TheThing

Just superb service yet again from the ladies and gents at FLO. Had problems develop with a motor focuser and remote control that I bought just after Xmas. Returned and replaced with ease, speed and no fuss. Thank you. Greatly appreciated. 6 stars.

Thank you, but the puppy ate my Rigel, so I'm after a whole new finder!

You would be entitled to a replacement if the scope, regardless, under the Sale of Goods Act. The scope you bought is not fit for purpose and not of merchantable quality. If you're happy with the loan scope you've been given, just tell the vendor that you'll keep that one as a replacement and that you won't involve your local trading standards. That should sort it for you. Keep at it. As a SW127 mak owner myself, they are cracking scopes! Enjoy.

Other than a Rigel Quikfinder, is there any other 'red dot' finder that feature concentric circle at all? Ideally, I want something with a standard finder base to fit in a shoe but, that's not vital. I've fallen out with the Rigel because they never stick onto an OTA well then they fall off and the puppy eats them!

That's a pretty neat start! Well done and thanks for sharing.

In the short term, a jubilee clip or zip ties might see you through.

I'm thinking of doing this as well, so am watching this thread with interest.

Of course! Never think of Ali Express. Thank you!

Is it possible to purchase a replacement of the light unit that screws into illuminated finder scopes at all? If so, is there a link to them please? I've got an Orion finder but I can't get the illumination to work. I think the initial is probably kaput but my searches on Ecosia are drawing a blank. Thanks.

Anything and everything! I'm a jack of all trades, master of none so planetary, lunar, deep sky, maybe a but of widefield imaging, whatever takes my fancy.

OK, they may suffer from chromatic aberration, but I just love the look of these short tube, fast achros. Look great in use too and they are lovely under rated scopes in my opinion. Just received this corking 102 Bresser. Can't wait to get it out under the skies.

Wow, vlaiv you really know your stuff. Thanks to you and olly for your responses. I bought all my filters 2nd hand so I don't have the graphs to hand, but I'm going to hit Ecosia to find them ( and make the planet greener!) I think the answer will be that there may be too much loss of detail for my liking, so it looks like I'm going down the one at a time route, but I will investigate further. Much appreciated gents.

First night doing any astronomy since about February whilst I've been waiting for and recovering from a total hip replacement. Was expecting everything to just be as I left it 7 months ago but, no end of niggly problems with polar aligning, focus etc etc. Finally got everything sorted after two hours, ready to image Saturn at midnight...and clouds rolled in! Well, I was imaging Saturn no matter what! Knew it wasn't going to be a great result due to the clouds but, not too shoddy in the circs. Maybe next clear night I can add a Barlow to the mix...!

Is there any benefit in stacking filters like UHC, CLR or ,CLS with an IR cut filter for imaging Saturn? I'm about 15 miles from Central London so pretty poor skies normally.

Just like that...

The mak ep holder does have a t2 thread on it! Never noticed before. The flip mirror screws straight on it, as you advised. Perfect, thank you. Now I'll get those adapters to hold the ccd in place. Thank you so much.

Just received this fantastic flip mirror from our own Radlet (thank you kindly!), which is going to help with my imaging. I can't get my head around what I need to connect it to my scope though. Here are photos of the flip mirror and the adapters that came with it. I would like to attach it to my SW 127mm mak with a standard 1.25" ep apature at the rear. I've taken the ep holder off, but the adapters with the flip mirror don't connect. I'd also like to put an ep holder in the rear of the flip mirror so I can use it with a ccd for planetary imaging. Can be 2" or 1.25", I don't mind. Any suggestions please?

Thank you kindly both. That's exactly what I wanted to hear! Much appreciated.

Hopefully, just a quick query. I've got a set of bino viewers and have picked up some pairs of eps now. I'm intending to use them with a 127 mak for '3D' views of the moon. Do I need to use a diagonal with them or will they reach focus without? Also, I assume that I can put a Barlow in front of the bino viewers and not have to purchase pairs of barlows? Thanks.

Thank you. I'm using an Opticstar AR80S 80mm frac on a Celestron Advanced GT Mount with a Canon 1000D camera. 20x 30 second exposures and 5x 30 sec darks, stacked in Registax.

First time trying DSO. Not enough inward focus with one extension tube and not enough with the other, so little bit out of focus but, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. M42 & M45, 20 images of 30 seconds each to see what I could get. I'm dead pleased with the results though!  

Much better evening today. Took on board your advice, but didn't use the guiding whilst imaging, just set it up and tried. Stars!! Next problem is that my ZWO 426mc might not be the best option for deep sky. This is me capturing the Orion Nebula with Sharpcap but can't actually see anything! Maybe it'll come out with stacking. 🤣

Woah!

Have stacked my images and applied darks. Finally managed to pick myself up off the floor after much laughter. But I did capture a star, honest!

Brilliant advice, thank you all. I'll try without guiding first and then gradually incorporate it. Lens caps were off however, just remembered that I left an IR cut filter in my imaging camera. Such a lot to take in.