Ratlet

Getting back on track, sounds like a good session overall.  I don't wind when things go wrong (so long as nothing breaks!) As you normally get towards a better session next time.

I love M36 etc al.  It's one of those clusters that looks amazing at low or high power, nice cluster of stars at high power and at lower power you lose the detail but it takes on almost an organic quality.

23 minutes ago, Stu said:

Thank you, title changed. Don’t want to annoy any big, ugly wrestlers, or pandas for that matter 🤪

Good Gawd Almighty, HE'S GOT A STEEL CHAIR

7 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Co-incidences... while @Stuwas out observing last night, one of the questions on BBC2's Only Connect was about how the wrestling body had to change their name because of the clash with the conservation organization.

It's quite an interesting story.  I was a fan at the time and it was kind of a fascinating look into the kind of mindset the company has/had.

Still think Mick Foley is the greatest of all time.  His autobiography is fantastic.

Lucky escape there Stu.

Cracking images.  You'll still be using your radar arms for the iss though?

Bit late, but:

Link: https://www.printables.com/model/387915-tair-3-tube-ring-inserts

2 hours ago, quasar117 said:

As long as I can reach the knobs whilst at the EP (which hopefully I can on the Starfield) I don't think I'd need the slow mo cables.  Panning hand idea sounds good!

AZ75 would be great, however ,I believe it doesn't come with any saddles which is an additional cost....it's just too much for me really, as nice as it would be. Plus would it be  as good as the Skytee2 for high magnification viewing without the slomo capabilities?

TBH this is the only reason I'm put off the AZ4...if I could get it to operate well at high magnification as well as for panning around it would be the winner for me!

Really can't make a decision on choosing a mount haha.

 

 

 

Mate I feel your pain there.

Depending on your time frame and availability you might want to see what's available second hand.  It always seems with astro kit that you pay a premium for new to get assurance and insurance if quality and support. 

Second hand kit just doesn't seem to drop in value though.  It's almost like you're paying a deposit on it and if you don't like it you just sell it on for the same money.  Always the balance of you don't want to get scammed or buy a lemon though.

22 minutes ago, jjohnson3803 said:

Yeah.  I was just thinking that I have enough reasonable quality scopes, mounts, and tripods.  So now I'm looking at binos, monoculars, and wondering if maybe a 60mm finder for superquick grab-n-go would be a nice improvement over my 50mm.  I mean there's a whole group.io forum for 60mm observing.

And since I have 15mm and 25mm EPs, I should get a 20mm to fill the gap, right?  ☺️

Wasn't there a Borg mini 60 in the for sale section?  Had a really nice mini focuser on it too

According to Wikipedia Stargazing live did two seasons in Australia, 2017 and 2018.  No word on it still going.

I've got the same tripod as @Elp pretty decent tripod for the cash.

I used mine with a 130pds, az5 or azgti.  Did a pretty good job but at higher could get a bit wobbly with legs almost fully extended and used standing, however shortening the legs and using a stool made big difference to stability.

If you dont want to rip bits of your scope and have access to a 3D printer, I'd go for this one

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

If only because I designed it and I don't often get to toot my own horn lol.

Alternatively drop me a line and I'll print you one for mats, postage and packet of Lidl oatie biscuits (last time was around £6).

Someone started selling them for £25 on eBay which is a ripoff especially since I marked the design as not for commercial use.  I made it for the good of the community not so some nyaff can profit of it lol.

The beauty of the 533 sensor is because it is quite small you avoid edge artifacts from lenses/scopes.

I can use mine with my 130pds and get minimal issues with coma.  I try to pick up vintage telephotos too which are cheap and reasonably well corrected.  200mm super takumar SMC stopped down to f5.6 on a 533 sensor frames the heart nebula beautifully.

At this rate the forum will need renamed the svbony 3-8mm zoom gazers lounge

47 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

Same here, in my FS60. 32mm plossl for the Solar scout. I do have a 26mm plossl that hardly ever gets used, and a broken 7mm BGO that never gets used. I don't own any other eyepieces any more.

32mm plossl is a seriously underrated bit of kit.  I'd sooner drop mine in the scope than change out the 2" to 1.25" adapter.  

Only watched a couple of new episodes but they just feel like generic pop science.  The old ones felt like they'd throw in some science as a bit of seasoning around the observing.

I was sad last week the Paul Money isn't doing the Star Diary podcast anymore (which I really enjoy), but was delighted this week to find Mary McIntyre has joined the team.  She's really enthusiastic and really captures the enthusiasm.  Started watching her YouTube after she did a sketching episode of actual astronomy podcast and really helped me get started with sketching.

I think the likes of Mary and Mark Radice on YouTube are two of the closest to capturing the aim of old school sky at night on telly.

12 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Looks okay but I take the 10kg payload with a pinch of salt.

Agreed.  Telescope mount designers (especially at the cheaper end) are ferocious optimists.

Svbony have a new mount out, the sv225 which is also on AliExpress.  Not much worse on its performance though and it weighs in at £130.

Edit: worse should say word, not much word on its performance.

Absolutely.

Although I do try to offset it with second hand purchases.  For a lot of second hand astro stuff it basically depreciates once, when it goes from new to second hand.  After that the value remains relatively steady, or may in fact go up depending on the item/inflation.

At least that's how I justify it.

I once had a chat with a workmate who bikes about the amount I was spending and he introduced me to 'the economics of joy'.  You basically take the cost of the item and the number of hours of enjoyment you get out of it.  You can then price it against similar activities based on a per hour cost.  

A £1000 telescope seems expensive, but if you get 50 hours 'joy' out of it then you're at £20/hour which is less than a night out for me.

I believe this is the same economic theory used by Warhammer players lol.

Hopefully you'll get it sorted at minimal expense.  I get why they don't want to send the board out and why they want it returned for assesment.  I'd imagine they will be keen to establish exactly what went wrong.

My money is that it will not cost too much to repair and that it'll be sorted quickly. 

I had much the same experience as you @SwiMatt.  Ended up selling my mak and sticking with my much shorter fl 130pds.

Of course about 3 months later I ended up getting everything aligning perfectly and seeing some beautiful detail on Jupiter and Mars.  It just clicked why people do it.  What also clicked was regret at selling the mak lol.

The planets and the moon are dynamic things so I've seldom made a night of planetary observing, but I will always stick the scope at them a couple times through the night just to see what I can see.  When you see something special it just blows all the dust away 

Hope you get some clear skies now it is firing on all cylinders

How are you powering the camera?  Direct or via something else?

Other idea is it possible that you guide software has control of the cooling of the camera since it is duo?  Just thinking maybe phd2 (or similar) is in control of it and overriding Nina.  Could check the guiding software or try cooling the camera without guiding.

Edit:  just seen you've said the cooling doesn't kick in even though you set cooling before connecting everything else, possibly not guiding related.

38 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

Thanks 🙂 Yes, it is Astro modded - I purchased directly from Astronomiser, he bought a second hand 800d from MPb, then modded it and had it to me in 1 week.

Dark current and noise are a bit of a pain, I have a 585 and the loss of that noise is incredible. As a result I’ve been looking at a 533 or 2600 for much later this year. Would prefer the 2600, but at that cost a 533mono with filters comes into play too… 

On the reducer…

Interesting, the 0.6 would bring the Starfield down to circa f4 at 430mm focal length! It says it’s designed for scopes of f7 and slower so in theory it would work…

Does it attach to the starfield 102? The scope has an M63 connection and the Stellamira flattener has m48, so it appears that an adapter would be needed. This would certainly get my attention if it works…

Weirdly I've though of the opposite direction, I've have the 533 colour from Altair and have often thought I'd have been better getting the 535 as I don't really look for that much out of my images and certainly don't spend more than an hour processing.  Just not really using it to its full potential.

I'm kind of drawn to the 0.6 not so much the speed but the focal length which would be quite nice for a lot of nebula with the 533.  

3 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

Love my Starfield 102, used only for imaging I purchased mine last April with this adjustable reducer and it hasn’t let me down. Using this and imaging at f5.6 is better than the flattener and imaging at f7, which you would find to be really slow compared to the 130pds at f5.

I had several issues achieving backfocus with my previous scope (Evostar 72ed) with a non-adjustable flattener - and spacers were the bane of my life for that. Hated them. The adjustable version for the 102ed made it a lot easier.

I didn’t realise there was a 0.6 reducer though? That might interest me…

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellamira-telescopes/stellamira-2-06x-reducer-field-flattener-with-m48-adapter.html

Not a matched one, but I think it would work?

I' hadn't really thought too much about speed thus far, but right enough I usually stop my vintage glass down to 5.6 so Ive unintentionally been imaging about the same f ratio on everything I've got.

You've got some absolutely cracking images with your canon posted.  Is it astro modified?  Might have to dig mine out, I've got a 533 sensor which can be a smidge restrictive on the fov, but zero dark current to worry about 

I'm wanting to pick one up soon™ but my current tripod is a 1.75" stainless steel sky watcher which has a 3/8" screw rather than M10 on the eq5 version.

I'm aware that there is a barlebach puck which will go from 3/8" to M10, so if anyone is using that could you share your experience on stability I would appreciate it.

As an alternative I've ordered a 3/8" to M10 adapter which should screw on the top of the 3/8 like a nut (cost £2.50 Vs £40 for the puck).  Hopefully the spacing will work out but if someone could let me know the diameter and height of the bit on the skytee2 which goes into the tripod, I would be very grateful.