Grant

Slight blip earlier but another tweak made and things seem to be running nice and speedy at present - please let me know if you notice anything from this point onwards...

It appears the forum is now running super fast during off peak times but we are still hitting some configuration limits during peak times. This is being looked into as we speak. Strangely, the load on the server itself is minimal the issue is we are hitting some configuration blocks to do with the number of simultaneous users.

Confirmed - we are looking at this now.

Performance should be ok now - please only let me know if you experience issues from this point forwards.

Seems faster to me now?

Some tweaks were made to the server earlier and things seem to have improved for me - anybody else still having issues?

All, We are aware of some speed issues affecting the forum for some users at present. We are investigating and will post updates here as we have them. Thanks, Grant

Scope nights only uses Met Office data from what I am aware and only offers three hourly predictions so it’s not something we plan to use as a data source. I’ve personally not found it that accurate either and have heard similar feedback from others. It seems to me that different forecasting models seem to work better for different people at different locations so one thing we are working on is building in multiple forecasts into Clear Outside so people can see multiple forecasts and also potentially only show their favoured sources. There is already an additional cloud forecast available in Clear Outside (website only at present) - if you turn on the experimental features button at the bottom of the page it will then give you an additional cloud forecast.

It’s physically impossible for the app and website to show different things because the app is still showing the website - it’s all the same ? When this happens it’s usually because you have the website set to Center on midnight and you view it before midday so the display shows the last twelve hours from yesterday in order to show this mornings forecast. You can always check by seeing where the current hour is highlighted on the website - it has a blue box around it and a clock on the hour box - you will then see the forecasts match / line up exactly.

At a fete recently. SolarQuest with Lunt 60 at the back on standard tripod. 72ED white light setup at front on an AZ GTI with the stainless steel tripod. The AZ GTI in comparison, was a pain because I had to keep connecting to the wifi using my phone, it didn't track particularly well (probably due to poor alignment) and every time a kid knocked it, we had to re-align etc..

Put it this way, mine isn't going anywhere and I am contemplating a second for a white light setup with the Sky-Watcher 72ED and Lunt wedge I don't have a lot to say about it really though because it just works, no nonsense, no hassle it does one thing - Solar tracking and it does it extremely well. I've done a number of public outreach events now and the biggest issue is always kids yanking on the eyepiece. Now, I just turn the mount on and off and 30 seconds or so later, it's up and aligned / tracking again - much simpler. I've used it now on the standard supplied tripod and the new Sky-Watcher stainless steel one (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/alt-azimuth/sky-watcher-38-stainless-steel-tripod.html). I found the standard one perfectly fine as long as you didn't have it extended by much but, the stainless steel one is rock solid and well worth the investment. I place a lot of value on things that 'just work' - I don't have the time or inclination to be fettling with things, tweaking them, wandering why something works one day and not the other - I have enough 'projects' to keep me busy already! The SolarQuest mount truly fits that for me, it just works, reliably and consistently.

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