CraigT82

I wouldn't say that there's ever been much myth about it. I think the vast majority of amateur astronomers with a bit of experience would agree that you need a newt at least one size up from any given frac if you want to compete with it in terms of light gathering (4" frac vs 6" newt, 6" frac vs 8" newt etc etc...)

I think ive heard others say the same thing. Also that dithering is the way to go with DSLRs

Wonderful sketch! One for the wall for sure

Thanks for the kind words all! My mum has bought the mag and has texted me to say how proud she is! 😂

Lovely! My favourite bits are the shots of Fabricus at 1:30, and mare Nectaris at 2:20. Beautiful music too 👍

Well and truly blowing my own trumpet here, BBC Sky at Night magazine made one of my lunar images their image if the month for Feb 20! I'm dead chuffed as I've never ever been in print before, not even in the local rag! The image I submitted is this 6 pane mosaic of the waning gibbous that I captured back in Sep. Thanks for looking

Decided to reprocess a single pane from the mosiac making session I had on the 4th, this was the best of the panes I collected that night. Firecapture>AS3!>imppg>PS Best 500 frames from 3000 captured. Fullerscope 8.75" native FL with GPCAM 290m and red filter

Yes pretty much! Well I just picked a spot on the sky and pointed the scope at it, found that same view in skysafari and checked the app to see what mag the faintest stars were that I could see through the scope. Repeat a couple of times with different EPs and different parts of the sky to get a general feel for the limit.

Lovely image Avani, I will have to try out iMerge and see how it compares to MSice. Very sorry to hear about your friends accident, sounds like an awful experience.

Lovely work! Have never seen so much detail in Gassendi

I also had a quick go last night with the Fullerscope and couldnt manage the split, though I have managed it previously with this scope though. Sirius is pretty low down and with all the people with their heating on I think the local seeing was pretty poor. Just got to keep trying! In my bortle 8 skies my limit with the fullerscope is about mag 11.5 IIRC.

Very nice! Gret detail with the Baader UV. Definitely see the rotation.

If there is one thing I've learned about telescopes, it's never study the objective with a torch! Even the newest shiniest mirror will look filthy under bright torchlight.

Like johninderby I also mounted one of the cheap skywatcher motorfocus units to my mak (150mm). Didn't bother with replacing the stock knob with a pulley, just ran the belt over the knob and worked fine. Bought the belt from amazon. The motor is attached to the spare finder shoe holes in the tube. As for cooling, you could try insulating the scope with refletix or similar, plenty of threads/posts on here and cloudy nights about doing this if you search "insulating mak"

That's a wonderful mosaic! That C8 is really singing. If you dont mind I do have one suggestion with the processing.... there is a faint 'ghosting' present, mostly visible around the small craters (zoomed right in to be fair!), which I think is due to pushing a little to hard with the sharpening. I get this a lot with my images. If you're using Imppg I think if you use a little less LR deconv and a little more unsharp mask you can mostly avoid this. Either way it's a really beautiful image 👌

Captured last night from 5.30pm. 13 panes each 3000 captured best 250 stacked. Fullerscope 8.75" on eq6. 290mono and red filter. Native FL. Struggled a bit with high level mist and clouds stopped play before I could get the last two panes! Link to Full res version on Astrobin https://www.astrobin.com/full/kdle57/0/?nc=CraigT82&real=&mod=

Have you seen Anthony Wesley's segmented aluminium 16" newt? Now there's an idea... no more banging the long tube on doorways! http://www.acquerra.com.au/astro/equipment/Nemesis-16/

That's very interesting... In that case, taking it to the extreme, I wonder if a truss frame OTA constructed from ally box section or angle and then enveloped in fabric would be best from a thermal management perspective?! Box section/angle is much more readily available and cheaper than 10" OD tube! Would probably need some sort of thermal shield to prevent warm air from the observers body from entering the tube. Quite a few posts about long focus planetary newts over on cloudy nights: I've found the general consensus there is to have the tube ID oversized (a good 50mm larger than the primary) that way the warm air that gathers up against the sky facing tube wall is out of the light path and doesn't affect views. You've probably seen these videos on the FPI protostar website shwing Schlieren tests with the mirror in an inclined tube, they demonstrate the need for the oversized tube quite well. https://www.fpi-protostar.com/bgreer/sep2000st.htm Saying all that though my fullerscope only has a 12mm gap between primary and tube wall, so I've considered drilling some holes around the tube just in front of the primary, to let this warm air out however I've not been able to bring myself to butcher the tube to that extent just yet!

I think the plastic will be better than aluminium for thermal management, as the alu would radiate heat quicker? I'm not sure. Best would probably be sonotube or hollowcore CF. Cheapo solution would be self adhesive cork all over the sky facing side of the tube! Saying that I think the fan arrangement you've made will manage the thermals effectively (great work btw!). I have a single large fan (120mm) mounted behind the cell on mine. I think airflow moving up the tube helps to 'suck' the boundary layer off the primary and also pushes the micro boundary layer off the secondary too. I am considering two small side mounted fans to blow across the primary but need to figure out a way to mount them and mechanically isolate from the tube. Do you get any vibration from your fans transmitting to the mirror cell or does the velcro help to isolate it?

The door in the side of the tube is so handy.... I bet the people who chose not to spec the door when buying originally kicked themselves after a few uses! I find the motor focus is essential on mine, the scope is all but unusable without it. That long glamorous grey plastic tube really vibrates!

Very nice! Some lovely detail on the crater floor. I notice on astrobin you say you used the orange filter, were you not tempted to use the red or IR in order to more aggresivley counter the seeing?

As you already have the 10mm BCO, I'd be tempted to get the 6mm and 18mm BCOs too. Then maybe a BST 25mm for wide field and finding. Baader UHC-s filter Lastly rigel quickfinder if you dont have one already. That should leave you just enough to get a Cheshire off ebay or 2nd hand

Wonderful sketch 👏

What a wonderful place this is!

Thats a lovely image, looks very sharp on my monitor at full size, nice subtle colouring too. Hope it wins you something in the contest!