CraigT82

Congratulations Roy, Mike and Nicola. Have just received my mug… will have pride of place on the shelf! 
 

I use one on my frac and it works ok.  Horrendous stars at the edges though.   I now mostly just use a 2x converter to look through the quickfinder and that works great.

I’ve spent the morning toiling in the garden in the surprising warmth, levelling and compacting a corner of the garden in preparation for a incoming garden office pod. Got a bit of a sweat on so thought I’d go inside for a cup of tea, “pity I’ve got no treats to go with it” I say to my myself as I’m heading in.

Inside I find a package by the front door “ah this must be my 290m camera that @Kon has sent back to me”

So I put the kettle on and open the package…. Imagine my face when a big galaxy bar falls out! “Bl***y hell it’s a miracle” I blurt out. Currently going lovely with my nice cup o tea, although I’m somewhat distracted having to fend off the wife and kids who are circling like vultures around a carcass! 😂

Thank you Kostas, you really brought a smile to my face!!!

42 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I’m going to do this to mine tomorrow. Is it straightforward to disassemble and re-grease? I haven’t looked at it closely.

It was tricky due to the tiny screws, iirc I took off the front blanking plate (eyepiece side) which allowed me to pull the knurled ring out a little bit to get at the grease underneath it. I just used a bit of tissue twisted to a point and didn’t remove much. I’m not sure if it was this, or just working the ring back and forth rapidly for a few mins, which actually loosened it up… might be worth just trying that first before tackling those tiny screws. 

The native twist lock on the starfield focuser is a bit of a pain as it’s very stiff to begin with. On mine I removed some of the grease from inside and afterwards ran it back and forth repeatedly and this freed it up to the point it’s now easy to use. 

2 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Thought i might add a photo of my 152mm Altair Starwave ... Its a bit heavy at 9kgs but reasonably short (750mm ) with the dew shield retracted . 

Alas its only been on my SkyTee mount for two very brief sessions as the weather has been quite shocking ... still i like looking at it when its stored in our spare room 😂

I would absolutely love one of these to go on the AZ-EQ6 opposite the 102 f/7 ED.  Gorgeous scope 😍

On my skywatcher handset you can go into settings>tracking and switch off the tracking momentarily. However I imagine that will mess up your alignment (it doesn’t on mine as it’s the AZ-EQ6 with freedom find).

The other thing might be to look up the view on a planetarium app to begin with the compare it to the view through the scope, relay on the view being distinctive enough to compare. 

If the moon is up you could look at that first to gauge the orientation, should be fairly easy. 

Nice corner that, looks like a great view of the sky all round. I’d treat those fence panels now whilst you can get at them easily. Another reason to leave a gap is if you plan on excavating down a little for the shed base you might foul the concrete footing of the fence posts.  Also if you get any issues with sticky rollers on the roof it will be handy to be able to access them from both inside and outside the obsy so leaving enough room to get down all sides is a good idea 

I think that the Copernicus impact led to many more secondary impacts which produced rays that overlapped the primary rays, causing them to appear sinuous. Maybe the Tycho impact either produced less secondary impactors or the secondary rays were less visible or didn’t  interfere with the primary rays as much.

All down to differences in the Highland/Mare geology perhaps? 🤷🏻‍♂️

FLO stock this one from ADM
 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/adm-dual-saddle-upgrade-for-heq5-neq6-avx-zeq-ioptron.html

RVO also do this clamp but you have to buy the puck separately…

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/geoptik-universal-dual-load-mounting-saddle-plate.html

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/geoptik-adaptor-puck-for-neq6az-eq6gt-mounts-to-use-universal-mounting-plate.html

With mine I’m using the following:

•StellaLyra 30mm UFF (23x, 2.95°, 4.3mm exit pupil)

•ES 14mm (51x, 1.6°, 2mm EP

•Nirvana 7mm (102x, 0.8°, 1mm EP)

•Nirvana 4mm (178x, 0.46°, 0.57mm EP)

•StellaLyra 3mm LER 55° (238x, 0.23°,  0.43mm EP)

My aim was to half the exit pupil with each jump down, with an extra one at the short end for high power lunar views.

I’m happy with this set. Are there better eyepiece out there? Yes. Am I willing to spend the extra money on them? Not really. These lot present good value for money. The Nirvanas are a little tight on eye relief but I don’t wear glasses so they’re fine for me. The 3mm LER is a little tight of FoV but it’s very easy to look through and I think the smaller field helps to focus the eye on a particular feature rather than just gazing around the field.

I do have a set of BCOs too which I consider as specialist eyepieces for specific jobs.

1 hour ago, PeterStudz said:

Thanks! The stool was a £10 from Gumtree. It’s an old Ikea screw stool. Sadly no longer made.

The telescope has your old primary mirror. Well I’m sure that I bought it from you!  The OTA was given to me free (without a base) as the primary was damaged. 

I never have enough cider  As you know I make my own but cider varies and it’s difficult to get anything decent near me.

Oh yes that’s right! Well I’m super pleased to see my old mirror living its new best life in your great looking dob😊

6 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

I made a base for my 8” Dob about 2 years ago. I would have loved to have used birch plywood but even then (wood has really increased in price) I just could not justify it. One of the main points of building a Dob base is that you can make something decent at a reasonable price. If you need to buy everything from screws and bolts up (I didn’t) it’s surprising how the costs can mount up.

I ended up making mine from cheap 18mm plywood from my local Wickes. At the time it was £18 per sheet & I needed two. I even had some left over to make most of my EQ platform. It was more than adequate for the job. I made mine “organically” without a plan and it’s a little over “engineered” and maybe a tad heavy but it’s as solid as a rock and extremely steady. One important thing - whatever material you decide to  use make sure that you inspect it carefully and make sure it’s dead STRAIGHT. Most of the cheaper wood, even some of the expensive stuff will be warped, even if ever so slightly. I went through all the 18mm sheets at Wickes (yes, I was that guy) and hand picked sheets that were dead straight. Even a slight warp in your ground board will cause it to have annoying “sticky” points.

I painted mine but you could easily make one with a decent plain varnished finished with the plywood that I used . You just need to take time and extra care cutting and finishing off. Which you’d need to do with more expensive wood anyway. The edges on cheap plywood will have occasionally gaps which will need filling. I started off filling mine with filler but quickly got bored with the necessary sanding. In the end I used the old model aircraft technique of sealing the edges with tissue paper and dope/sanding sealer. A surprisingly easy, cheap and efficient method. If you want something fancy for a varnished finish you could seal the edges with iron on veneer furniture edging. Although I’d glue it on - far quicker, easier and secure. In fact you could veneer the whole base (not difficult) which would give you something different, interesting and hopefully nice. A bit like my dew shield. 

'

Very nice work that, rally like it. Did you make the stool too? Also…. Have you got enough cider!? 

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Any guesses before I open it?

Hmm they don’t normally use fragile tape… something breakable. SGL mug?! 

19 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Seems odd. Those that have bought SV until now seem therefore to have ended up with scopes optimised for imaging, even though they might be imagers. What a mess!

It also contains this wording, copied verbatim, which is just plain wrong:

CCD and CMOS cameras are most sensitive to red light

…and this section just screams ‘damage limitation’

We are making a large investment this year in a customized phase shifting laser interferometer that will allow us to figure our objectives in green light creating high strehl optics optimized solely for visual users. These telescopes will be made with a slightly different part number using the prefix: SVX-G. This will differentiate if the telescope optic is nulled in green light or red light. SVX-G optics will be made for discriminating visual observers.

33 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I’m pleased to hear that I’m not alone on this telescope adventure. I keep telling myself that this will be the last scope I’m selling, but unfortunately I have wandering eyes.

Been there and bought the T shirt!

If I were a better man I’d sell your Starfield back to you but I’m not and so I won’t,  Sorry! I’m enjoying it far too much 😃

One thing I’d say though with the more scopes I own and use the more I appreciate just how good my very first scope was (Heritage 130p). A lot of money needs to be spent to do better all round than the plucky little plastic H130p.  

MDF should be fine as long as well sealed from any moisture ingress (including just absorbing moisture from the air in a damp shed/garage), can even get veneered MDF so it will have a nice hardwood finish on the outside which is more expensive but should still be cheaper than top grade plywood. 
 

Excellent work, well done! 

5 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

There is video of the focuser on the manufacturers website and it looks well made and robust.

There isn't much information about what focusers it will fit and instead some advise about measuring your particular focuser before purchasing. There are adapters for Celestron SCT scope which look very neat. I wonder if they will fit my Skymax 127?

The only downside seems to be that the focuser needs a separate 12V power supply as well as the USB connection.

 

Yes that’s a shame but must electronic focusers do need a separate 12v supply. The only ones I’ve used that don’t are the old Moonlite stepper and the skywatcher unit, both of which have a 9v battery in the handset which make them great for visual usage. 
 

This one doesn’t seem to come with a handset but does mention smartphone control, but light on details though. 

50 minutes ago, skybadger said:

Has anyone made the point yet that you can test DPAC using a water bath so everyone everywhere can have a flat of the same accuracy ? 

I use it to test and setup my cassegrain scopes but use a white light led. 

 

That’s good, because my next thought about DPAC testing was that it won’t be long before we start seeing threads with people complaining that the flat they’ve bought is not of the advertised quality! 

10 hours ago, davidc135 said:

And besides, it's fun

Well… if you’re the one who’s just discovered your prized $18k scope is a lemon I imagine it’s not that fun! 
 

But I do agree, this testing method and being able to do it at home indoors is a very good thing for the hobby and will hopefully make manufacturers think twice about employing any marketing tricks.

16 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

The point is SV are the only manufacturer I can think of that tests in red, green is as far as I can see an industry standard. No hindsight then, a red flag. Ho ho ho.

I’ve seen plenty of test certificates posted up on here with no mention of the testing wavelength on them, not just SV.

I think unfortunately the only sure way to get them to stop selling is to open your own eBay store: Make and sell your own designs whilst undercutting them on price. 

3 hours ago, nicoscy said:

customers want more and are now learning to check whether they are getting their money's worth

Whilst I agree that it’s good to have a method whereby you can hold the manufacturer to account… I can’t help but think that if you can’t tell you’ve got a good or bad one by looking through it or imaging with it, then what’s the point of testing?! 

12 hours ago, Carbon Brush said:

Good advice from @Peter Drew

Supplemented by my (poor) advice to enjoy the view rather than observe the defects.😁

I am reminded of something said to me me many years ago, about 1970, when a lot of people were trying to perfect the 'perfect' hifi audio system using records. More recently known as 'vinyl'.
......These people are listening to to the scratches, instead of listening to the music....🤣

Seriously. My experience of newts is that they hold collimation quite well and this collimation stuff is often overthought.
Unless of course there are loose screws, wobbly fixings, or the scope gets dropped on the floor.🤔

HTH, Dvid.

 

11 hours ago, paulastro said:

I agree with you.  It's still often stated in books and on chat rooms that Newts will need to be frequently collimated.  In my experience over many years this is not the case.  I've taken  Newts to Kelling and back from West Yorkshire many times for the star party.  Though I check the collimation after every journey, I can't recall ever having to adjust it.

Not sure how you both got onto Newtonian collimation as the OP is asking about SCTs. 

My own view of the OP’s situation is that it looks ok in terms of rough collimation (maybe that’s all you need for galaxy imaging?) but for fine collimation I would advise to use an in-focus star image at high power (eyepiece) and observe the brightness distribution of the first diffraction ring around the airy disk.  You may need to tweak the collimation screws to get the brightness of the ring even all around.  I’m my experience it is almost impossible to do this using a camera as you can’t see the diffraction ring. Anyways I think that’s necessary for planetary imaging  where you need the sweet spot to land on the small sensor, but for larger formats you’ll probably get away with a good-enough collimation. 
 

Perhaps you could capture some images and view the distribution of coma in the image, or run the image through CCD inspector or similar, that would give you a clue. Properly collimated the sharpest point of the image would be in the centre and not offset to one side/corner. 

This Lynx Astro one is actually a Meanwell unit, I tried to find it cheaper elsewhere but no results so bought from FLO. worked perfectly fine for me with my EQ6. 
 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/power-accessories/lynx-astro-12v-dc-5amp-low-noise-mains-power-supply.html