Grant

Might be worth adding to our events calendar as well Sarah: https://stargazerslounge.com/calendar/

Challenge is now closed Winners will be announced later in the week.

Excellent review Rob - I love the uncooled 178MM for Solar / Lunar / Planetary work but not yet tried it on deep sky.

Excellent write-up Kirk - very useful information

It's hard to judge because it's quite windy here today so I'm getting some little jitters as a result of the wind - that being said, the movement is very slight and it does seem to be tracking nicely frame to frame. Will pay more attention on a non-windy day

Mount has been tracking perfectly for almost three hours now - keeping the Sun bang where I left it in the cameras FOV

The SolarQuest proved its worth today - a gao between banks of clouds - setup and aligned within a couple of minutes and a nice five minutes of prom viewing before the clouds rolled back in - previously by the time I was setup and aligned I would’ve missed the gap. The mount holds a Lunt 60 (pressure tuned) and a Hyperion Zoom eyepiece perfectly. Tuning caused a bit of a wobble but as anybody with a pressure tuner knee - that’s the case on most mounts due to the torque required on a pressure tuner - seriously considering a compressed air mod! I did try it on an L bracket to make the pressure tuner and focuser position a bit easier but this was to much for the mount and caused it to slip against the gear due to imbalance - I’m hoping a counterweight kit on the l bracket may sort this. Lookkng forwards to some clear skies and doing some imaging - particularly some time lapse animations. Setup picture below - excuse the mess of kids toys!

lol - explain the difference but ignore the obvious difference the shape, which is the whole point of the difference? The GTI is a much smaller, lighter and neater package so ideal for travelling. The wireless is built into the GTI whereas the Discovery mount comes with a separate SynScan wireless dongle - not a big deal but again it's something else to carry, remember plugin etc... Mechanically the payload is the same and I imagine the tracking specs etc.. will be very similar to. The other major difference (which is why I have a GTI arriving tomorrow to play with) - The GTI can be put on a Star Adventurer wedge and turned into an Equatorial mount, in my view it has the potential to be one of the lightest, portable and best value for money, full goto equatorial mounts out there. I plan on putting a Sky-Watcher 72ED on it, a finder guide and an ASI1600MC for a grab-and-go galaxy hunter Also, the Star Discovery mount is a fair bit older than the GTI mount now - it's been recently revamped by removing the handset and adding in the wifi dongle instead but the GTI mounts are the newer generation so if anything, I would expect the Discovery mounts to be discontinued in favour of the GTI's (note - I had no indication this is going to happen anytime soon, just pointing out the GTI is newer..). Don't get me wrong, I've used a few Star Discovery mounts and they work well - I think as an Alt-AZ starter setup or even as a solar mount they are great but for imaging, I'm going with the GTI

They are very, very different products - I doubt very much one will replace the other!

I got my grubby paws on one today and well... it just works! Unboxed and setup within a couple of minutes - turned it on and it levels itself and then after a short pause (while it gets a GPS fix) off it goes! Sun bang in the field of view on my Lunt 60. Clouds stopped play unfortunately but it did seem to track well for the 5-10 minutes of use I got. One nice addition - it comes with a battery pack to take AA batteries but also a connector and alternative battery case cover which has a 12v center positive DC socket on it - so I used it with a Celestron Lithium Powertank and it worked a treat! Much better than buying AA batteries Looking forwards to playing around with it some more - the supplied tripod is much better than I expected helped by the round legs and twist lock mechanism and the tripod extension tube is a great addition.

That's exactly the scope I intend to stick on one of these mounts - for me, the quick setup should really help maximise the clear sky time I get during the day.

As long as you are using the onboard camera, then I think this would be fine I won't be holding my imac up to an eyepiece and using the facetime camera but if I did, I think that would just about be OK too

Feel free to hold your phone or tablet up to an eyepiece or hook it up to a telescope - it's all about the camera in this case, if you choose to attach it to something go for it

We are going to try and keep the challenges as open as possible in future - we will see how it goes though. This is the OSC / DSLR challenge but we’ve tried to listen to feedback form past challenges and want to make it as open as possible. It looks like we can’t win either way! The point of these challenges is to be a bit of fun that people can participate it - please take them in the spirit intended ?

Well it's really a OSC / DSLR challenge but we didn't want to exclude people with mono cameras

Yep - luminance is OK but not using a narrowband filter ?

nobody wants to see the SGL admin team in bikinis - am I right @daz @Ant @Steve

Speak with Lucksall when you arrive and if they can, I'm sure they will help with a pitch change but it will depend on the condition of the pitches - some have been deliberately left empty.

You're on pitch 48, just heard from Lucksall Official arrival time with Lucksall is 1pm.

They're all just 'turn up on the day' except for the processing ones with Rob/Uranium235 - he has separate threads running to sign up for those

Pitch plan up to date - version 3

An updated pitch plan with all the recent additions will be posted in the next day or so - just waiting to get the allocation details from Lucksall.

If anybody would like to bring any cakes for the tea tent they are always gratefully received

Not long now Still time to book pitches and/or food but please be quick - these all need to be finalised by the weekend. We're a little more organised this year so I am very pleased to announce the timings in advance! Arrival Arrival - Please ensure you book in and collect your welcome packs Welcome - Come and say hi at the welcome tent - me and Daz should be hanging around there most of the time so if you need any help, assistance or just fancy a brew come and say hi! Friday 17:30 - Cafe - Curry Night 18:30ish - Cafe - Quiz - this will happen once everyone has had their curry so the time is a little flexible. If you're not having curry, please do pop up and join in the cafe has a great selection of beers and ciders to sample! Saturday 10:00-13:00 - Welcome Tent - FLO Trade Stand and Bring & Buy Sale 13:00-14:00 - Welcome Tent - Meteorites / Fossil Touch & Feel with Helen 13:30-14:30 - Rob's Pod - Group 1 Basic Astro-processing with Uranium235 (Fully Booked) 14:00-15:00 - Welcome Tent - Plate Solving in SGPro with Daz 15:00-16:00 - Rob's Pod - Group 2 Advanced Astro-processing with Uranium235 (Fully Booked) 15:00-16:00 - Welcome Tent - Timelapses with PhotoGav 16:00-17:00 - Welcome Tent - Observing the Moon - Reading the Lunar Landscape with MichaelMorris 17:30 - Welcome Tent - Hog Roast!!! 20:30ish - Welcome Tent - Star Hopping with a Dob with RikM Sunday 10:30-11:30 - Welcome Tent - Solar Capture & Processing with Ibbo 11:30-12:30 - Welcome Tent - Variable Star Observing Talk with Mr Spock 13:30 - Cafe - Sunday Roast 20:30ish - Welcome Tent - Variable Star Observing (if clear) with Mr Spock I think you'll agree it's a pretty jam packed line up - many thanks to all the volunteers for doing talks and workshops In addition to the workshops, if anybody has any specific questions they would like help with then we will be running ad hoc one-to-one's or small groups that will be arranged in a separate thread. Look forward to seeing you all soon!