bomberbaz

1 hour ago, FrankRyanJr said:

Actually you don't need to subtract anything for this timing as it's calculated for the toolbag itself. 

https://www.n2yo.com/passes/?s=58229#

Great find, should be usefull for some time to come.

On 23/11/2023 at 10:26, John said:

I must try one someday !

I get on OK with binoculars so it might be what I'm looking for.

On 23/11/2023 at 07:19, The60mmKid said:

Have you ever used a binocular telescope? It's a different beast. I have a friend who detests binoviewers but is head over heels for his Kowa Highlander. A binocular telescope can be a brilliant stargazing tool, including for doubles. Possibly worth trying.

You should try the observatory at Todmorden. @Peter Drew has made them up to 300mm but of interest in particular here with regards double is I think a telescope binocular of 120mm using two sw evostar 120 fracs.

I am not sure if there is an ED glass version, perhaps Peter will drop in an advise!

7 minutes ago, steveinhants said:

It's a real shame and I didn't realise the mini had better wifi capability. I'll take a look at what you mentioned but I'm now wondering if I do just use ethernet. Very frustrating.

Kinda defeats dome of the objective though.

I use the air+ too and sometimes link to my PC so I can control with the phone and grab data on the fly. When grabbing data I noticed a marked increase in transfer if I simply opened the PC cupboard door a little 😳. 

The "it" in this case isn't a horror character in a Stephen King horror movie but a clear sky in near full moon conditions although to be fair, either of them are equally scarey to me.

Yes the sky gods have deemed the whole UK is worthy of at least one cloudless night but as is inevitable he hasn't bothered to consult with the pagan moon 🌙 god.

So thankfully Jupiter will be playing ball, a bit of double hunting is better than nought and there should be a nice sharp terminator along the upper left moon.

However the moon will of course make dso hunting a visual nightmare.

Careful if you are on your own!

I really need to get out more!

Should have said this is from playstore

7 hours ago, JackW07 said:

I can’t seem to find this app, do you know where to find it?

 

 

Are you using iPhone, could be that

13 minutes ago, steveinhants said:

Hi,
I've had the ASIAIR Plus for around a month now and can only use it if my ipad is outside. I've looked at Dave Eagle's tutorial and connected a Vonets wifi repeater and while it does extend my range slightly, it takes transfer speeds down to 2kb/s - 150kb/s..... not practical.
I've also tried station mode as my home wifi has good coverage of the area where my mount is. Again, the same thing happens regarding the transfer rate. 
Wondering if anyone has a solution - I don't want to use an ethernet cable if it can be avoided. 

CS

Steve

Do you have an android device you try, could be device related.

28 minutes ago, roweben said:

Fylde Coast! 

As long as you get south of Blackpool you should get some half decent skies to view under, enjoy.

1 hour ago, Ricochet said:

. If you already have something to cover the mid power then the 3-8mm zoom most people are suggesting might still be the best option so long as your astigmatism is mild enough to get away with not using glasses at the resulting exit pupils. Assuming your scopes are the f5 versions then the 3-8mm zoom will result in exit pupils between 0.6 and 1.6mm. Reading from the Televue graph below if you have less than 1.5 dioptres of astigmatism you should be OK to use the full range of the 3-8mm zoom without needing your glasses.

Televue: Determining When To Use Eyeglasses
Televue: DIOPTRX

I have seen this diagram before but I assume it is more rule of thumb than hard fact.

If it were the latter then I should always wear glasses or some other correction and that simply isn't the case.

Welcome Ben, where abouts in Lancashire are you

On 31/10/2023 at 15:55, Samop said:

There doesn't seem to be any way to disengage the RA motor other than undoing the grub screw, but that seems a recipe for loosing things in the dark.

I owned one of these RA motors way back for a short time, found I had the same problems with the RA motor your experiencing, so got rid of it.

I then simply used the slow motion controllers to manually track, far easier to get along with.

Oh as for converting straight through finders to RACI, there is a kit out there but it costs more than a new one anyway, thinkn it is only for certain finders and you would be better just getting a new one.  Astro Essentials 9x50 Right-Angled, Erecting Finderscope | First Light Optics

1 hour ago, DAT said:

Thanks, make sense but also makes my choice harder. I think I should try one first if I can get to a local astronomy club and see for my self.

Have you by any chance used the Stellalyra zoom and if so, is it worth the extra cash?

I have just checked the specs on that eyepiece, it appears mechanically they are likely identical to other zooms in the same bracket. 

In terms of glass which tbf, is where things really matter it appears very good in using 5 lanthanum lens out of a total of 8. 

FYI the pentax zoom comes in at over 400 quid with seemingly very similar specs. 

My understanding is this is freebie! If that's the case I would be most happy 😊. 

34 minutes ago, DAT said:

Thanks, make sense but also makes my choice harder. I think I should try one first if I can get to a local astronomy club and see for my self.

Have you by any chance used the Stellalyra zoom and if so, is it worth the extra cash?

I haven't no, but I believe it will be at least equal optically to the baader 8-24 and I find that a nice bit of kit to use. 

I have 5 zooms in total and find zooms in general are vastly under rated. You do get better quality the more you pay as a rule of thumb but there are some variations to this. The svbony 7-21 is a perfect example.  

If you can get the use of a svbony 3-8 zoom to test I think you would be onto a winner.

Amazon allow you to return within a given time period, no questions asked, might be worth a consideration. 

I will just chip in with my own 2 penneth worth here. 

I get what you @DAT mean when you say a barlow/tele-extender will work with existing glass but it isn't adding as much as you might think, especially when combined with the 8-24 zoom.

Let's assume you wind the 8-24 zoom up to 8mm but want to go further on eg Saturn. So you wind back out to hopefully 16, take it out of focuser and shine head torch onto it to make sure your in the right spot, pop it into the tele-ext, put all back into focuser and refocus and you then pick up where you left off from to wind it all the way back to (8) 4mm. I mean it works, you gain the 4,5,6,7 focal lengths although there are no clicks to tell you where you are on the scale in terms of magnification. I still like it though, but I think the svbony 3-8 zoom will serve you better.

For one if you add a parfocal ring to the barrel of whichever eyepiece needs it (if indeed one is needed), it makes for a seamless changeover with no need to refocus.  You will know you are leaving the 8-24 at the 8mm stop point and starting the 3-8mm zoom at it's 8mm start point, no faffing about with a torch. Plus you get the extra 3mm length and from 8 through to 3 is indicated with clicks, you know where you are as long as you can count clicks😂. These are only small points of difference but the combination of these little points make a world of difference when it's dark and you are out viewing.

Finally some have stated the 3-8 zoom isn't suitable for glasses wearers. This statement can be true but can sometimes be a little misleading because not all people need their glasses for viewing as they move down the range to higher magnification. This is down to the exit pupil shrinking as magnification increases and the effects of astigmatism decreasing with the smaller exit pupil.

I have awful astigmatism, it's plus 6 or more. I do wear either glasses or use a dioptrix when viewing using my dob at lower focal lengths. My 24 and 27 fixed length eyepieces really. Below that the affects of the astigmatism becomes less severe and all but disappear at a 10mm eyepiece equivalent on my apm superzoom which gives a 2.5mm exit pupil.

I do not use any vision correction on eyepiece below the 24, I accept the slightly less than perfect stars and learn to view with it. In fairness I go from 24mm to 15mm which is a 3mm exit pupil, it isn't perfect but it isn't awful either.

With my 3-8 svbony zoom super high power (+210 and up) there is nothing in terms of  image degradation. So you  may be able to use a svbony 3-8 and indeed suspect you will find it perfect without your glasses like me.  I also feel you would find it a far better addition to the eyepiece case than a tele-ext or barlow for the reasons laid out above.  

HTH

Steve

I recently obtained a prinz astral which is a 76.5mm (read 3 inch) F16 and was 0.956 too. I gave it @Peter Drew to clean up and repair the focuser end of things. Now I have a lovely (1.25") scope which still needs some tlc but as it stands is a cracking scope. 

As @Carbon Brush says, the actual glass side of these scopes is often very good. At F15 if the glass is good then it should be superbly corrected, so if you can sort the focuser out you could be onto a fantastic double star buster. 

I can't remember who gave me this map/guide to spotting it but I found it very useful.

I didn't use it at the eyepiece but studied it quite a lot in the days running up to my planned visit to galloway to get into my mind what I was looking for and more importantly, where I was looking for it.

6 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Very narrow path to view it. Sadly not viewable from the UK as to far north.

Really, I honestly must have overlooked that, what a bummer.

This popped up on my phone, 12th December.  I put it in here as a heads up for both imagers and visual but don't blink or you'll miss it. 

Asteroid Will Cover Betelgeuse, May Reveal Its Visible Surface - Sky & Telescope - Sky & Telescope (skyandtelescope.org)

UPDATE: Not visible from the uk, apologies for my oversight here.

I found this list whilst researching into another matter.  Part of my research involved Barbara Wilson whom I discovered was sadly no longer with us. 

Further looking I discovered this rather bizarre and somewhat bonkers list called as per this thread title, the AINTNO way she gonna see this list.

There are 100 objects and when this was written, it was described as an impossible list of objects, things like sunlight reflecting of voyager 1, seeing footprints on the moon or my personal favourite, sunspots on Rigel!

However a quick scan of this reveal not all are seemingly impossible and I find I have already managed one on it, the jet of quasar 3C273, wow.

So I have linked to the list and also copied over the list for which I give full Kudos to the late Barbara Wilson and any other co-contributors. So any of you others can see how many you have ticked off, it's an all new type of challenge on a different level.

Oh nearly forgot to add, if you are observing with another person who can verify your hit, you can apply for a certificate if that's your thing. (link in the AINTNO page)

Aintno Catalog (astronomy-mall.com)

HAVE FUN ! 👍

* Revised
** Certificate already claimed. No second certificate will be awarded.

4 hours ago, tomato said:

This is not my area of expertise, but one other comment I would make is that from my mid UK location this object doesn’t get above 30 deg altitude, this is not helpful for any type of faint diffuse object. 
 

I am only an occasional visual observer but I have glimpsed the Flame nebula with a 16” Dobsonian from my Bortle 5 location, but B33, no chance.

Yeah 33.5 degrees from my home town, less if I drive north for the darkness. 

I did a little fov check and I stick by the circa 1 degree being optimum.

Enough to get the nebula yet small enough to avoid alnitak. 

28 minutes ago, John said:

Even seeing the Flame Nebula can be quite challenging under a less than very dark and transparent sky and you really need to be able to see that quite obviously to have a chance of the more subtle IC 434.

I agree entirely with this. The only time I saw the HH/ic434 the flame was clearly visible with no filter.

I was in Galloway, B2 skies with my 14" dob and even then it took quite a while with my head under a light hood before they became visible.

EDIT. Both aspects suddenly just became visible, it wasn't an obvious pop into view, just I became aware of them almost simultaneously. As in,"ahhh there it is!"

I had tried very many times before I got this success.

Check everything is firmly clamped as above.

Up the aggression from whatever it is in whichever axis you are losing tracking, I suspect RA, by 20% and see if that helps at all. 

1 minute ago, Bugdozer said:

Does, it, though? I can't find any real comment on the forum about how bright IC 434 (as you have informed me it's called, thank you) actually is. Wikipedia says it's mag 7.3. Another site says it's mag 11. That's quite a difference. 

All the threads you are talking about are focused on people trying to see the Horsehead itself, B33, which I have no particular interest in because I know it will be almost impossible with my equipment. 

I think you are missing the point, you cannot see one without the other. The hh is overlayed on ic434, if you see the nebulosity, you will see the hh too. 

Found the sgl article, seems the links in it no longer work, but if you read it you will see we do not speak with forked tongues

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/220171-eyepiece-for-that-notorious-nag/page/1/

Just to add to what the others said. There was a really well written article on viewing this and some of the prerequisites. I cannot find it but they were as below:

An eyepiece that gives you a exit pupil of around 5mm and circa 1 degree fov.

An h beta filter, preferably a good quality one.

At least 10" of aperture.

As dark a sky as you can get to and no moon at all.

Well dark adjusted eyes.

There are as mentioned above documented successes by some not meeting the above, however to give yourself the best chance you should try to do so.

And John's description of what you see is spot on.