lensman57

hi guys. i've been searching for a stacking program for ages and every road ends up in the space place. either DSS or Regim for mac

as i'm using an iMac, Regim is the preferred choice. but i download it and the files are .JAR and gives me no option to install it

can anyone help? thanks

Hi,

Have you tried Nebulasity?

A.G

Nice tip on the batteries matey. Never thought of that! I use the old counterweight from my Newt for this too. Makes a massive difference.

While you are in Maplins see if they still have Maplins car booster pack. I bought one last week for £39.90. It has two 12v cigarette lighter out puts and an lelight, a compressor and it mayeven start your car up if you have a flat battery. Well worth the money I'd say.

A>

.G

I bought a Skywatcher Mak 127 with synscan goto at the IAF last month. I have since bought a 130p on an eq mount form Ebay and fitted it with dovetail/clamp so that all are interchangeable. I have gone through the same process as others in this thread over the last month. (BTW - why can't I do carriage returns?) Comments : Using a large rechargeable battery (like the golf trolley one mentioned solves several problems. You can use it for many nights with no problems. If you put it on the tray you do not need the 'bag of sand' for stability. The output voltage barely changes over several evenings. Especially for the MAk but also for the 130p a 40mm EP is a boon when looking for fairly bright object as once the synscan is setup the object chosen is more likely to be in the eyepiece. You really do need to know where the brightest stars are. Definitely take an evening to learn them before trying with the instrument. When the clouds are around using a star chart does not work for a novice and in any case does not do wonders for your night sight. Question: I've done all the basic things suggested on this board (level, time, co-ords etc and I'm getting very handy at getting set up but I still find that the synscan has nowhere near the accuracy suggested on these notice boards. This does not matter with relatively bright objects but is extremely difficult with dim ones. Very rarely is any object near the centre of my EP an often not in view at all. Is my machine inaccurate? or are they all like that?

Hi,

I have had the Mak and the GoTo mount for about 5 months now but have not used the mount in a while as I also have an EQpro. The trick is to align the mount to stars that are in the vecinity of your intended DSO . If the mount is true and level I found that even a simple 1 star alignment will work if I could get the star to be one as described above. Make sure that you end the centering with the up and right arrows as there is quite a bit of backlash in the drive train if the motors reverse direction. PAE procedure also works for objects about 5 degrees or so around target. Use a 40 mm EP for finding the object and then you could hone it down with shorter focal length. I can't remember if I did a 3 Star alignment with the AltAz mount but with the EQ mount it is an advantage as it maps the sky more accurately and takes care of the "cone error " . Hope this helps a bit.

A.G

I know its not going to give Hubble a run for its money but I won this on Ebay today

all for the princely sum of just under £12.52.

Its just to get used to tinkering with a scope I guess. At worst if its rubbish its something for the kids to try out and I get a nice wooden box to put stuff in.

What could I expect to see with this in comparison with my 10x50 binoculars?

Hi,

It is a good buy considering the nice box and the wooden tripod, makes a very good ornamental display item and OK for the Moon too. I had one of these in the early nineties, I think that I got it from Argos, returned it a week later and went down to London to the then Telescope house. I wanted an 80 mm achromatic refracor Japanese origin but the price was about £450.00, yes you heard right. I ended up buying a second hand Bosch and Lomb 4" Pro series SC for about £400.00. The mind buggles now that I paid £625.00 from FLO for an SW 100 APO ED Pro with the FF/FR included. How the Chinese have changed the endgame?

Regards,

A.G

Hi Nigel, thanks for the info. I have just bought the 127 GOTO Had I known the difficulty in setting this thing up, I would not have gone this way, but i have so I'll have to knuckle down and join those little dots up in the night sky.

It doesn't say in the manual where to point the scope to when you set up for the first time, I spent hours trying to find what to point at in the manual so I started by pointing at Polaris. I soon found out that it doesen't matter but it does save some time if you can get it in the general direction.

I have one other point to make and that is something you touched on Nigel, I can only see from about 140 deg to about 300 deg. I am fortunate that I live in a small village and have very little light polution My house covers north east and I have close trees covering the rest, I live on a hill so the trees between the above co-ordinates are at the bottom of the hill giving me a reasonable viewing area. I guess the point I am trying to make is that the setup routines are extreemely difficult. Is there any way during ether one stare or two star methods that you can select the star(s) you lign up on?

Clackvalve

Hi Clackvalve,

I too have the 127 Mak GoTo for a month now and Just in case you have not worked it out, before aligning and before you turn the handset on make sure that the base is absolutely level ( this is more important than you think for accurate tracking ), the scope should always be facing north before alignment, although SW AZ does not need to be polar aligned it is a good practice to at least make sure Polaris is visible in the scope, turn the hand set off, turn it on again and asign this position as home position,under Utility- scroll down and you find "park scope", home position etc. Turn off again and then on and the home position is set. Every time you finish with observing "park" the scope and turn off. It helps with accuracy as the GoTo has a reference position to start from. Aligning is as per instructions but you will find that for some parts of the sky the GoTo is less accurate than others in which case you go the PAE function under utility ( pointing accuracy enhancement ) and use the arrows to center the star.The hand set will remember the correction for that part of the sky for a field of view of 5 degrees, you can do it for quite a number of locations in the sky and the GoTo will remember them for the session. If all this is too much then you have the option of exiting alignment during start up ( option 2- exit alignment ) then press ESC, go to utility scroll down to tracking, enter and choose between sidereal, lunar or solar to suit the particular object the scope will track with a good degree of accuracy for visual or short period webcam imaging. It goes without saying that is imperative that you enter your co ordinates and time very accurately during the set up.

Hope this helps and happy observing.

Regards,

A.G