CraigT82

8 hours ago, jetstream said:

Downside? I live rural, on a big lake and fish, boat and snowmobile. We just got back from a great sled ride today and tonight we'll be in my home built hot tub. I can drive to cities for a visit, but its sure great to come home here I'll tell you 👍

Don’t forget the bears! 

9 hours ago, jetstream said:

My sky goes from about 21.5 to 21.9 depending on the snow and ice.I approach NELM 7

Wow this is impressive skies. Last night at home I thought it seemed pretty dark for here and so I sought out the faintest star I could see with averted vision That was Wasat in Gemini (mag 3.5!).  

Quick look at Jupiter and Mars but seeings was very poor. Took a tour round some beautiful open clusters (my new favourite things!)  instead:

Ms 36 (Pinwheel), 37 & 38 (Starfish) all in Auriga

M35 in Gemini

M34 in Perseus

Double cluster in Perseus

M45 (Pleiades) in Taurus

Quick look at M42

finally M44 (Beehive) in Cancer   

All lovely looking through a 4” frac with a Stella Lyra 30mm UFF and followed up with an 18mm BCO.

Nice work 👍🏼Looking forward to the first images from the new pier. I’d also say go for the EAF or whatever motor focuser… you can the just automate it all, set an imaging run going and just go to bed! 

So what’s the consensus then? Is it a hunk of junk?! 0.7” rms does seem pretty underwhelming

That’s normal according to 10 micron specs…see below. But I suppose what you’re paying for is being able to guide 100kg of payload at that accuracy. 

Also I guess there’s a lower limit on guiding accuracy imposed by your seeing blur. No point guiding at 0.3” RMS when your seeing is 1.5”?? 

That’s my thoughts anyway… Will be interesting to hear comments from mount experts. 
 

8 hours ago, Vroobel said:

Hi,

Testing my new home-made 4-channel smart dew heater controller, dedicated for imaging. Works as expected.  

 

 

Looks suspiciously like daylight there Vroobel 😉

I love that mount, you have some serious skills!

4 hours ago, Mike Q said:

It rolls amazingly well with almost no effort.  

That’s surprising considering the front wheel configuration 😉

Nice work though, making me look at welders on machine mart 

As above, Most likely dust specs on the eyepiece lenses. If the dark areas are dynamic (constantly move around in the image) then you’re probably just looking through poor seeing.  

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Yes, but, you have bears over there, right? 😱🤣

I reckon I could handle those, dealt with some pretty big hedgehogs in my garden 💪

1 hour ago, jetstream said:

Me I'm the concrete pad, forming dude- I get the pad all ready , packed and re barred. Old Ger is getting a bit long in the tooth for this

I meant me not you… I  can make a nice cup o tea for the crew in exchange for somewhere to set my scope up 😂

Just now, jetstream said:

Sure, we are building a cabin this summer, volunteers needed lol.

Actually my bro in law- a contractor is so fast and good we just stay out of his (and crews) way lol If he has time it might happen late summer, fingers crossed.

Sounds like they’ll need a tea boy 😆

2 hours ago, jetstream said:

Last night I observed over 20 DSO again before relaxing in my home built hot tub lol And the views from the tub were absolutely amazing as I revisted the objects position in their constellation.

This sounds incredible…. Can I come and live with you please?! 🙏 

That’s a superb first attempt, really well done 👏🏻. Looking forward to seeing what you produce after a bit of practice! 

21 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Tell me about it. I ordered a Geoptik adapter plate so my EQ5 mount could go an EQ6 tripod I was given by a friend.

I ordered from RVO but chose to have it sent to a friend in the UK instead of directly here to France as the shipping was £40!

My friend then popped it in the post to me for £8.40 and over a month later it has not arrived.

This is the story of What the postman didn’t bring. The worst bit is the adapter was supposed to free up the 1.75” tripod that came with the EQ5 mount.

This tripod was then going to have my AZ5 visual kit on it instead of the wobbly tripod supplied.

I am always just one step away and £100 out of pocket. None of this is the fault of RVO I should add.

Marv

I’ve fitted my AZ4 mount head (same M10 fitting as EQ5) to my EQ6 tripod using one of these…

https://boltworld.co.uk/collections/thread-rod-reducer-zinc-plated/products/m12-to-m10-thread-rod-reducer-free-cutting-steel-zinc-plated-metric-thread/
 

You also need a handful of washers to go over the M12 rod beneath the tripod top to pack out the extra space as it doesn’t screw as far into the mount (see pic). I only had spring washers big enough to go on there so I stacked them like that on the rod, bit messy looking but works nicely. Could also use a couple of large nuts instead which would look tidier. 

Just found a free iPhone app called Astroshader, seems to offer long exposures, manual focus, live stacking and saving of 16bit tiffs, and image editing. 
 

Some screenshots of the UI and the FAQ below. 

7 hours ago, Stu said:

Didn’t realise you were a Somerset boy Craig. Should meet up sometime 👍

Yes in Taunton now (Wife’s hometown), though don’t think I’ll ever be a true Somerset boy as I can’t stand cider 😂. 
 

IIRC you’re in Crewkerne aren’t you… meet up would be great 👍🏼 

If you chopped the tube down the lens is still an F/10 and the eyepieces will still come to focus 800mm beyond the lens. You can’t change the focal length… you’d need to regrind the lenses! 

Went downhill for me after dark. When the sky was still blue I could make out more detail in the belts and polar hoods than I’ve seen in a long time. 

Jupiter is looking fabulous right now. GRS dead centre. Seeing good here in Somerset

14 hours ago, FrenchyArnaud said:

I will put a tad of vaseline where the mount rests on the disc to avoid unwanted metal friction (and tension)

On my old EQ6 I used sheet PTFE 1mm thick (Amazon, about £8 I think for a 200mm square sheet).  I cut a circle out of it and placed it between mount head and tripod top.  Made polar aligning much easier - mount head, scope and counterweights totaled about 70kg so a lot of friction was present!

12 minutes ago, Optic Nerve said:

No it just wouldn't sit nicely, it was sort of like I was chasing it around the dot.

Keep at it! See if you can get that ‘dot in the donut’. It might help just to stick to using two of the three primary screws rather than using all three? 
 

In any case it’s a lot better than what it was last time and also better than what it was in your first post.

19 minutes ago, Optic Nerve said:

Couldn't quite get it bang on but https://imgur.com/a/DJDjZUq

How come? Did you run out of travel on the primary screws? 

There are two main aspects to beginner collimation to get your head around, secondary and primary.

• Secondary is (as the name suggests) adjusting the position of the secondary mirror so that the entire primary mirror can be seen in the secondary mirror as you look through the cap. Secondary collimation isn't that important for a beginner to master, the consequences of getting it wrong is mainly uneven field illumination, it wont have much effect on the sharpness of the image.
• Primary collimation is adjusting the tilt of the primary mirror so that its optical axis is exactly aligned with your eye.  This is the important one to get right as the sharpness of the views can suffer if it's way off because of something called coma. Looking through a collimation cap or cheshire, you're trying to place the dot in the centre of the donut and this is done mainly by adjusting the three screws on the bottom of the scope behind the primary mirror,

In the last images you posted the dot and donut are quite far apart. which is bad... I've annotated it below.  Try to sort this out first and you can worry about your secondary later.

2 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

 Fantastic sketches Phil. I enjoyed looking at your observations so much that my wife asked me why I had a beaming smile on my face. I didn't realise I was smiling until she mentioned it. It's a real pleasure for me to see the observational sketches of others. Many thanks!!! 

My wife also gets suspicious if I’m smiling in her presence 😂