CraigT82

50 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

The mount is an EQ5, the OP has stated that. The motors you linked to are for the Celestron CG4/Skywatcher EQ3-2. The motors in the photo are for the EQ5. The two systems are incompatible, you can't physically attach the EQ5 motors to an EQ3-2/CG4 and visa-versa.

See above. The EQ5 and CG4/EQ3-2 dual axis drives are different.

Yes I know that thanks, that’s why I advised to check they have the right one for the mount. 

That looks to me like the EQ5 Enhanced dual axis drives, but the other drives also linked to above by LaurenceT look the same too, so definitely worth checking you’ve got the right ones for your mount.

Also worth checking the batteries. Low power could cause slow tracking. 

But the first thing to sort is your polar alignment, looking at the pic of M42 the stars seem to be trailing in declination which is a sign your polar alignment is off. Fix that first and then see if it’s still not tracking properly. 

Fantastic 👍🏼 Going to have to add Luna Cognita to my wish list I think.

5 hours ago, markse68 said:

Hey Craig, this is quite a thing to witness in real time! You finding your style and technique from one sketch to the next and each one beautiful! That last one really pops of the page- it’s wonderful

Mark

Haha thanks Mark it is a bit of a scattergun approach!  Got to admit it’s pretty addictive. Cloudy last night so I’m now walking around the house looking for things I can sketch 

Very nice Geof, have you done a Mars map this year? can’t remember if I saw you post one or not, seems like you’ve got more than enough coverage for it. 
 

Looks like there was a hell of a dust storm in Hellas basin in your first image.

Excellent well done! That IR 850 shot is really showing so lovely subtle details. 

Nice comparison shots, yes some definite reflections going on I think, possibly between sensor and AR coated window or maybe even the window and the barlow? Most AR coatings don’t work too well below 400nm. 

I removed the window on that 290m as I wanted as little glass as possible between the planet and the sensor, theory being that glass absorbs UV light but also wanted to do away with those AR coatings on the window. I also bought the APM 2.7x barlow as it was rumoured to have coatings with good transmission below 400nm and is a very good 2 lens barlow, which theoretically should transmit more UV than a 4 lens telecentric as it’s got half the number of coated surfaces. 

Aaaaaand another!  Again sketched at the EP last night. Took only 20 mins this one in total.  Had absolutely no idea what this crater was when I was at the scope but checking the map I’ve identified it as Capuanus, to the SE of Mare Humorum.

I really like this style/medium as it’s quick and quite effective. I shade the paper before even going out, pick a target at the EP, sketch it out in HB pencil at the scope and then embellish with black and white pastel pencils afterwards. 

Same setup as earlier 102ED on AZ4 and 3mm EP giving 238x

Just now, bosun21 said:

Treble check that you HAVE everything with you when visiting a dark sky site. As I can no longer drive I arranged for a friend and neighbor to drive me the hour and a half to a dark site. Only when I watched his tail lights fade into the distance did I suddenly realize that I had left my eyepiece case at home! I didn’t have a solitary eyepiece with me. That’s been my most miserable night with only my neutered telescope as company for 4 hours in the dark. My friend on his return laughed uncontrollably. Sigh!

Oh my this is horrendous! What a miserable 4 hours

Another one from me… Sinus Iridum just coming into the light. Sketched last night at the eyepiece and have tried to maintain a faithful eyepiece perspective. I say sketched last night but when I looked at it again today I was unhappy with it and so a lot of erasing and redoing occurred.

I used a white colour pencil, light grey pastel pencil, compressed charcoal pencil and a white paint pen for highlights. All on black paper sketch pad. 

Scope was a 102ED on AZ4 and StellaLyra 3mm LER EP giving 238x.

One M6 on each ring is fine, that’s how it comes on the Starfield optics version with its supplied rings and dovetail. 

38 minutes ago, Xilman said:

250cm Dobsonian

Wow how big must your step ladder be?! 

12 minutes ago, Varavall said:

The usual A-Z shopping site. Think they can also be found on fleabay. They come in 3 sizes, so make sure your mount will fit!

Found it thanks, had to search for “motorcycle tent” to get hits.

cheers 

6 minutes ago, Varavall said:

I keep mine outside under a motorbike clamshell cover, everything attached, I just open up, power up the on board mini pc and the all the kit and it's ready to image in a few minutes. It's been there for 2 years now wthout problems; plenty of air space around the kit. Note the setup has been streamlined since the photo was taken and is a lot tidier now. 🙂

Where did you get the clamshell? Like the sound of that 

26 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Garages can be a nightmare for condensation. 

 

Guess you had a good excuse to to a bearing upgrade. Was everything else ok inside? 

Yes this garage at our new house is single skin brick with tiled roof, just like our old garage, but whereas our old garage had roof vents and no condensation issue, the new one is practically air tight... no vents anywhere.  I've just this week installed 4 air bricks just above the DPC and also a bunch of circular vents in the uPVC soffits so that should ensure a good flow of air now 🤞.  I've also got some Thomson water seal to spray onto the exterior brickwork to prevent damp getting through the wall after heavy rain.

FLO are looking at the mount right now and hopefully there isn't any other damage caused.  All the electrics worked ok and the Dec axis moved freely after the RA seized up, so i'm hoping it's just the RA bearing that needs replaced.

Wherever you end up keep it make sure it’s well ventilated and not at risk of any condensation forming on it.  I’ve just had an issue with my AZEQ6 due to being stored in the garage at our new house, which I found out (too late) to my dismay was a condensation factory, as it is completed unventilated, once I knew this I moved the mount into the house but it was too late as moisture had already gotten inside. After a short period of the mount not being used I came to try it out to find the RA axis locked solid. The moisture has found its way into the RA bearing and rusted it to the point it wouldn’t move. 
 

Moral of the story is: if you keep your kit in a shed or garage make sure it’s dry and well ventilated to avoid condensation

Thanks Mike…. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated! 

Posidonious sketched last night, 102ed refractor and 3mm StellaLyra LET EP giving 238x. 
 

I sketched this out in pencil at the eyepiece over about 40 minutes, with the intention of going inside and finishing it off as a pencil sketch, however I decided to try another medium and took myself off to Hobbycraft to get some charcoal pencils, grey pastels and a white paint pen. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of sketching medium takes my fancy. Today I finished off this one with charcoal pencil and the white paint pen for the highlights. I also bought some paper stumps for blending and found these quite effective for shading, applying to charcoal to the stump and then rubbing  it onto the page to get a shaded grey instead of flat black. 

23 minutes ago, alpal said:

I think will copy your mirror cell  design one day - it's excellent.

It certainly is, simple but very effective as the images show. Should be the ‘standard’ design for Newtonian mirror cells 

You could do with a planetarium app on your phone or tablet, you can set your location and it will show you the night sky so you can plan what to observe. You can skip forward through time to plan ahead too. I use SkySafari and thoroughly recommend it.

I noticed exactly the same thing as I was sketching Posidonious last night and generally having a good look around. I was sufficiently curious about this line of white dots through the Mare that I snapped a phone shot down the EP. 
 

Thanks for finding out their names I will have a look online to see if there’s any more info.

Great work Kostas 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻. So pleased to e camera is working well for you (in the UV at least!).

Still quite small now at 12” but it’s going to keep getting bigger over the next few months as the phase wanes. I think max elongation (when 50% of the disc will be illuminated) is in June and it will be over 20” then so I’m looking forward to the detail you get then.

5 minutes ago, Franklin said:

This sounds about right. The specs of the SG2.1x42 say about a x1.5 magnitude 

 

I guess I could have gained some dark adaptation in the 30 secs or so between looking naked eye and using it, so maybe little less gain with the 54mm TC-E2. I should have tried naked eye again after using it. As a ballpark figure though 2 magnitudes is about  right. 

So a quick test was just completed, didn’t have much time but I stepped out the house and chose Gemini to look at. The faintest star I could see with direct vision was Mebsuta at mag 3.0 (my eyesight is pretty bad!). Using the Nikon TC-E2 teleconverter the faintest star I could see was then 64 Gem at mag 5.1, again with direct vision. So a little over 2 magnitudes gain. I tried to measure the field of view of the TC-E2 and it was coming out at about 25 degrees give or take. 

37 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

By mags, I presume you mean magnifications rather than magnitudes, if the latter, this could be a game changer!      🙂 

Yes magnitudes, at least that was what I was guessing (there was many more stars visible through the teleconverter). I’ll try to do a more rigorous assessment of what the magnitude gain is next time I’m out.

It certainly was a bit of a eureka moment last night when I was struggling to star hop to Hinds Crimson Star because I couldn’t see Mu Lepus naked eye.