LDW1

A small part of Masrkarian's Chain from several nites ago !

There has never been any doubt ! The Thousand Oaks mylar film with its phony orange tinge is the worst ever, SS must have gotten a great deal to use it in their solar filters.

I stayed up til 3:30 am to get this, I couldn't wait for July-Sept to get here, lol. I just did a touch up with my built in ipad editor.

M12 ! Ophiuchus holds several (5) nice star clusters.

Great take ! With the Baader film on a day when air currents are as still as you can get, especially around 10 am and winds are very lite the edges of the sunspots should be razor sharp not lot like the SS stock solar filter that uses the Thousand Oak mylar film with the phoney orange tinge. I hope someone starts turning them out, I will buy one in a heart beat no matter what the cost !

A great take !

I used the SS's built in stacker for these, I like it and I like to support SS when I can !

Another recent take ! /

I would get one anyway, you don't realize the fun you are missing at such a low cost ! You might become addicted like the rest of us, lol !

Decades ago I had an EQ mount or two, I didn't like the contortionist actions / attitudes that I had to do, I vowed never again, lol. I am sure the automated SS would have its problems as well, some how and for very little gain, in the end !

They are but it limits your field of view below a certain horizotal position, considerably, it might restrict access to many objects in say Scorpius and Sagittarius, maybe !

With my WL filters / scopes many times I either use a Variable Polarizing filter or a #56-58 green filter, they can really enhance the views. I tried the variable filter one time in my ha scope but it made the view way too dark.

There has always been some slight discrepencies in the etalon, they are not easy to build and get a consistant lens / filter, thats why they are so costly. The 3 ha scopes that I have owned have all been great performers. And as always air currents, heat rising always affects view quality, hour to hour, sometimes a lot.

The Deep Sky Stack feature built into the SS is a great little utility, its enjoyable just to play around with, this is one from last nite that I stacked with it today. I am not sure if I can do a before / after, I will give it a look but I have a couple of things to do first.

And there are a lot of them.

A few more for my Stars Album

I get those messages when skies are a bit hazy or there is a bit of a breeze blowing from certain directions. But unless your skys are constantly like that you shouldn't get those messages ' most of the time ' ! You do get some good times though, right ?

A couple more from a not too bad sky !

I don't see much difference unless I stare for a while or maybe use a magnifying glass vs the hassles of using an EQ set up ! ZWO got it right and I think at a much better price, no wonder 98% of us have smiles on our faces, lol !

The 2" filter holder that I ordered from Oak Astro just arrived ! It works well, fits a little snug so I will sand it a bit, works well when the SS retracts as designed. I can hardly wait to try it with several of my 2" scope filters, even if they don't work it wll be fun experimenting. The filter shown is a Burgess CX - 4, may he RIP, a great astro builder !

Better take up golf, lol !

And 90% of the great objects are in the south quadrant so if it takes the horizon too high a SS'er will miss out on a high number of dso's ! In the summer Scorpius, Sagittarius, etc. and a lot that goes alongside them ! Hopefully not but ......... ?

As per another site we are having no luck in taking the North Star, Polaris ! It won't centre,in my case it seems to stay located in the upper left corner, if I manually centre it it returns to the upper left, if I try to enhance it from there it won't / can't take it ! Other have the same issue. Anyone over in your part of the world have any luck with Polaris ?

Before I spend the $'s I want to try the ones I have, I have a real assortment from my refractors ! I have a unique 2" Burgess X-4 that I am dying to try, first thing as the objects I want to try it with get high enough, early enough.

With ship. & tax about $300 C on Amazon !