bomberbaz

Helps keep your mrrors cleaner longer louis

I thhink most cool their dobs in the horizontal position with covers off. Regarding early morning moon clarity the air tends to be more settled very early morning so often gives better seeing. There could be many reasons why your views are suffering as you claim, you will get to the bottom of it though. I went through something like this once with my 12" flex tube a few years back, mine was mainly collimation I am slightly ashamed to say. Steve

Yours being the 12" OOUK dob then John I think, great mirrors.

Great selection there. Remember using the 6" F11 but didn't really appreciate it's qualities back then (8 years since).

Don makes a very good point there Baz, how long have you been allowing for cooling before viewing, an uncooled ota could be the reason for mushy views at high magnfication whle you get seemingly clear views through the spotter which cools quickly due to its size.

I will have a go with my spotter F4 frac next time. Get a lovely clear image with that and the APM flatfield ep. Will have to be through glass though, unless I take my window panes out 😅

It is cheaper to just buy a leisure battery and clips adaptor that buying a fancy one like the skywatcher one. However the skywatcher 17ah version carries a good warranty and is currently is on offer so! https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/skywatcher-powertank-17ah.html

have you already got a power tank

Nice looking set up there and a pretty decent price too

what mirrors are you using @John, could you have better quality mirror giving a superior view? Don't even know if that is a possibility but just curious.

BTW, what about this for a bargain 👍😅 https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/baader-morpheus-eyepiece-set-6-eps.html

That's Neowise at 23.20 tonight according to stellarium. Capella makes a good guide to finding it, if you can see capella, you can see the comet. A morpheus 14 and barlow ( I prefer telecentric ones such as ES focal extender) would be a great addition to your scope. Strange about the stars still looking quite fuzzy, is this even in the centre?

Hey Baz, how's it going. Just a quick one re NeoWise. It is currently becoming visible slightly to the NW and moves accross to the NE later on passing North at around 1pm. You will only see it if you can get a view that gives you the bottom 10 degrees of altitude. For me this means looking from a bedroom window to gain the height above my neighbours roofs which thankfully are on a slight gradient below me so gains me a couple of feet and allows me to see it throughout the night. Hope that makes sense.

Yeah it should work but check before you buy that the fittings are ok. You would also need the star adventurer wedge https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-equatorial-wedge-white.html You might find it a little wobbly due to the tripod not being the best and so it might be worth filling your tripod legs with sand or hanging a 5kg bag of sand (or similar) from underneath the tripod to add stability. Also only extend the legs as far as is reasonably needed when doing eeva. Then you would need to flash the mount itself for EQ mode which is relatively easy but make sure you follow a youtube tutorial first, that's what I did and I made sure I really understood exactly the process. Simple though it is you really don't want to be screwing this part up.

Hello again Gmx76 (name). I have used it in eq mode a lot. Works very well too. Used it in this mode with a number of ota's including a 80/600 frac, 127/1500 mak and a Lunt LS35. Also used it on a mini guide scope. All performed well on the mount. TIP: Get the mount head only and use it with a 1.75" steel mount or better. The difference in stability is considerable. Steve PS. You may need an extension pillar too.

If you want goto I have the az gti wifi mount which is a great bit of kit to me

depends what your future intentions are tbh. If you are maybe wanting to do some astro photography then the EQ option may be the best as easiest to adapt later down the line. If you are simply looking at visual with maybe a bit of camera phone pictures at best then the goto dob is best option. Easier to set up and on the EQ version mounting a 10" newt is no easy task. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dobsonians/skywatcher-skyliner-250px-flextube-goto.html

I haven't had either but have owned the same aperture scopes. All I do know is you will be disappointed with your views if you get a 130 after using a 10" dob. I would simply replace the current focuser with something better such as a skywatcher (budget option) or baader steeltrack or moonlight focuser. All available as 2" and with 10-1 speed. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/focusers.html

good effort Michael, looking forward to processed images.

So I can't go out to darker areas as my wife and I are under full lockdown now on medical advice, so had to search for the comet from upstairs back bedroom. Quick reference to stellarium / Neowise trajectory map and around 11.30 pm I went upstairs and bingo, got it. Wasn't brilliant at this time due to still being quite bright with twilight and barely naked eye visible using averted vision. So I waited a half hour and tried again. It had moved around but still found easily. This was partly due to the fact it was a plain clear naked eye view. In my 10x30 IS bins it was a wonderful sight with the tail streaming out to the north. So glad to get this as was worried it might be below neighbouring rooftops but thank fully it was just a couple of degrees above. Result!

I recently bought a Skytee mount with the intention of trying to do something a little different to that to which I am accustomed shall we say. By that I mean I mainly use goto or pushto. Tend to mainly do DSO, a little Planetary, a bit of Moon and cluster work. OTA's on this are a Bresser 102/1000 achro, a Celestron 127/1500 and a TS optics 80/330. So this setup has been put together with thought towards more planetary, moon, widefield and getting more involved in doubles. (Bought Cambridge double atlas to help with the latter) Also all this will be done the old fashioned way, with eyes, atlas and a hop. Briefly on this my train of thought was mak mounted RDF to get me quickly to reference bright star. The spotter frac gives me 4.2 degree with a 25mm/60 degree EP which is great for hopping. Not been tried out yet but had a play around this afternoon with the main idea of getting it all collimated. this actually happened fairly easily actually. Start with the frac and then collimate all the others against the fracs view, the frac not being individually collimatable. All three OTA's have individual strengths and have balanced up very well on the skytee. It did take a little fiddling around to get it so all the diagonals were roughly parallel along the viewing end. I do need another counter weight though. OTA weights inc accessories are frac - 6kg / Mak 3.5kg & spotter frac 1.2kg.

I have ordered it from astroshop and will tell FLO to leave it. I have an order already in with astroshop and so they should add it to that and refund the postage. Its the simplest option from my point of view. Steve

thanks John, I have cobbled together something that will work until I can get one sent out. I have contacted the retailer, I am hoping they will get it sorted for me. I am not having a lot of luck with kit just at the moment.

Can someone post a picture up of the skytee mounts counter weight locking bolt or what ever it is that is used to lock it. I hadn't checked this part of the mount until today as I ended up being pre-occupied with the mount grease. Then today I decided to stick some OTA's on it and do some daylight dry run testing for the hoped for clear night tomorrow. Anyway, when I looked in the box I could not find anything in there to use as a locking system for the weight and nor do I remember seeing anything like that. TIA Steve

Nice one @fozzybear, those are quite impressive as they are so easy to follow due to the lack of clutter. I have saved that to a folder. I may print them off later. Steve