mapstar

Car nearly packed for an early departure in the morning 👍

Think you missed that Ricky did say he was going to come down in the daytime Derek. Best to check some of us will be around, and probably afternoon best after all the clear skies which are booked in 😁

Me too, dob mob covering the miles again

Looking at this myself

It was great when we attended for that mini star camp Jules. Also headed back 3 years ago for another mini star organised by @Uplooker. We had a good night but the second night was a wash out. Still enjoyed it as always

Nice bit of viewing there Paul. Glad your new glass is giving you the wows.

Nice one Paul. Good you've got out and scanned the low down summer objects

That was scary to watch 😲

Nice to see you're still getting some views in Nick and thanks for a great read. Those old faves really do take some beating.

Quite an old thread and not seen Alan on here for quite some time. Congrats on the Nichol mirror you will not be disappointed.

Be good to see everyone again, hopefully at a less restrictive star party this year

As always Nick a superb report and well documented session. I got out myself for 3 hours on Saturday and enjoyed a bit of unplanned star hopping zipping From one side of the sky to the other picking out some old friends. Hope you are keeping well and good to read a report from you. Sadly I didn't make any notes of my session .

So long to the missed GSP spring 2021 here's to the Autumn meeting. Cheers

Got my first dose yesterday

Many thanks for the compliments. It's looking good keep up the good work. That mirror looks really nice. I'd like a cnc router for the next builds but don't have the room for one so it'll be done completely manual. The holder was a lot of trial and error but the next should be easier to make now.

One of my favourite groups to test sky conditions. We looked at this when the mob travelled to the Isle of sky as Calvin says. NGC3735 which is what I use as a guide post to star hop to it. It's about twice the size of all 5 of the HCG 55 galaxies. 4 definitely but that 5th is really difficult to tease out. I may get out and try for it the next new moon.

I also went a different route than the classic dob build. Build thread is still on here Mapstar 22" build Good luck and we're here to help and encourage. Damian

Sounds like a fantastic build and well done on choosing a Nichol mirror set for this. Nice to see new technology making parts for astronomy. I made a similar holder from carbon fibre for a secondary the same size. It weighs a fraction of steel The front lip gives excellent support to the secondary the same as your printed version. Watching with interest as it seems a while since we've had a flurry of build projects

Mine is too 😉 I've only had a couple of dealings with Orion when I got my mirror coated and bought a secondary from them. Overall it was o.k. and the secondary was fine but I did get it tested independently just to make sure. But....... The comment made to me about larger mirrors being easy to make and 'you should've just done it this way and you'd have had it done in half the time' was quite disrespectful. Especially when it had taken them 20+ weeks to grind a 20" mirror for someone I used to observe with. If you want a reflector there are other manufacturers out there with great customer service, or just make your own which is much more satisfying 🙂. I have a couple more in the pipeline which will eventually grace the pages of SGL.

Thanks for the update Derek. A real shame that this has had to be cancelled but understandable in the current situation with the rate of covid infections increasing the way it is. Hopefully things will quickly get back to normal over the summer and we can all enjoy the dark skies of galloway.

Turning out and standing under clouds beats work 🤣

Nice read there Neil. Ngc 2371 I have looked at quite a few times. The medusa neb close by the eskimo can be a difficult object but it's large so can be overlooked.

Nice little addition Nick. Sorry I've not commented of late I've lots going on and not much time for astro

No astronomy Derek just an 8 mile walk, Richard had been taking day time photo's to back up the night time ones he'd taken previously. The light pollution around the North Yorkshire dark sky Park has become much worse he was sorry to inform me. I didn't catch the website he was feeding the info into but it shows the degradation of the skies over a time period.

Just seen this and must say I'm surprised it hasn't happened earlier. This is the case with other sites including the Kielder star party As confirmed by Richard Darn who I happened on at the top of sutton Bank today doing some follow up day time photography to a light pollution article. Cheers Derek