wormix

17 minutes ago, Corncrake said:

Looks good to me.

If you think you may want to play with the manual lenses in normal terrestrial use then, for a few pennies more, you can get a 'chipped' converter which ( if the 450d is anything like my 60d ) will give you a focus confirm beep/light, when you manually focus the lens.

Search ebay for "EOS M42 chip"

 

Thanks, have ordered a couple to play with. Just need a lens or 2 now!

135mm f3.5 also seems well regarded. 

25 minutes ago, russ said:

I have the Takumar 50mm 1.4. Cost peanuts but absolutely love it. So well built, buttery smooth focus and defined clicks on the aperture. Used it for my recent attempts at Neowise. A little blue fringing on the brightest stars.

Good to know as a 50mm prime is on my list

Morning all,

I have started looking at old M42 thread lenses for my DSLR to use with my Star Adventurer. 
 

Have heard good things about the Takumar 200mm f4. 
 

Can anyone recommend any others that are stand out? 
 

Also, to fit my 450d I presume this is the adapter I need - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/273680081004 ?

cheers

40 minutes ago, DaveHKent said:

It was taking me a while to get my targets framed up, so I bought a celestron style red dot finder for about £12 and got an adapter so it could fit on the camera hotshoe.

 

My god - that’s genius!  Why didn’t I think of that. 
 

Just found this for anyone with a printer - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2588330/comments

Good morning all,

Does anyone have any recommendations for campsites in dark sky locations - Bortle 2 or 3 at a pinch, within England and Wales?

cheers

3 section metal, will be used with a star adventurer mini primarily but used it this weekend with both a DSLR and an ETX90 on a ball head. 

I have just bought a Manfrotto 055 and it’s rock solid - it is however longer than the ultra portable models and heavier too - I guess one follow question is “how portable”?

The 055 is easy to chuck in the car and sling over a shoulder for short walks, but not sure it’s suitable for taking on a plane for example. 

Betel-Guese or Beetle-Juice?
 

Beetle Juice was 3-1 up in that episode. 

3 minutes ago, jiberjaber said:

See if this works for you..

 

 

 

I did this with mine and it definitely works

Quick update - still running fine, videos being deleted as appropriate and rerunning ok. 
 

Worth noting I have reverted back to the original code where the video is made up from the image file rather than the buffer (ie I don’t now have the text banner displayed in the video) 

Also to update - this project has just got far more expensive as I bought a 3D printer!  The friend I had making my camera holder mentioned he was considering selling his Ender 3 Pro so I enquired and at £80 I thought why not!

Sky Guide on IOS has been updated to include NEOWISE now. 

& has the added bonus of being free!

Following with interest - I’m considering trading my 150pds for an 80ED as I like the portability / storability of the frac 

Be interesting to see others comments. 

The thing I found with a synscan Mount when starting out is the starting position isn’t clearly pointed out in the manual. 
 

You have to ensure you are in the home position before doing anything else. 
 

cheers

Naked eye visible for me from around 1am. The pointer stars of Capella and Menkalinan really helped highlight it. 

My first comet - truly spectacular. 

Finally got it! Fantastic in binoculars. 

Great image! What time was that?  Heading out tonight again as it’s forecast clear all night long. 

Set up last night and the night and day videos have deleted and started fine so far. Night video was only 25 seconds long however so I must have missed a delete script somewhere. 
 

Will leave running for a few days to see if it’s stable. 

I have mine switched off at the mo whilst I await parts for the enclosure. I will restart it later and leave running to see if I encounter the same issue again. 
 

I did wonder if it were location based as all three of us are at a similar latitude I believe (Herts & 2 x Essex)

Just image size, Didn’t check movie size but wondered if that could have had an impact. I did comment out the deletion lines but as you say, there are a few so may have missed the pertinent one. 

Mine has returned to normal now - did have an issue with file size as I was using the buffer grabs so I had the banner text in video - those files are significantly smaller so have now reverted back to the original image 

25 minutes ago, Helen said:

Helen is back, and has taken advantage of flexible working hours to have a lie in!

I gave it until 4:30 and then came home to bed.  The sky was a mixture of thick black cloud and small clear patches which got brighter and brighter ...  I generally could see capella so knew which part of horizon to scan, but clouds more persistent there.  Random camera shots showed nothing.  Got the binos out - and I might just convince myself that at one point I got a hint  (might have been something to convince myself my outing was worthwhile...🤔).  I'd started on top of local common at 3am, but it was blowing a Gale and really didn't look promising in the appropriate direction.  The views of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars were lovely though - the passing dark clouds just added atmosphere!  I'd promised Mike I would be careful, so decided not to hang around there.

On the way home I noticed an improvement so ended up just parked on a pull  in off an urban road (safe!) for an hour hoping!  It was a bit of an adventure....

Glad others got to see it though - that gives us hope!!

Helen (in need of coffee!)

I also finished around 4:30 - unfortunately I now have to look after a 4year old who thought that a 5:30 wake up time was appropriate.

So far it’s been a struggle!

I was out this morning - pretty clear skies but no joy unfortunately.

Venus popped up at the same time as the police, so at least I could use that as evidence for why I was hanging about on a hillside!

FYI the site was far darker than that - photo was iPhone night mode  

I’ve scoped a good observing site in the chilterns, up high looking across low and flat Bedfordshire so fingers crossed will see something. 

That’s strange - same thing happened for me, I just assumed it was because I had been tinkering with it and missed the delete step. 
 

perhaps something funny happening with sunwait?

That’s better!