Grant

If you arrive during the day, you will need to check in first so you can always update your registration at the front desk then otherwise, as Dave says, just give Lucksall a buzz and they can update this for you over the phone.

Hi all, It's with pleasure I can announce some extra activities for the Star Party this year @Dave Eagle will be there with his planetarium (conditions permitting) doing shows during the day on the Saturday. Free entry is included with your star party booking. He will also be doing an Apollo talk on the Sunday. Peter Williamson FRAS / Broadcaster (http://peterwilliamson.co.uk) will be doing a key note talk on the Saturday before the hog roast 'Herschel to Hawkwind, Astronomy & Music how each influence each other.' which should be very entertaining. There will be other activities during the Saturday and Sunday to be announced as well as the Astronomy Quiz on the Friday night, hosted as ever by our wonderful quiz master @michaelmorris We have more bits and pieces still to announce and I hope to start putting up the pitch plan allocations next week. There is still some space left if you want to come, booking details here: http://sglsp.com/ Cheers, Grant

Some additions to the program We still have some pitches left so if you want to book, check out http://sglsp.com/ for details

Yes - these are all booked, I still count these as POD's

If you are arriving late, please let Lucksall know. If you are in a POD they will either make arrangements for you to collect the key later or, let me know and I'm sure an admin or mod can help pick the key up for you. If you are arriving late and camping, ideally, arrive before dark just in case it is clear. If you really, really need to arrive after dark then let us know and we can walk you down with your lights switched off if it is clear to avoid ruining everybodies night vision

Yes - all POD's have already been booked.

If you are thinking of coming, we still have good space for caravans and tents 🙂 I will begin sending out details of pitch allocations in the next couple of weeks. Pods have all gone now. We will also be announcing our exciting program for the weekend with some very special guest speakers and attractions!

I had some good experiences with the ASI294MC-Pro and agree with vlaiv - ditch the bias frames and take dark-flats and you should have no problem completely getting rid of the amp glow in the finished image.

Some beautiful entries to this one - unfortunately the Sun started off with a strong spot display which tailed off in the latter half of the competition. Well done to everyone who entered and congratulations to the winners below 🙂 AR2738 and environs By michael.h.f.wilkinson AR2741 WL By Freddie Solar disc after the thunderstorm By acr_astro

Looking forwards to this already Michael!!!

Well spotted - now fixed 🙂

The theme for the 29th challenge - August 2019 - is 'The Beauty of the Night Sky'! Start Date: 1st August 2019 End Date: 31st October 2019 Rules: Open to all - any image that shows the beauty of the night sky - widefield, landscape, sketch, poster, deep sky image, video, planetary - whatever you like, inspire us! Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO and a virtual trophy for your signature. -- RULES All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted. -- To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #29' forum (each challenge will have its own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

Not as many entries as we were hoping for this one 😞 well done to those who did enter though and based on the results, Android is the way to go for astrophotography! Congratulations to the winners: Moon and Venus By Angvd Moon with Samsung S7 Android By Pete Presland Piccolomini - Galaxy S8 By CraigT82

The theme for the 28th challenge - July 2019 - is Lunar Landings! Start Date: 1st July 2019 End Date: 30th September 2019 Rules: To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing the challenge this month is to take an image or produce a sketch / drawing showing any of the Lunar Landing sites from not just Apollo missions but any place where a human made object has landed on the moon. Close-ups, wider field, animations, movies with annotation or graphics you create are all welcome 😃 Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO 😃 and a virtual trophy for your signature. -- RULES All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted. -- To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #28' forum (each challenge will have its own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

If you check the forecast in the AM and you have it set to centred on Midnight, it has to show part of yesterday in order to be able to show the forecast for the current AM. We are working on some changes to Clear Outside this year and the 'views' is one thing I want to tidy up and have a more intelligent view which shows you the full days hours centred on Midday if you check in the morning and then the over night Center on Midnight view if you check in the afternoon - I think that would be more logical.

Snap - spent most of the night working out that I needed to use every extension supplied with the iOptron RC6 to reach focus and then struggled to get polar aligned due to the seeing / clouds rolling in. On a positive - it does now focus and the ZWO EAF seemed to work a treat Hoping tomorrow and / or Saturday is better!

We've just set one of each of these up at FLO HQ - first impressions, these are so much better than a wibbly wobbly EQ1! The new white / green OTA colour scheme looks great and it's nice to see the high quality dovetails and rings being used on these beginner scopes as well. Eyepieces and accessories as you would expect are average but enough to get you started. All have a red finder. I'm not a fan of the tripod - it's OK but I would've preferred they had bundled it with the Star Adventurer type round leg tripod with the clip in tray rather than having to use the little thumbscrew things. Looking forwards to seeing a tracking drive for these to see how that works. Initial impressions though, I think these are going to be new favourites for beginners who want an EQ mount...

I'm really excited about this - Ian is a super guy, lots of knowledge and experience and has the same attitude towards looking after customers as us. I think he is an excellent addition to the team and I think it will enable FLO to help our customers all the way through from beginner, intermediate through to expert and professionals! I for one will definitely be tapping his knowledge to help my own teetering steps into astrophotography

One other silly thing - I don't like how long the counterweight shaft is - with the RedCat, the counterweight is nearly at the top and it's a very long shaft - great if you need it for balancing but if you don't, you can't slide it away like on the NEQ6 - perhaps there is a market here for shorter counterweight shafts. I know it's a silly thing, but I like to keep things as tucked away as possible to prevent cable snag and me clumsily banging into something in the dark!

I managed a few nights of (semi) clear skies last week to test the new CEM40-EC mount. So far, I'm very impressed - setup was easy and altitude and azimuth adjustment are very easy and smooth to get a good accurate polar alignment. I opted for the 1.5" tripod but have a 2" tripod on the way to test as well. The 1.5" is more than good enough, unextended for 80mm or less refractors but I think if I were wanting to extend the legs or use a heavier scope I would definitely go for the 2" tripod or, the tri-pier. Tracking - the results speak for themselves: I would like to extend the guiding exposure further but this is as far as the ASIAIR goes currently. I suspect the DEC isn't performing as well as it's completely out of balance - not the mounts fault but I was using a RedCat at the time with a lot of gear on the back so need to find a better way of balancing this. There is a lot to like about this mount - it's small and light so I was able to easily move the entire setup around in one go, the in-built iPolar works like a charm and makes polar alignment really straightforward particularly with how easy the altitude in particular is adjusted. The in-build USB port is great and worked perfectly with the ASIAIR to control and guide the mount and I actually liked having the handset there as well (normally I use EQMOD so lose the handset option). I haven't used the built-in wire management yet - I'm testing a few different scopes and other bits at the moment so don't have a setup permanent enough to warrant tidying the wires properly but they look jolly useful. There are a couple of bits that I am less enthusiastic about - the GPS unit is an add-on device that simply plugs in and hangs down - it's a shame it's not a built in unit like on the CEM120. It feels like an after thought. Similarly the optional WiFI unit is the same, it's a shame it couldn't have been built in again like the CEM120. The case is nice and functional but rather tight and requires the mount to be put in a specific position to repack - probably OK for occasional star parties but if you are a portable user then it would become a pain having to reposition the mount position each time to refit it into the box, particularly in the dark. One issue I've had so far is using GoTo through the ASIair, it seems to send the mount in the wrong direction so it hits itself - I think this is an ASIair bug so have reported it, using GoTo from the handset works perfectly with things bang on center. SkySafari also doesn't work with the CEM40 on an iPad running through the ASIair yet, I suspect this is either a SkySafari or ASIair issue so hopefully will be resolved in future updates - not sure I can blame the mount for that I think this mount might replace my EQ6 as my portable / star party setup... Who am I kidding, it just means I need to take two setups I'll post more updates as I get to use it more. Any questions, I'm happy to do my best to answer.

With the official adapter, the HEQ5 one fits the same as the EQ6 version I have here, it uses grub screws to fix to the inside of the polarscope view hole at the top of the mount. This is the same way the Polemaster affixes as well.

I don't think it's as simple as that - polar scopes come in a variety of sizes and attachment methods. I will try to get a chance to do a proper drawing of the iPolar with the full dimensions on as there is a 30mm diameter 'step' part inbetween the main body and lens part as well. It looks like the iPolar is intended for fitting to the rear of mounts like the CEM25 and IEQ45 as well as the front so perhaps the FOV isn't an issue: When I get chance to fit the iPolar to my NEQ6 I will have a look at the polar scope at the same time but I think it screws in so you would still probably need an adapter for the iPolar.

Will be interesting to see how he gets on using it - wouldn't having it mounted at the back restrict the FOV?

Good point about the darks - it just seemed odd to me to see an imaging device installed automatically with a HID driver, I didn’t think that was possible as HID is normally used for low traffic human interface devices like keyboards, mice and serial devices - I’ll have another dig.

The external version of the iPolar is exactly the same - the adapters are available separately and FLO has stock and will be listing the individual adapters soon. ADM do a dovetail bracket for the PoleMaster and I see no reason why you couldn’t do the same with the iPolar - I’ll see if we can sort something as I would quite like to mount one on the tip / underside of a dovetail.