lawsio

Hi all. Bit of context for this query - I've been doing visual astronomy on and off for about 10-15 years, although during this time I've have had some years where I'm out at every opportunity and others when I've not had the scope out at all. Generally I've paid no attention to the equipment over the years and have just 'got on with it' but am now making efforts to update my kit a bit. I've recently been adding to my options with the SkyMax127 GTi which I've had for a few weeks now, and am soon to have a ST102 on the way for some widefield observing, both of which are bought with travel in mind as much as anything else. My attention is now turning to my 'main' scope, my SkyLiner 200p (Or Classic 200p as its now called), and I have a bit of a quandary with it. I've had the scope for well over 10 years now, have moved house with it 3 times and in truth it's seen better days. I've been looking at taking it to Orion in stoke and making use of their servicing facility, and for about £150 plus a tank of petrol I can get it fully serviced and cleaned and for about £100 on top of that I could get it recoated if need be. This would, hopefully, get it back to something resembling 'as new' condition but I'm wondering if the money is better spent on upgrading to a bigger scope. If I assumed, based on a bit of eBay research, that I have £100-£150 of resell value in the current scope, I could add that to the saving I'd make on not servicing it and maybe see that as £300 towards a new scope. FLO currently have the 250p solid tube and flextube options for around the £550 mark so I'd essentially be looking at adding £250 to current planned spend for an extra couple of inches of aperture and a brand spanking new scope with no spiders living in it. Is this worthwhile? I know a general rule of thumb is to upgrade in 4 inch increments to see the biggest benefit but the 300p is near double the cost of the 250p so it's a much bigger ask. The difference in light gathering power between the 250 and 200 is bigger (About 56%) than between the 300 and 250 (44%) so I'm already making a big jump going from 8" to 10" but not sure if it's worthwhile if I'm not going al the way to 12". Alternatively, if I kept the 8" but flocked it (Something Orion have said they can do for me whilst servicing) will the flocking give me better viewing than an unflocked 10"? Thoughts welcome as always.

OK thanks guys, that makes sense. I'll stick with the 1.25" ones I've already got for now and maybe have it as a future purchase!

Or, perhaps more importantly, for them to come here! 🤣

Thanks, think this is what I was leaning towards! Other question is, I have no 2" eyepeices but think now might be the time to get one. They seem expensive so only want to pick the one up for now, is there a good sub £100 place to start with these?

This wide field scope business has been living in my head rent free so I reckon I'm going to get something to compliment the Mak. Put my back out recently lugging the skyliner about so I think I'm at at the age (35!) Where I meed something more manageable. 🤣 Question about aperture - I'm between the StarTravel 102 and 120 and leaning towards the 102 with an AZ5 mount, as I'll be able to use it with my AZGti mount too. Question is, is the extra 18mm on the 120 going to make enough of a difference that having it permanently on an EQ5 mount and not being able to use the goto with it a good trade off? Because I have the Mak I won't be looking at planets with it, it'll be for DSO only, and I do still have the skyliner when I need some extra power (and a hernia!).

It's an interesting topic to be on both sides of this one. From a purely professional/engineering standpoint, I'm not overly comfortable with the approach of not lighting things as, more often than not, it's a fundamental safety feature. Anything that involves compromising the safety of the public in the name of 'savings' for me is regressive and there's been enough high profile incidents recently including the Grenfell Disaster, the Florida University footbridge collapse, accidents on the Smart Motorways Network and the ongoing RAAC concrete issue to prove that (putting politics to one side) compromised engineering decisions cost lives. In my field, as an example, roundabouts are traditionally illuminated but I'm working in a part of the country that, like many others, now routinely don't illuminate them and as a result has seen an increase in overshoot accidents. Our main design bible, the DMRB, now has a standard for producing Benefit Cost Ratios of street lighting proposals to essentially determine if the number of accidents you can avoid are worth the capital outlay, and the calculations are heavily weighted towards no lighting. Doesn't seem right on a basic human level and is something I personally push back against quite a bit. However, there are obvious benefits to not lighting things in terms of carbon benefits, safety benefits of not having to install/maintain columns, financial savings, benefits to animals such as foxes, badgers and bats that require darkness to operate, plus the less tangible benefits to human health and wellbeing (in the case of us, better stargazing!). Engineers like me do need progressive thinking people to push us in new directions but we sometimes go kicking and screaming! The Station Lighting example given above is sadly a symptom of the lack of common sense in the planning processes and something I come up against all day every day. Knowing nothing about Manningtree I'm going to assume it doesn't have a safety or antisocial behavior issue that warrants all that lighting and a much more pragmatic approach could have been taken.

Just on the light pollution issue, I'm a Civil Engineer specialising in Highways and many of the Local Authorities around the UK I work with are enforcing Dark Skies policies on new roads now, with roads only to being lit where it would pose a safety risk should they not be, for example crossing locations and certain junction types. It's part of a wider 'future ready/net zero' initiative to reduce carbon, ongoing costs, impact on wildlife, etc so I'd be lying if I said it was specifically to benefit ammeter astronomers, but hopefully in time the more of these policies get taken up, maybe some existing older street lights get taken down rather than replaced and skies might gradually start to darken again. Maybe.

I've recently picked up a SkyMax 127, based on recommendations from this forum, and have been very pleased so far! Definitely one to have alongside others I'd say as it does some things a lot better than others, I'm still trying to decide what I want to conpliment it with on trips away and the like.

If it's a nice to have I'm more than happy to leave it untill I've mastered the basics! FYI, this is the helpful guide to focusing that came with the camera...

Also, I notice in the linked thread references to setting it up with an ADC. I don't have one - is that a major oversight or is it a nice to have?

Thanks folks. I guessed the focus was the main issue. The instructions that come with the camera don't give you any clues at all how best to set it up but the 6mm trick noted above and in the linked thread may be the part I'm missing. Is it better to use it with the diagonal or without? Does it matter?

As the title suggests really! I recently bought, on a complete whim during the FLO sale, a ZWO ASI 224MC to use with my SkyMax 127 to have a go with some planetary imagining. So far I've followed the setup guide, downloaded the software, connected the camera up with ASICAP and taken this of Saturn; Clearly this isnt as simple and just plug and play and there's a lot to learn, and I don't want to waste everyones time asking for step by step guide to what went wrong but can anyone rec commend a good page/channel to get a bit of a crash course in how to use these things? The tutorials thread pinned in this section of the forum doesn't seem to address this kind of camera from what I can see. Thanks!

Thanks for this, it's something for me to check when I try it again! It's definitely the point I'm falling down at as I feel like I'm following instructions to the letter but not getting the same effect. Only thing I might need to do is lose the Cheshire and make a collimating cap instead maybe?

Interesting stuff, thanks! The dark eye adaptation is a good point actually, in my garden I get decent enough skies but there is a street light that you can see from certain angles and every now and then when I've been outside for a while carefully using a red light to sort through my EPs it catches my eye and blinds me for a good few minutes!

So what you're all saying is I do actually need to go shopping again 🤣Sounds like a much different viewing experience to the Mak I've just picked up and less messing about that then the newts I have.

This question is born out of curiosity rather than influencing any upcoming purchases, but it's kind of prompted by the wide field scopes discussion happening elsewhere on the forum. Basically, is there a way of determining the benefit of taking smaller scopes to darker skies? Can this be quantified and linked to magnitudes of visible objects? For example, I live in a Bortle 5 area and my main telescope is an 8" Dobs. I live about a 15 minute drive from parks in Bortle 4 areas and an easy overnight camping stay away from Bortle 2 areas. I wouldn't want to have to lug the Skyliner with me everywhere I go so a smaller scope would be needed, but I assume there comes a point where if you go too small you might as well just stay at home with the bigger scope. I'm guessing it's not as simple as Bortle 5 + 8" = Bortle 4 + 6" = Bortle 3 + 4" etc, but how to people determine the kit they have is worth travelling to darker skies to use?

Is still feel like I need a wide-field refractor in my setup, I'm just not really sure why! What sort of observing do you do with them? The apertures all seem very small so I guess nothing too difficult when it comes to DSOs? Are they similar to use as binoculars? Thinking a StarTravel 102 at some point, spec seems legit and they're quite cute 🤔 😃

Unbelievable photo, love it. 💗 I just googled ODK16 and cried at the price, will stick to looking at other people's photos I think 🤣

For that very reason mate, if I think it looks OK but people who know what they're talking about don't then its a good job I asked 🤣

Harsh but fair! It's interesting because so much of this seems to be down to personal perception. For example, you say my image shows it as being 'clearly oval' - I'm a Chartered Engineer and I cant see that as oval without the guide lines drawn on in the post above, and even then apart from a bit in the top right it looks pretty circular to me. The guide linked above has the following quote in bold letters - "The tolerances for this step are larger than those for alignment of the primary mirror so I do not obsess about this check – good is good enough." So my good is obviously different to yours! Not saying you're wrong at all - it's just a frustrating thing. I've used so many guides and youtube videos and they all seem pretty consistent but what I'm doing isn't giving the expected result. I am using the paper in the tube, have it facing a white wall, using a proper collimator, etc. One thing I will say is that I find it very difficult to make micro adjustments to the secondary, the slightest turn on the 3 small bolts and it drops a lot. I can hold it in position when loose but trying to tighten it back up into that position never gets it to where I want it to be. It is a second hand scope from eBay, and the image below shows the underside of it has seen better days, so I'm not ruling out the possibility it could be knackered but it doesn't seem mechanically complicated enough to be that and it's far more likely to be me!

Right, after too many hours of fettling I'm back. I think it's better now but not 100%. A couple of things; - I am absolutely 100% adamant I can't see more than one primary clip at a time in the secondary. If I take the cheshire out and look directly onto the secondary I can see where all three are if my move my eye about but never all at the same time. - I live in Cheshire and I'm going to have to move because the whole place reminds me of collimators now. - If anyone's wondering if telescopes float, I might have the answer for you very soon!

It's the 130p I'm trying to do at the moment.

Thanks! Had a nightmare with the secondary, the [removed word] went all over the place. One thing I wasn't sure about is the instructions I have said I needed to get it so all three primary clips were visible, but it doesn't seem like the secondary is big enough to get more than one on at a time. Not sure if that makes sense but I spent ages trying to move it further away from the primary and even with the screw all the way out i still couldn't fit all three clips in the view.

I need collimation advice (just had my first atyempt!) so will jump on this thread to avoid starting a new one! Basically, am I collimated yet? After a good hour of farting about everything seems to more or less line up apart from the crosshairs on the cheshire, which I guess wouldn't be there if I used a standard cap for it. Am I close enough? Need to go back and try again?

Postie has brought me something exciting today! I purchased a Skymax 127 GTi recently and decided I wanted a small Newt to stick on the mount to offer something different when I take it on a trip. Managed to pick up an Explorer 130p OTA on eBay for about £80 delivered. Needs a bit of a clean and some serious collimating but it looks pretty good for the money!