Ratlet

Because at heart I think I'm becoming a shill for their better offerings, here's the link:

https://www.svbony.com/sv230-zoom-aspheric-eyepiece/

Got to say the fov is in my sweet spot which overcomes my primary objection to them.  Anyone like to guess if this is a new design or is it something they've copied another design as a base?

With my astro gear I've largely been focusing on a 'not good but, good enough' tactic, particularly with eyepieces.  I went through a phase of trying different designs and styles to figure out what works for me.

I wouldn't say Im brand loyal but there are certain companies that I'll be peaked for interest as they hit my sweet spot for performance and cost.  FLO's own brand stuff springs to mind and so does svbony.  Don't get me wrong, their cheap stuff is tat, but some of their more premium offerings punch above their weight.

51 minutes ago, saac said:

I dabbled a while back with Arduino, very basic just with the intention of learning how to code it for stepper motor control. I did build one of Robert Brown's MyFocuser pro  - it worked , but I never installed it. I cheated and ended up buying a ZWO AF  . I found that my tolerance for learning the syntax was very low - my previous exposure to coding was over 40 years ago using the likes of basic while doing my HND.  Then to my general happiness came along Chat GP and similar which can write code! Have you experimented much with using AI like Chat GP to write any code? 

Jim.

Chat gpt is a complete mixed bag for coding.  It can give you really good code or complete garbage.  Usually it's a very iterative process where you need to keep refining what it's give you back (and hope it hasn't changed the entire output halfway through).

Most of the stuff I'm doing is really really basic, but I've found chatgpt to be good where you've got code that works and want it optimised, or if you have a bug in the code and can't figure it out.  I frequently use it for that.  Or to rephrase explanations.

My wife does coding and uses copilot which is apparently very good for helping coding.  She's threatening to teach me.  I get stressed out if I'm doing stuff like that.  I've got a brutally slow learning process which pretty much starts and ends with crayons.  I need to use crayons and understand the basics, but if you can't explain the complicated stuff using crayons then you don't understand it.

1 hour ago, saac said:

Good luck @Ratlet I'm admiring your learning journey and successes in the world of practical electronics.  

Jim 

Thank you, fortunately the folks over at myfocuserpro2 did the hard work of designing the PCB and software.

I'm working on getting my Pico from my birthday running on the Arduino ide as it should be possible to use it with the software and code with some modifications.  It'll have more oomph as the library for the tmc2209 is beefy and at the limits of an Arduino nano.

Customer PCB's for a DIY autofocusser.  I'll be using a tmc2209 controller which should give me some neat extra features in terms of what the stepper can do.  Also ordered a drv8825 motor driver which can work with the board with some modification.  Less fancy stuff motor side, but will do more fancy stuff on the controller side.

Also planning to use it for an equatorial platform controller.

8 minutes ago, saac said:

That's exactly what they do, learn how to make from scratch, decorate, then sell to raise funds for school projects. Enterprising! Although now they would also probably show off their skills by making a Tik Tok video  

For the more interested junior classes we can take Olly's pencil experiment one step forward and have the kids measure either the diameter of the Moon or distance to the Moon using a 2p coin.  Even a Chemistry teacher could do this one

* either D or L has to be provided in order to calculate the other - Google is their friend! 

JIm 

As a fully qualified bucket chemist I find your comment highly offensive.  You've provided the picture and equation and I still don't think I can do it 😄.

I consider myself quite blessed that both of my kids are massive geeks.  My daughter is really keen on doing electronics with me, but I'm learning myself so I can't answer a lot of her questions.

Birthday presents arrived.  Continuing the playing with microcontrollers theme so I can build be some cheap astronomy toys.

Also got a history of astronomy.  Probably should read the descriptions as i didn't realise this history of astronomy was written in 1651 lol.  Wonder what they have to say about Sir Patrick?

I've been doing a bit of reading.  Ordered some of the components to put it together now.  Also ordered a different driver.  Not completely sure if the tmc2209 was the best choice for a noob lol.

Would it be possible to get a finder shoe generator?  Sorry if that has been included already in the vixen, but i can see it being very useful.

Tell me about it.  My happiness at you getting back into the hobby was completely overwhelmed by the annoyance that I missed your clear out 😂 and I don't actually think I need anything.

Maybe we should all just swap bits periodically?  Just to get it out of our system.  Given my past firm it'll either not fit, sit on the shelf doing nothing because of the weather or (most likely) be pretty good, but if I spend another £100 on this bit, it'll be perfect and I absolutely will not need anything else ever again... Honest.  No, not even if bosun21 has just posted in the for sale section... Oh I'll just have a quick look...

4 hours ago, rwilkey said:

I agree with Mr Spock and others, there is no other eyepiece that comes close to the comfort of using the BST's and its performance, with their twist-up eyeguards etc,

The twist up eye guard is brilliant for getting your eyeballs in the right spot to avoid blackouts, but with that being said I've found the starguider to be quite forgiving in that regard.  My only 'issue' with them is that when I use the 8mm with a Barlow I get some annoying reflections on planets.  However, the reflections are from my eyeball to the lens of the eyepiece, so I'm a fairly large contributor to the issue lol.

I'll need to add some of those ursa majors to my Christmas list.  Not sure I need a new focal length, but I'm sure that won't stop me.

2 hours ago, Graeme said:

That's brilliant @FrenchyArnaud

I've just bought one of these for a Grab and Go rig:

StellaMira 110mm ED f/6 Refractor Telescope | First Light Optics

So this EAF is now top of the list of projects. Thanks for the links. Any other advice before I make a start?

Regards

Graeme

 

 

If you are planning using a tmc stepper driver for your build let me know.  I've just ordered up some boards which should be hear in the next couple of weeks 

1 hour ago, Ags said:

only look at very, very small sections of sky and you can treat the celestial sphere as flat  

But how can you improve milk production from dairy cows if you don't understand spherical trigonometry?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

Thanks mate.  Cracking pictures.  Those make a lot of sense now.  I'm needing a method to level an eq platform and something like this will work nicely.

On 25/06/2024 at 18:19, Tony Acorn said:

I'm getting old (and crotchety, grumpy and a few other adjectives I'll admit) so moving my 254mm SkyWatcher Flex-tube has become a pain in the posterior. It therefore doesn't get anywhere near the use I expected to give it when I bought it. Consequently I made my own levelling arrangement for it comprising:
2 off 650mm dia x 18mm plywood circles, each marked at 60deg.
3 off 50mm furniture casters with rubber wheels and ball swivels, 12 off M6 x 30mm set bolts, nuts and washers. 
3 off 10mm dia x 100mm threaded length eye-bolts each with an M10 nut.

On the lower disc, I drilled three 15mm diameter holes just 8mm into the disc at 120deg from each other. I then drilled through those indentations with a 10mm drill and also drilled through the upper disc - which I had screwed onto the lower disc.
I separated the two discs and then put a 10mm bolt with a washer and M10 nut on it through the lower disc from the underside (the 10mm hole side). I added a second 10mm nut onto the bolt over the 15mm hole and then tightened the washer-fitted side whilst holding the nut over the 15mm hole steady. This resulted in the nut being pulled into the 15mm and made captive by the plywood.
I then clamped the two discs together after running the eye-bolts from the top side down through the captive nuts to keep them aligned. I screwed these discs together quiet close to the eye-bolt holes using 4mm diameter x 35mm long csk woodscrews. This kept the upper disc aligned and held each captive nut in its hexagonal hole. I then fitted the three castor wheels at 120deg intervals with M6 through set bolts.
A coat of wood primer then two coats of exterior gloss finished the job but do avoid getting paint in the srew holes or on the eye-bolts - that's easier than trying to clean everything after.
This made a trolley that allows easy movement of the Dob and it can be levelled by adjusting the three eye-bolts to raise the trolley wheels above the ground. I use two 200mm spirit levels in two directions on the Dob's base to achieve a fully level position, ideally done alongside polar alignment if you have an automated Alt-Az Dob.
After use and when moving the trolley, raise the eye-bolts well up to avoid damaging your door sills and weather sealing strips (don't ask 😂).

Any chance you could post a picture of it?  Sounds interesting

Thanks for the heads up!  Your stellarium might be overly optimistic, but I had no idea.  Frames nicely for both of them with my 8mm starguider on my 102ed.  Looks like I'll be getting up early for that one.

1 minute ago, Elp said:

The Innorels are good, I've got two and offer similar performance to my Berlebach Uni.

I'm also an innorel user.  Works really well, but more wobbly than a Steel tripod, but I think it weights about the same as a steel tripod leg.

9 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

In preparation for darker skies, now we're heading for astro darkness again, I've been looking to upgrade my main scope from an Evostar 100ED DS Pro to something faster and better quality. I did think about a RASA 8 but that was too heavy for my HEQ5 and I can only afford to upgrade one thing at a time.

Anyway, long story short, FLO were doing a nice deal on a Founder Optics FOT106 triplet, which comes with a dedicated field flattener and has a FL of 686mm at f6. 

It arrived last week and has a really good build quality, comes with flight case & optical report. I also bought the threaded adaptor for the Field Flattener and the ZWO EAF adaptor for it as well.

So, now it's on the HEQ5 and the setup below weights in at 8kg, leaving 3kg spare capacity if I want to add a Losmandy dovetail instead of the supplied Vixen version. The main problem is that it'll be mid-August before it's dark enough up here to get First Light. 😭  

Astroimaging on the west coast of Scotland!  Does pixinsight have a midge removal feature?

I'm in the same boat, over in Angus, still it only gets darker from here!

15 hours ago, Emperor!Takahashi! said:

The postman brought me this lovely FC-60, sent from Japan 😊 It's my third one. I was foolish enough to sell the first one I owned. A friend wanted the second one, so I sold it to him. This one, though, is here to stay.

And @garryblueboy is not the postman, but he did bring me this gorgeous FS-102 NSV. I have a feeling this one's here to stay, too!

A successful Friday 😌

 

You could use the 102 as a finder for the mewlon.  But what about the finder for the 102?

It's Takahashi's all the way down 😂

4 minutes ago, Ags said:

Is the green somehow related to the 99% Moon? 

Yes.  In my experience it usually comes +/-3 days of the full moon.  The forum has integrated notifications about good lunar observing conditions as all the imagers start moaning about the syncing of the two a couple days before.

I would steer clear of the AZ5 for what you are looking at.  It is very much wobbly bob at anything apart from low power.

From my experience over mounting an az5 it depends very much on the scope and the tripod as @Elp said.  With my 130pds it's okay, but the similar weight 102ed it vibrates too much for my liking at anything over 80-100x.

Might have to pick up that az4 though.  No need for the tripod, but those legs look like a fast track to a parallelogram mount to me, but realistically it's the skyt2 that'll be next.

14 hours ago, Elp said:

Tbh I find the default editor in Google photos works well, Snapseed is another option.

It's surprisingly effective.  Found it really good on the moon and it can do a decent job on dso provided the data is okay quality.

I'm wondering what that dark blue bit is between sunrise and sunset.  Must be an update as mine doesn't have that feature.

2 hours ago, dweller25 said:

Please don’t be confused, we are just trying to spend other people’s money irrespective of any budget 🙂👍 

I thought "Helping spend other people's money" was the forum tagline 🙃

So good we'll say it thrice.  BST starguiders for sub £60.  Love them in my 10" dob and my 5" newt.  The 12mm and 8mm get a good workout for dso in mine.