bomberbaz

Went to see a mate of mine today who has a skytee mounted on a berleback tripod utilising a extension pillar. He had drilled the empty end to take a 3rd saddle and cleaned the grease as mentioned above. He had a telementor 60mm/F12 frac mounted on it. I was really impressed by both the mount and the OTA. Re the mount it was super smooth and really well balanced. He has done a good job in cleaning and re-greasing it. @jock1958how do you adjust to compensate for the backlash, is it difficult? cheers steve

If I could get half as good as that I would be happy, I might have a go at the owl nebula next time the opportunity arises as an easier starting object.

I bought this one. https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/revelation-self-centering-2-to-1.25-eyepiece-adaptor.html

I have run my az gti in eq mode with a zwo usb camera and longest combined run I have done had been around 5 minutes worth of short exposures limited to about 5 seconds per exposure. Had limited success so far but it is capable from results I have seen off others. I must add I did upgrade the tripod to something more sturdy though.

Having just checked, it is only £23 for the bar and weight anyway https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-counterweight-kit.html

Might be cheaper to just buy the weight and a bolt like this https://www.fastco.co.uk/m12-x-260mm-zinc-plated-coachbolts-with-nuts-pack-of-10.html?kw=pla-78642209055+c&fl=1000&ci=144812954065&network=pla&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0Mb3BRCaARIsAPSNGpU76fzLCXIUxptcoj0vlw7U32sn92ZxtUs3YIH2JKlDbSJ2ACHM9DwaAsf2EALw_wcB

thats what I did dd999

Yes it does run off both eq and az, it isn't difficult. I am not aware of an eqmod app, it may work directly from phone via a web browser, not sure though. Not really my thing these days technology.

it isn't difficult to convert to eq mode, just need the star adventurer wedge and a counterwieght/bar and away you go. Download the relevant frmware of course, it's easy enough to do. Use eqmod and reduce the slew speed to 6 or 7.

Nearly forgot about this link. It's the same David Knisely from your earlier link @John It is a list of many popular Northern hemisphere nebula and gives "his" opinion on what filter works best for them. I have used this list a lot when considering my viewing options for a given night where nebula are a consideration. Hope this helps https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/user-reviews/accessories/astronomical-filters/filter-performance-comparisons-r1471#top Steve

I have found a reference to exit pupil sizes I alluded to earlier in this thread. It isn;t the one I used to have a link to but it does appear to have identical information as I remember. (Caveat my memory can be a little shaky these days) It is agenaastro on this page, article 4. Filter guide The whole article is well worth a read but 4 is where the info is I remember. Worth bookmarking. Anyway, I wasn't a million miles off what I said and again, as mentioned already in this thread the rules/guidelines whatever regarding filters seem to be more relaxed and personal than most other areas of this hobby.

what file extention Neil, my laptop won't open it! EDIT- wordpad works

cheers for that Rob, some interesting ideas there, notably the idea of running a spotter with your rig. I have got a 5M repeater cable and although I haven't actually tried it fully live, I have run it a couple of times in daytime but without the stars i can't do stacking. It was run from a PC which is recently upgraded and pretty high end so don't think there would be any buffering issues there. What mount are you using incidentally if you don't mind me asking? cheers agin, Steve

Worth knowing that is Neil, I will put that on my ever growin winter list

Perhaps I am miss-reading this John but on one hand David appears to state that narrower bands work at lower pupillary size which mean higher power and on the other that when he goes to higher power he often switches from O-III to UHC. Actually I just re-read David's opening statement in bold. I will leave the comment above in case anybody else thinks similar but what I think he is saying is the narrower bands benefit from less magnification per inch of aperture (lower half of the range). Glad I cleared that up 🤦‍♂️😬 Totally agree with what he says though. There are rules to using filters which are frequently broken. I often use an O-III on x150 (x15 per inch) on the ring nebula. That's why i am a big fan of filters, allows you to play around and experiment. 👍

I used to have a link to a website which had a lot of useful information regarding filter exit pupils, seems it has now been taken down. However I seem to remember that as a rule of thumb and by no means written in stone it was 4-6 mm for HB with 5mm being optimum. 3-5mm for the O=III and UHC having the broadest spectrum of anything down to 1mm exit pupil depending on the object being viewed for a UHC. Of course in some OTA's you naturally have a smaller exit pupil, maks being an obvious example although this applies any slower OTA. I think though it was aimed more at newtonian DOB users where the gradiant in exit pupil is far higher due to most of them being quite fast scopes in the first place.

Hiya Rod, Been following this thread with interest. how do you manage that given the approx three meters length max on a USB3, do you use a repeater cable.

They used to think the same about arsenic in the victorian times. Scores of people, including many children were dying for no apparent reason. Some very well known industrialists swore there was no way on earth arsenic in wallpaper could affect people, these people though were generally involved in the production of wallpaper, copper and arsenic.

Oh and just a quick heads up, the 8mm BST is reputedly there best eyepiece from the range from what I remember reading although as i haven't used one in this size I cannot confirm that to be the case.

No worries, link to the 8 here also https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-8mm-ed-eyepiece.html

Bottom of this page https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-32mm-ed-eyepiece.html

Anybody wishing to fast track this go to 38 minutes to see it just getting ready to disappear and 1.30 to see Venus re-emerge. The re-emergence was absolutely jaw dropping beautiful.

I have the chap who was streaming it up on my FB account. He has stopped the stream but will be streaming the planet re-emerging. I will post a link up once he starts streaming again

Live facebook feed from lithuania, still hasn't happened there

So tempted but got to keep it clean 🤣