CraigT82

1 hour ago, badhex said:

Quick update: Got the Vixens! Had hoped to buy them in person from Starbase Tokyo astro shop but they sadly didn't have them in stock, so ordered from Amazon JP instead.

First impressions are very good: Nice heft and solid build quality, although the lanyard clip feels a bit flimsy, so might replace it at some point. Very easy to hold up to the eye, although jamming them into your eye sockets feels a bit wrong knowing that you'll get eyelashes on the lenses. Had a quick go on the hazy moon as it was the only thing visible from Tokyo, didn't get any false colour when the moon was centred. Looking forward to using them under darker skies when we're in the countryside!

Nice! Look forward to first proper light report.  I think Vixen must source their cases from the same factory that Exposure (bike like manufacturer) does as it looks exactly the same as the ones that their lights come in. 

Well no one gets it totally right on the first go Vlaiv. MkII will be better! 

As Nik says, ventilation is key in the garage to prevent condensation developing on cold surfaces. Has your garage got any vents? (Air bricks, roof vents etc…) 

5 minutes ago, Macavity said:

The scope optical axis may not be aligned with the rings/mount?

Good point. Optical axis may be off from the long axis of the tube if it’s been collimated with a focuser that’s not quite square to the tube. Or if the secondary isn’t quite central, I think. 

Nice idea…. I guess that removes the need to level the tube to zero it.  Be better with wingnuts though? 

I foresee a two tier pricing system in my future ads:

Mates rates if I know you, and full price of not.

🤷🏻‍♂️

This one? 
 

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

That’s kind of her Neil, but I’m not sure the bathroom is the best place to store a telescope. Especially a Tak 🤔

Dunno… Tak green might look quite fetching alongside a nice avocado suite

Wow that is a really comprehensive guide! Some really good DSO imagery in there too, very nice work. 

If you can get away with fully retracting then legs that will be best in terms of stability (seated observing?).

You could also try using an accessory tray on the spreader to stiffen that, or the time honoured method of hanging weight from the tripod to improve stability. 

If the mount head is easy to move at high mags and you can track things easily, but the view shakes too much when you focus, you could try the skywatcher motor focuser. Be cheaper than a new mount.

2 hours ago, Altair8389 said:

can/should keep a rig outside in the rain and snow and heat with an outside cover

Yup pretty much every bit of the rig will be ok as long as you’re careful. Decent cover with ventilation, desiccant etc etc. unless you get serious sub-zero temps (pet heater maybe) or super high summer temps (sun shade?) it should all be fine.  Batteries should last longer if kept inside though, if that’s what you use. 
 

The advice regarding keeping everything connected and in one price is given because taking things apart repeatedly will introduce dust onto optical surfaces which means more flats and more cleaning. Also once you’ve got an imaging train dialled in for spacing/tilt then taking it apart again is going to ruin that. We’re talking fractions of mm here.

Keeping everything together and kept set up outside and polar aligned means that you’ll be capturing data within minutes of deciding to go out. It will enable greater productivity.  

Best thing to do is just get out with it next clear night and see how well it works. Observe something at the highest magnifications you’re likely to use and see how easy it is to track the object, and how badly the view wobbles when you touch the focuser. 
 

If either of those things are going to be a chore you may need a larger mount.

Don’t underestimate the challenge of getting a 12” newt up onto a mount, unless its permanently mounted then doing it again and again gets very unappealing very quickly. 

53 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

GSO should have the better optics.

Please explain why you think this? 

Lovely images Roy. I might add that using the IR filter will reduce the resolving power of the scope. The shorter the wavelength of the filtered light the better the resolution, however you will need good seeing to go with those shorter wavelengths.

Thought I’d have a bash at a deep sky sketch last night. I had my 12” newt set up  on a dob mount down at my in-laws house, where we spend most Monday nights, and it benefits from a darker sky than I enjoy at my house.

My intention was to sketch M45 first and move onto one of the OCs in Auriga, however I only had periodic breaks ont he cloud cover to work win, so M45 on it’s own would have to do. At the eyepiece I sketched out the positions and magnitudes of the stars using white pastel pencil on black sketch pad. Afterwards I used a white paint pen to emphasise the brighter stars and used crushed grey and a tiny bit of blue pastel on a brush to try to depict the faint nebulosity around Alcyone and Merope from memory (I could swear the nebulosity was blue visually, however I’m not sure if that could be the case and it may have been just my brain adding the colour. I then took a pic of the sketch and added the black frame to seem like an EP view and added the text (on the actual sketch I wrote the wrong details and so that’s what drove me to add the black frame!)

I’ve just noticed another SGL regular classifieds seller is now advertising on ABS as a ‘kit tester’, not sure how long that’s been the case as haven’t been on ABS for a while. I think it would be appropriate to ask them to flag their SGL ads with the same designation.

8 hours ago, Kon said:

Fantastic. It pops out of the page. A real 3d appearance to it.

Thanks Kostas, the white paint pen is great for giving it that effect I think 

8 minutes ago, Franklin said:

Wow, you must have gone to art college?

Thank you for saying that but no I didn’t... Went to Wigan Tech and got a City & Guild’s level 2 in motorcycle service and repair! 

Due to poor weather this is a quick sketch using the Lunar orbiter photo on the Copernicus Wikipedia page. 

Black/white/grey pastel pencils on white sketch pad. White paint pen for highlights.

18 minutes ago, 900SL said:

A high power torch is a useful thing. I

For personal safety you can’t beat a 6 cell maglite 😉

20 minutes ago, femalealpha88 said:

Thank you and thank erverybody for your fast responses..

For the ones saying i put an incorrect motor probably the screenshot i chose is wrong or something but the hand controller is the same and the motor is working fine and definitely doing some tracking (if i switch OFF the controller and I'm aiming to the moon then the moon starts to "move" fast and dissapear from my field of view in a few seconds with high magnification, with the controller ON it stops a well centered like a few seconds and at least 6 minutes on the field of view on my ocular before 'dissapearing') --> btw I can re-center the moon using the controller very smoothly and fast on 16x speed.

 

For the stars, definitively is doing some tracking, same as the moon for more time but poor tracking on one axis (RA I suppose). Probably I'll make a fast vid showing it if I don't manage to expain well or my problem persists.

 

- BTW I think the instructions say to put cables for RA and DEC in the wrong order! still have to do some tests.

- The first batteries were for free at the shop but I tried a new ones after noticing the batteries expired on feb 2021 and barely had power to move one of the axis.

- Now i'm trying with new batteries and all is working fine, except for the poor tracking.

-------

- Definitely I think is something related to polar aligment, i'm so newbie that I try to do this just pointing de N leg of the tripod the most accurately possibe to Polaris just using my senses not any tool (which I don't have)..

Watched a lot of vids and tutorials trying to learn to do an accurate PA aligment but or i'm a fool (I don't find how to do it manually or I need some digital tools for that.

For example yesterday I can saw Polaris just with my eyes and "aligned" the tripod throwing a green laser beam inside the polar aligment gap and I was pretty close, but I suppose this is not a good method...

 

PS: I read in other thread that I only need to connect the RA axis to do the tracking, is it right?

 

- In any case, some tracking is doing when I switch on the controller, because the star trail is HUGE when i try to do some short exposure (I got exaggerated Star Trail with the controller with bad batteries or turned off, and just poor tracking when the controller is running with good batteries but total noob PA...

- Probably leveling the tripod is determinant too?

 

Sorry for so many questions, I feel so dumb, but for sure I spent lot of hours watching vids, tutorials, talking with the guy of the shop who I bought the stuff... I feel stuck.

Maybe is a good idea buying something like this? (buscador polar.png) :

 

 

Yea it sounds like you just need to get your polar alignment sorted, a polar scope will definitely help and you can get an app on your phone to tell you where Polaris need to be placed when looking through the polar scope.  The tripod doesn’t need to be level to get a good poor alignment  but it certainly won’t harm it it is levelled.

31 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

I think the key is to price your unwanted goods correctly. 

There are loads of traders on ebay who pick up second hand goods if they are priced too low. 

Similarly, I use MPB for buying and selling old camera equipment, and it is fairly obvious they are in the business of making a profit on anything they buy from you. 

I know people say price at around 2/3 of new, but now inflation is high, retail prices are going up, so you could argue why is my second hand telescope now worth more than a year before. 

Ultimately, if you set a price and someone pays it, and you were happy with the deal, the goods are no longer yours, and if they then try and sell it on for a profit later on, the lesson is you probably priced it too low.

It's hard enough to sell astro gear at the best of times, so if you restrict who you sell to, you're only going to shoot yourself in the foot.

Yes agree with all this, however my main issue is with the dealers then selling it on and pretending not to be a dealer. If they are doing this ‘professionally’ they should be up front about it with their buyers and should abide by distance selling regulations like any online trader, and offer things like returns/warranty on the things they sell. 

6 minutes ago, Alan White said:

From earlier post by me "Turning a profit, well that’s a personal choice"

Adding to the above from my first comment, a profit is only one once realised of course.
The market supports what the market supports.

I’ve also nothing against someone turning a profit, but if the person profiting is a trader who is posing as a normal punter then that’s crossed a line.

3 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Euphemism for trader, often.

Yes I’ve seen this before… I previously reported a user as a dealer to the ABS webmaster after something very similar occurred with my sold kit, but nothing happened as far as I could make out. 
 

Guess the only thing to do is always sell at slightly above full market price, or maybe only sell to users you know/recognise, but that’s be a sorry state of affairs.

10 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

The motors can't be interchanged between the EQ5 and EQ3-2 mounts. The EQ3-2 RA is attached using a small bracket which is bolted to the side of the mount, the EQ5 RA fits to the underside of the mount and drives through gears, unlike the EQ3-2 which drives the RA directly through a flexible coupling. It would be obvious to the OP that the dual axis drives where not correct for their mount.

Then that rules out incorrect model for the mount as a potential cause (unless something seriously ham fisted has occurred) 

Looking closer at the posted M42 image the trailed stars do have a zig zag pattern to them suggesting intermittent RA driving perhaps…. Batteries definitely something to check on I think, as well as PA.