Luke

Phew, that's good news that no damage was done! I knocked over a tripod and mount in the early days indoors and bent those bendy bolts! I was gutted at the time, though we did move on to more expensive setups anyway, so long term there was little damage.

Great report! There's something very satisfying I find in putting away a frosty dob. Hopefully means you've had a good session. I'd love to get to a dark site again and have a peek at Caroline's Rose among others and have a crack at some nebulae I haven't been able to see at home. The scope looks a lovely setup and nicely accompanied by some green & black eyepieces!

Welcome to the hobby! It's never too late to start.

Congratulations on your choice of scope! Needs and situations differ, of course, but if I started again, I would go for an 8" dob myself. Not too crazily expensive for a first scope, and a very powerful instrument! Even more so under your dark skies.

Have fun!

Nice one, Rob. I had a lovely eve, from about midnight to 2:30 I think. I just stayed low power with my 10" dob. Not because of bad seeing, I have no idea on that, just as I fancied being lazy. I did think M42 looked particularly 3D last night. And, strangely, some of the star clusters, I don't know if it had anything to do with that I normally do lazy low power in the dob with a 21mm Ethos and last night used the 17.3mm Delos, just to mix it up slightly. The stars in the double cluster really zinged out.

I think my other highlight was seeing a few interesting objects that I sometimes bump into accidentally near my actual targets. I should get around to finding out what those are! I probably won't be able to find them though once I know what they are and where they should be! 😄

I wasn't out until midnight. I was just doing low power for a relaxed, lazy session on the usual suspects, using my 10 inch dob. I normally use the 21mm Ethos for that though used the 17.3mm Delos for a change. There was some thin cloud around in places but I was able to avoid those patches. When I was done in one area, another one looked clear. Highlight for me was probably M42 and the Double Cluster. With M42 it felt like it had some nice depth to it, and the stars in the Double Cluster really zinged out. I was getting a bit cold and decided I'd call it a day after taking in two more targets. And as I finished up, cloud started rolling in, from the South West I think. It was a lovely night. I hope some of you caught some better seeing later on.

It was this one:

My view through it was rubbish, but then I put the eye patch on my other eye and got much better contrast. I was able to locate Polaris thanks to the compass.

Ahem, it was actually a super cheap reflector from Jessops, 76mm I think. The view of the moon blew me away. I remember thinking about how expensive some of the gear was in the early days. There were people who spent hundreds on a single eyepiece! Never imagining one day we'd buy a 21mm Ethos! It's funny how your sense of expensive can change radically when you get into a hobby, if funds allow!

The first things I think of are

- My 10" solid tube dob. It's such a low-hassle setup. Mine is already cooled down, stored outside in a secure locked shed.

- Solar filters. I can get frustrated with deep sky observing and the weather. With the sun, I get so many opportunities to observe. And as much as I love viewing the night sky, I'm more of a morning person. If I had to choose between solar or night time, I'd go solar. Solar minimum is a pain, but I can always process some old captures or SDO data.

- My little Collins Gem Stars book. Slips in the pocket easily and I've used it so many times.

- Warm clothes. I was so cold my first year. Invest in warm clothing!

- Single malt whisky.

Sweet, I love the blue around it.

Lovely shots, Neil, all beauties to my eyes. My favourites are the top two, I think because they look really 3D to me, like you're approaching them in the SGL starship. I do like what looks to me like a misty look in them too.

Very nice project, well done!

WOW here too, stunning! Looks real good close up to me. So much detail!

Hope the weather improves your way.

Congrats on your setup! A good Quark in a 100mm frac is very satisfying. Not a bad time to get into solar, with hopefully plenty more action to come this cycle!

Re: tuning, I just went clockwise to see if it improved, or if it worsened, tried going anti-clockwise. Once I found the best setting, I just kept it on that setting, so hopefully you only have to do this once. Enjoy!

Oh and just to mention, the Quark's light should go green when it reaches tuning for the current setting. I am guessing yours does that and you took the photos while it was changing tuning (orange light), but mention just in case.

I use four regularly:

60mm, 85mm, 100mm, 120mm

But I do solar as well, and that helps them get lots of use.

The 60mm is grab-and-go. The 85mm is my posh scope, couldn't afford a bigger Tele Vue!

The 100mm is my workhorse. If I had only one frac, it would be the 100, despite it being the cheapest of my fracs (SW ED Pro). I find it a nice balance between weight and aperture. Although it's long (F9), it is very light for its size and a breeze to set up and a joy to use on a giro mount. I also find 100mm a very satisfying aperture for solar. I find my Quark actually performs better in my 100mm than 120mm despite the 120mm on paper being a more suitable F-ratio!

And the 120mm is a bit more effort but is about as big as I want to go probably with fracs. I like using it for the best close-up detail solar views (with safety solar filter of course) and it was my favourite scope to do solar imaging with. If I'm going to the bother of putting the HEQ5 out. then I'll normally pop out the 120 too from my frac lineup.

I often use two fracs side-by-side for solar on a giro mount, one for white light, and one for h-alpha. And if I'm feeling energetic, I'll swap the filters over while the scopes are covered to enjoy both scopes in both lights.

PS I was surprised how close my 120mm ran my 8 inch SCT on a few targets.

Lovely images, well done! And welcome to SGL. Looks to me like your Quark is performing very well. My fave images are 1, 4 and 5 from the top.

Very nice. I don't know about ratios but I prefer the powermate shots. I used to prefer keeping image sizes smaller and sharper before, but since moving to a larger monitor, I think I prefer the larger images, even if they aren't as sharp.

Amazing first disc, well done! Looks to me like your Quark is capturing well and the shot looks very clean.

On 27/10/2021 at 13:45, DrRobin said:

Summer of 2018 while on holiday in Crete was my last solar imaging session, so once every couple of weeks definately beats mine.  Oh, I did photo the eclipse with my iPhone and a pair of solar glasses in June, does that count?

Mind night time hasn't been much better, nothing in 2021 so far and only a couple of sessions in 2020.  I keep saying next weekend, I will blow the dust off the scope, but bad weather seems to occur.

Robin

Hope to see you back in action, Robin! Miss your shots and lively commentary!

Very nice work, Steve, I like all the prom detail especially, and your James Bond-style infographics!

I copied Steve Ward's design. His looked posher than my effort, you can knock one of these up real fast, here's Steve's:

Image: Steve Ward

Nice images. I also limited captures to 60 seconds usually.

Wonderful images as ever, thanks for posting. Sorry to hear about you being out of action for a while, all the best with the new year and next op should it be needed.

I hadn't noticed you missing as I took an unexpected break from SGL while trying to remember my password, LOL! I did try a reset but I think something was up with my spam filter and remained locked out. Back in today, whoop, whoop!

I'm not sure about making a profit but I think a smart way to keep spending down is to buy used gear at a good price. Then there's a good chance you can use it for some years and resell it for little loss or perhaps even a slim profit. In a sense you could probably stargaze for free, getting your money back when you sell the gear.

We got our money back I think on some eyepieces we sold that we'd bought from new, but I think that was partly down to currency fluctuations. Had it gone the other way, I guess we'd have lost quite a bit on them. One thing that's been nice for us is trading eyepieces and over time moving to more expensive ones. It's lovely how long astro gear lasts for and being able to sell things on for about 2/3rds upwards, to add to your funds.

Welcome back, Paz!

I use a forum for another hobby quite a bit and there are a few things about that forum that really bug me. SGL, on the other hand, has none of those things that bug me about the other hobby site. So for me SGL is by far the best hobby website I use. The experience has made me appreciate more what a class act SGL is.

Lovely pics and detail, Rob, nice one! Those Skywatcher fracs are very nice.

Some lovely fine detail, thanks for the view.

Cor, lovely set of images!

re: the pair of AR12880 false-colour images, I think I prefer the brightness of the first image, but prefer the richer colour of the second one!

Oooh, I hope Mr Ward gets the Tal into action again! I miss the imaging a little bit but Sarah would go nuts if I bought a camera! ("We need to leave for Dorset NOW!" - "Just a few more minutes, there's a gap in the clouds coming then I'm done!" Then stuck in jams for hours...!)