DaveS

I have an unexpected clear night but it's blowing enough to make opening the obsy roof too risky, I don't want to be trying to get it back from the next field.

Inevitably

Just keep GMT or UTC all year. Come summer it doesn't get any semblance of "dark" until stupid o/c, and British Stupid Time just makes it worse.

That is the PC version, it's a screenshot from the PC I'm typing on now.

Click on the clock icon on the LHS where it will open a new window with time and gate. You can alter both from there.

The humidity has also been sky high of late, with dew dripping off everything, and the heaters running at full power, in fact CO has been showing 100% humidity all night for several nights. Totally ruining the seeing.

The weather has been dire, with very few clear nights, and the few that we have had have been rendered unusable by either a full moon, or wind blowing a hoolie making it unwise to open the obsy.

No idea what a "thargoid" is, but that rings a bell, I think I remember seeing something like that in another YT video, but can't remember where>

Thanks Olly. The 135 format sensors would only crop to 24mm square, or a bit longer, not really much more than my 16200, while the 16803 would give 37mm square, which is a heck of a lot more foV. The QHY / FLI 4040 are so far beyond my budget as to be out of the question, even S/H, and the IMX 461 cameras are even more so. I may just put this on the back burner as "maybe someday..." As a reference, here's M33 imaged with my ODK 12 (Custom Scope) and 16803, 16200, and QHY600 cameras

Having looked through this thread I see plenty of elegant or beautifully engineered telelscopes (The Great Weatherall being the best), but no telescope that I would call "pretty", apart, possibly, from the Porter Garden telescope. And a lot of posts showing off all the telescopes people own, which isn't the point.

When I saw the title of the thread I read it as "Those pesky telescopes" 😱😂

Thanks Adam. I had to be very careful with the saturation as it was very easy to make the image clown like, yuk.

Thanks Geof.

And still not entirely convinced This is: 25 x 900 sec Hydrogen Bin 2 44 x 600 sec Luminance Bin1 16 x 600 sec Red Bin 2 18 x 600 sec Green Bin 2 16 x 600 sec Blue Bin 2 A lot of work in AstroArt 8 including DDP, Deconvolution, Selective Colour Attenuation, Saturation Boost, and a light Unsharp Mask to finish. I don't know about the luminous haze running from top right to bottom left. I had thought it was another gradient, but @geoflewis has looked at earlier versions and thinks it's the outer envelope extending beyond my F0V. In any case, I could probably do with more data, but not sure what would make the most difference for a one-night sequence. More Luminance seems a good idea, but any other suggestions?

You won't find true adaptive optics for amateur level telescopes, at least not yet. The units sold as "adaptive optics" are more like "active optics" that can take out first order errors caused by gross star movements, but won't correct for wavefront errors as the professional equipment found on big telescopes, which also need laser generated artificial "guide stars" as a reference. There have been threads in the Imaging section, which basically say that they are only of use for matching flexure in tandem telescopes.

Unless your mount has encoder guiding, then you *will* need some form of guide camera, either with an off-axis pick off, or else a separate guide 'scope. Encoder guiding means 10 Micron *minimum* and 4-5 figures.

I don't have a dob 😆

Another glass bowl

Yep, vintage Art Deco uranium glass from Bohemia, and yes, it's very nice. Unfortunately I don't have a geiger counter to put on it, but you'd probably get a bigger dose living in a granite house on Dartmoor.

Another photo / hint.

It's what it's made of

Really just speculative, but I've been looking at / thinking about a larger sensor than my current 16200 for my ODK 12. The options seem a bit thin, vix: KAF 16803, Moravian, SX, FLI On Semi 4040 FLI, QHY Sony IMX 461 QHY, ZWO Of these the first, S/H looks the only option that I could remotely afford, while the IMX 461 is too big for the ODK imaging circle. A look on ABS shows a FLI 16803 with filters for £4000, which is the ball-park figure I was expecting. I'm not interested in the 24 x 36 mm sensors as I prefer something square or close to. Comments?

At least it's not a Dob, yuk.

Just tell them, it was designed by Russell W Porter. 'nuff said.

For sure, considered as a 6" telescope the cost is downright silly, but for someone who has loadsamoney and is looking for an unusual garden sculpture, it could be very attractive. I'd buy it, even at that price, if I had the money.