CraigT82

Lol thank Martyn it was actually Saturday but but might have been due in part due to one to many beers consumed on the 13th so we can chalk it up to that I suppose!

Tanks Reggie!

Thanks Geof. Stupid accident really, completely avoidable. I was tweaking the secondary collimation as I'd been messing with the focuser position. I was turning the central screw on the secondary boss, the one with the spring on to get the secondary centred under the focuser, and loosened it a bit too far and the secondary boss and mirror dropped off the end of the screw and went sliding down the tube and hit the primary. Primary has a nice gouge in the coating about 2mm wide and 25mm long on it now, ad the secondary has a chip off the back edge about the size of a 5p coin. I was initially doing these adjustments with the the horizontal to avoid this kind of accident but I tilted it up to catch some light as I was struggling to see, then it happened whilst tilted up... of course! Was the out on Saturday night and whilst I had a star in the field of view and racking through the focus I could see that the breakout was elongated one way inside of focus and the other way outside of focus, so there is some astigmatism somewhere, just need to do some tests to figure out where. To be honest it may be due to the way I've glued the secondary to the boss (3 blobs of silicone) - I didn't actually do that astigmatism check before the accident so the astigmatism may have already been there and the actual mirrors may be fine, if a little battle scarred.

The fine detail in there is fantastic, those little bok globs in the middle are so nicely defined. What is with the wide spikes coming off the bright stars?

Thanks Kon, yes it’s a bit better than my last effort but again seeing was ok but not great. Plus I managed to damage my scope the other day and I think it’s not performing quite as it should now. Hopefully it’s a relatively easy fix.

Have a look at @WolfieGlos Starfield 102 images in the deep sky imaging section. They’re beauts!

Best 10% of nine 3 minute captures. Then took those 9 sharpened images and stacked them together in AS3 (couldn’t be bothered with winjupos). 300p with ASI485mc and APM 2.7x barlow, and ADC.

That’s really interesting! Nice work, what was the kit used?

This is a good shout, probably most likely culprit?

What was the scope? If rings bunched to one side I’d say collimation, or star wasn’t on the optical axis.

Set up and waiting for Saturn to appear behind a tree. Had a very unfortunate accident earlier today resulting from my own stupidity whilst adjusting the position of the secondary. I managed to send the secondary and its boss sliding down the tube and striking the primary quite hard. Nice little graze on the less than 1 year old John Nichol primary and a big chip out of the edge of the secondary. Can not believe my own carelessness as it was a totally avoidable incident, If only I’d kept the tube level and not tilted it up to catch more light. Put a little bit of black electrical tape over the graze on the primary and did some video captures on a star and running through the focus point I can definitely see some astigmatism…. Really hope it’s in the secondary which will be a relatively cheap fix. Decided to set up anyway and see how it goes, will try and rattle off some captures of Saturn. The good news is the gremlins I had last time are all sorted: alignment and tracking is excellent and ADC is properly adjusted - small win!

Ah thanks yes. For some reason I thought full price was £3725. Still a nice discount.

Can’t quite see but looks like a decent discount on that 12” CC. Good job I didn’t go there as I’d be divorced by the end of the weekend!

Not a Mesu, it’s a JTW Trident. FLO have had an OOUK section in the telescopes part of the site for a while now but there was nothing in there. Seems that might change soon.

That is lovely. Is that an OC just off to the right end of the hanger?

My feet are my weak point when it comes to cold…. So I asked Santa for a pair of these a few years ago and they’re great:

Very nice read Magnus, good use of the setting circle can’t remember the last time I read about anyone using those! Do you still have the AZEQ6 or is that just reserved for heady duty lifting?

I think it’s ok. If it gets people going out and looking up it can only be a good thing. Probably be more technically correct if they called it the “slightly-larger-than usual moon” but that not quite as eye catching!

What’s the cause of the dark centre donut in the Nirvana image? Also the LVW but there it’s more of a disc than donut.

With that budget I’d be tempted to buy a Mesu and a pair of 120mm fracs (Esprit?) and run a dual set up. OSC on one and mono with Lum/ narrowband filters on the other.

I used to have my 300p on and old black EQ6 syntrek. The scope weighs 25.5kg and I had the same weight in counterweights. No damage was done to the mount but it was a wobbly mess to use be honest. However using an electronic focuser and the mounts tracking does help with not having to touch the scope. I now use the same scope on an AZEQ6 which is a bit better but still get a wobbly image when touching the scope.

Fantastic shots…. The images of bright stars you get from that big newt are just gorgeous. Have you modded the scope on any way or did it perform like that out of the box?

Very nice Francis, I like the combination of there filters best. Is this a dual frac set up or one filter after another?

Many deep sky images capture small and faint galaxies that are not catalogued, especially when aimed outside of the plane of the Milky Way. It’s even possible to visually observe uncatalogued galaxies. Just last year amateurs discovered a previously undetected giant Oiii cloud near Andromeda https://www.astrobin.com/1d8ivk/. I’m not saying you’re going to be able to do things like this with your 8SE… but amateurs can and do make new discoveries and it won’t do you any harm to go out and try, so Good luck! 🤞

The secondary appears to be a silvered spot on the back of the meniscus, so it’s not a Rumak, which has a separate secondary mirror with a different figure to the meniscus for more control (as seen on the OMC200). Maybe the 185 has an ellipsoidal primary and spherical meniscus/secondary like the 140. Must the say marketing patter in the description is terrible, with lots of promises of of this and that and no real technical information.