.

Aye, makes sense for a review sample but I would rather pay the proper due for a purchase in a £500 scope than have it marked up as £20 value and get broken in transport

Starblast?  Wasn't that one of the transformers?

1 hour ago, Elp said:

Ali by default collects VAT at checkout, it has been a requirement for distance sellers since Brexit for UK purchasers. What the seller did in this instance was circumventing international law, but customs should have picked up on it so...

I thought it was only on items below a certain value?  I've no idea these days.  I usually skirt about £150 for big items.

Got to say though that askar 71F looks pretty darn nice.  Looking something like that for visual (grab and go) and imaging (wide angle from home). 

7 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

I use Aliexpress regularly, for various items, in fact I have just had an Askar 71f quad scope delivered from the Sharpstar Aliexpress store, and it was here within 4 days via FedEx, and in perfect order, and much cheaper than a UK dealer….

I order all my adapters, cables and anything that I need for Astro use, from there, and always been excellent, cheaper and mostly as good quality, you can slo get certain adapters that are just not available anywhere else too…👍🏻
One thing I will say is i ALWAYS and only use PayPal to buy from there….

Do you have a link to it?  Do they collect vat at purchase?

11 hours ago, globular said:

Two kids = in build car washers.  Character building for them.

"Dad, I'm nearly finished the car, but I think I need a new Brillo Pad"

6 hours ago, Alan64 said:

I order from AliExpress regularly, and without any real issues to share.  But then, I do reside in the U.S.

I think it is no riskier than ebay.  I always pay with paypal so you've got a bit better protection.  I'm a frequent  (borderline I need an intervention) user of Aliexpress.  Bought stuff ranging from tripods and eyepieces to electronics.  I think the only problems I had was a small OLED screen got cracked in transport (I deemed it not worth the hassle to ask for a refund as it cost £1.50) and a M54 adapter which had dodgy threads and was quickly refunded after sending a video of it not screwing in to my telescope.

@ollypenrice I'm going to go down the 0.8x route and couple it with a short focal length scope (60 or 70mm) when I can afford it.  Quite like the photoline as it keeps the stable looking consistent.  My DSLR has sat doing nothing for over a year now so I've ordered a replacement UV/IR enhanced spectrum filter from AliExpress and I'm going to  Astromodify my DSLR.  It's only £15 for the filter and will allow me to do get better response from Nebula, a wider field of view and still be usable for normal photos.  It's a t3i so quite out of date (so I won't lose much if I break it) but the times I used it I was happy enough with the images.  It will also give me a cloudy night project.

So that is the plan for now.

1 minute ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Almost 30 degrees down south from me I'm very jealous.

Is there any advantage to my northern location? 

I was wondering the same thing lol. M16 peaks at 19° but my house tops out at 23°.

Even Orion can be a challenge to be honest.

On 27/07/2024 at 15:05, CraigT82 said:

Good budget option for very wide field viewing is to buy a used Nikon TC-E2 Teleconverter, you can just hold it up to your eye. I have one which is 54mm aperture and 2x magnification. Takes a bit of practice to observe through it but once you get the hang they’re wonderful under dark skies.

 

The good old bionic eyes!  Mine get loaned out to work mates who go to the southern hemisphere.  They are great for what they are, but they're something that is good to have as well as something else.  They also make you look fabulous.

I'm currently also looking at a small apo as a compliment that can also do imaging.  I find the views through my ST80 to be quite acceptable for wide field.

Would go through the official stores on aliexpress for eyepieces rather than one of the generic stores.

For svbony stuff always check their website proper as it can be cheaper.

Look out for items marked 'choice' as they will usually have free shipping and free returns.  

On 09/08/2024 at 22:22, alacant said:

Are you sure you need one? But anyway...

Sorry, can't help with autofocus or autofocesers. I've never had the need to use one. Not sure where you are but here, we focus once at the beginning of the session and let it run. I think it's temperature dependent. We have little fluctuation, which may explain why. YMMV.

Either that, or they're a gimmick.

Cheers and good luck with the project.

 

Ah, was hoping you used them as you're very knowledgeable on working with vintage glass.

With any luck the project will go well.  , but we shall see.

I had an Altair 533 which did exhibit amp glow, however it was replaced no fuss.  Second unit that I got had no amp glow.  Mine was somewhat worse that @TiffsAndAstro's on the darks but wouldn't show up at all on an actual image.

The Altair 533's are pretty cheap at the moment £650 and come with a hard case.

46 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

There's some decently reviewed £60 ones on Ali express

Yeah, the Gemini came out about 20 minutes after I started building my own 😂.

I'm kind of in it for the journey rather than the end result at this point.  I'm confident the unit will work as it's a myfocuspro2 unit I'm building, just need to figure out if it'll play ball with vintage glass.

Hopefully our resident vintage glass expert @alacant will show up for this.

I'm in the process of building an autofocusser and due to the nature of ordering the parts I'm likely to be able to build one for each of my vintage Takumar lenses (135mm and 200mm).

From previous discussions I know that Takumars tend to focus blue and green differently to red.  This means that when you get the image in focus (with a bahtinov mask) you will get red halos and what you need to do is get it in focus then slightly defocus it.  You're basically making everything equally defocussed very very slightly so you get good stars without halos.

My question is whether it is possible to automate this in NINA or similar during an autofocus routine?  Some sort of offset you can program in (find focus and then defocus by x steps for example).

Looks marvelous.  Really looking forward to seeing the finished product.

2 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

I have the StellaMira x0.6 reducer which I use with my TS Optics Photoline 72 Apo. It certainly increases the field of view but doesn't flatten the field very well. Partly because of this I now have an Askar FMA135 for really widefield (EAA only).

I also have the StellaMira x1.0 field flattener which does further flatten the already fairly flat field of the Photoline 72.

I think that x0.6 is pushing things a bit for a reducer / field flattener so you may find that it doesn't work so well with your Starfield 102.

I have a different dilemma in that I don't have a Starfield 102 but keep hankering after one. It's performance as standard would be very similar to my Explorer 150 I think (similar focal length, smaller aperture but without the central obstruction, slower for EAA), and with the x0.6 reducer, similar to the Photoline 72 (similar focal length, but bigger aperture and faster). So far I've resisted the temptation.

If you do decide to go for a smaller Apo then I'd recommend the TS Optics Photoline 72.

 

 

I don't think you'll be too far off with your assesment of the performance of the 102ed.  I've got the 130pds and would say it performs better than the 102ed.  That is me comparing by memory, and it has been a while since I took the 130pds out for summer targets.

Actually that might be a good shout as a project, to take out them both and give them a compare.

Once I get some free time I'm going to sit down with stellarium and do some comparison on different scopes and rescuer/flattener combos and also trawl the 130pds post for good targets for the 102.

This far though my imaging has been much closer to eaa than proper astrophotography.  I basically use it to get views my eye can't, but rather than live stack I just rack up the images and deal with them in the morning.

The other option I've got is to try and figure out if I can get autofocus to work with my vintage glass.  As I understand it perfect focus with takumars lenses will give red halos so you need to back off slightly.  You essentially have all colours defocused slightly but equally.  The stars are a tiny bit bloated but it looks pretty darn good when you hit the sweet spot. 

53 minutes ago, Elp said:

I know what you mean, the SF102 is a very odd FL, don't know how people get on with it. It's a bit short to get those tiny targets, and too long to get those popular ones full size. I've kind of resigned mine to visual use because of it, mosaics can be a pain, but would be much higher resolution if I decided to do it with the 4 inch.

It's one of the reasons I like my Z61 so much, I can still see small objects however tiny they may be, but I can guarantee you they'll be sharp, and imaging larger targets in full view are also in reach, with my x0.65 reducer however much it may be, I also get Redcat beating FOV.

 

Yeah, it's an odd focal length but not a million miles from the 130pds.  Once I get home I'm going to have a scan through the images on there to see what targets are viable.  I know it's a great focal length for M27 and I got a nice one of Stephens Quintet.

Think it might be better to play to the scopes strengths rather that try to make it do something it's not.

Also a lot of the objects that will fit the star field with a 0.6x reducer will fit, they won't be framed particularly well.

I'm not quite sure how it works.  I mean I originally started looking at whether a 0.6x reducer would work to get a really nice short focal length for my 102ed f7.

Why am I now looking at whether it would be a better idea to get something like a 1x or 0.8x reducer for a longer fov and instead getting a 72ed type scope which gives me a wider fov natively.

Is there a reasonable priced 72ish ed scope that'll do good visual and imaging and play well with a generic field flattener?  Ideally with minimal colour on stars that'll work with an autofocusser (my understanding is my vintage glass will not due to how the takumars focus different frequencies of light).

I feel like I'm asking to be talked back from a new scope ledge, but I'm also aware that I'm asking in a forum that I know love nothing more than helping people spend their money lol

1 hour ago, jjohnson3803 said:

I don't have a Dob, at least not right now, but good technique to add to the knowledge base if it's ever needed.

 

Yeah, I use one of those bubbles for my dob.  I've a bad habit of losing my spirit levels, I have 3.... Somewhere.

For manual finding it works really well with an inclinometer.  You just find altitude of the target and pan about in the general area.  How I first found M1.  Just set the inclinometer and spin the dobin a circle.  I love the starsense, but the inclinometer and setting circled has it beat in some sense because of starsense terrible app.