nickarp2000

To be honest the TFL website quoted the cost for zones 1-3 all day travelcard at £9.60 for the route of Brent Cross to kensington High Street which I thought was reasonable. As is the case these days the stations aren't manned and the machines only gave the options of zones 1-6 at £15.80 per ticket. I didnt understand this at all, but when the computer says "No" what can you do?

Well I went. Thank heavens for free parking at Brent Cross. £30 in tube fairs for me and the missus. £16 to get in. What a waste of time in all honesty. Few vendors of any note. 365 and Wide-screen (who basically dominated the main showroom). Nothing like it used to be and to be perfectly honest it really shouldn't be charging just to see a handful of vendors with £8 each prebooked or £10 on the door. This exhibition has run its course. Even FLO decided it wasn't worth it! Came away with 2 brochures and a star map from the popastro stand for my grandson. They really need to consider their viability as a an alleged premier Astronomy exhibition now. It's lost its shine. Rant over, glad to be home.

I'm going tomorrow for the first time in 10 years. Really pulling it in with a day out in London with my wife. Not expecting to spend much but would be nice to see new equipment in the flesh rather than looking at cleverly photographed images online for a change. Maybe buy some literature for a change which will occupy me during the "unusual" cloudy period here in the UK!

I have to agree in this day and age with all the centrally located or external London exhibition venues available, I would have thought they would have relocated to provide some greater access for those people who have to travel half the countries length and more to get there. However it is what it is I suppose, and so long as I dont spend more on transport than I may at the exhibition I dont mind.

Thats really kind of you. Unfortunately its only the Saturday I can go this year. I have investigated an alternative option this morning. Driving to Amersham at the top of the Metropolitan Line and tubing in from there whilst leaving my car on the Multi Story. This might work, other than its a 1.5 hours to Amersham in the car.

I believe ow my forecast visit has been sabotaged by the train drivers. Both Avanti West Coast and West Midlands lines are due to be on strike. I'm struggling to find convenient park and ride options. Was thinking of parking at Brent Cross (I understand it's free) and tubing in from there. Just not sure whether it's worth the extra effort now.

Yes both me and my wife are going (so i have to be carefull with the card!) on Saturday. First time since 2015

Perfect dark skies. Crystal still air. Stars leaping out at me. Frozen eyebrows ! There appears to be no happy mediium here in the UK for any form of OBS or imaging sessions which combine an ability to control a computer at the rig with thermal gloves on, a beanie and 25 layers of cloth on you to try to stop hyperthermia. I just cant do it at this time of year anymore and am going to wait until March (when its cloudy and windy) before I attempt to set up again. Being a bit of a neanderthal I dont have a rig thats geared up for remote imaging, nor do I have the funds to have a nice observatory; and the hauling in and out of freezing cold aluminium and steel really doesnt get my juices flowing anymore. Rant over, but I'm sure I'm not alone Nick

So here she is. The rainmaker. Just my little contribution to the appalling weather systems running through the UK at the moment. Received in excellent condition from FLO last week:_ Starfield 102 ED Starfield adjustable reducer/flattener Oklop Bag New ASI 120mmm mini guide camera SORRY ALL.

I have an old S/W Equinox ED80, now well past its sell by date. I am looking to upgrade to a new rafractor to be used for DSO imaging on my rig and was hoping someone could give me some feedback on my potential candidates My budget is around the £1000 mark for the tube assembly only, realising I may have to spend a few hundred pounds on desirable extras. My shortlist is here but if there are others to consider I would welcome suggestions:- Stellamira 110 F/6 Askar 103 F/6.8 Starfield 102 F/7 Thanks Nick

When I decide to go out into the garden and set up my gear for an imaging run (which with our weather isnt often) I always invite my grandson to join me and I wheel out my old 10" dob and allow him to sweep the skies and get used to simple focus runs with varying eyepieces. He loves just being out there under the skies and mapping his own way around. I will give him some simple bright targets to try and find and in this way he is learning his way around the sky. He is only 10 years old and I have resisted buying him a EQ mounted scope as I just think it would be too much for him to deal with at the moment, even a lower value Alt system wouldnt benefit him. The grab and go status of a Dobsonian keeps him interested.

I would agree with your findings. After an extensive search on Wikipedia of all churches on the IOW there is no St. Giles. There is a church that was designed by a cornish architect by the name of Giles but they didnt name it after him. Sounds a lilttle suspicious unless they are sending photos of the telescope from where they bought it from ?? Nick

It's a little different with my set up using my Cem60. Once I have polar aligned using the i-polar, I must use this position and tell the mount it's the new Zero position in the handcontroller. From there I open nina and go to my manual focus tab and just select the first star in the list. Mount goes there but doesn't use ASTAP for plate solving at this stage. I then manually focus to get the best star image I can by imaging in 5 second bursts. From that point I use Stellarium to pick an object. From Stellarium back to Nina and open the framing tab. Get coordinates from Stellarium and then slew and centre. Plate solving now works because my focus is good enough for it to recognise the star field patterns the camera images. If I'm not close enough to focus I can't plate solve. I can the keep in the framing wizard and play about with the box around the object until I'm happy with the position in the frame. From there off to sequencing and set up the lights darks etc. Tweek focus and off we go. Nick

Thanks Unfortunately the Equinox ED80 Pro has a screwed in focuser, which doubles as a rotator. I can find a fitting to fit a new focus unit into it TS have given me some options but when I add an adapter and focus unit it gets upwards of £500, which is a lot to spend on an 11 year old telescope! Thanks Nick

Thanks Yes I did go to FLO and noticed they had the same in stock (different name of course) So you have found it great to work with then? I have a Senso Sesto 2 robotic focuser which I would love to use and am hoping I could couple it to the focuser on this Many thanks Nick

Hi All Due to the sad demise of my old Equinox ED80 Pro (fine focus unit just doesnt work even after strip down) I am now in the market for a new wide field refractor for my astrophotography which encompasses mainly Galaxies and planetary nebula. I am considering moving up to 102mm diameter aperture, which I know will give me slower optics at F7 but that really just means longer subs and longer in the garden I suppose? Looking at various options I seem to keep going back to this unit:- TS-Optics Doublet SD Apo 102 mm f/7 - FPL53 / Lanthan Objective Has anybody any experience with this frac. I would welcome their comments. Its not a bad price for something that states FPL53 at this aperture Many thanks Nick

After stripping down and reassembling it has become obvious to me that the Focuser on my Equinox ED80 Pro is shot! As I dont want to lose this lovely little scope straight away does anyone have any idea of a replacement focus unit that will pair with the scope. The biggest issue I see is that the focuser is actually screwed onto the main body as it incorporates a silver rotating ring at the point of contact as can be seen in this internet borrowed image The silver ring stays attached to the main body and the focus unit comes away If not I may have to buy another frac (not chuffed... well my wife wont be!) and looking vaguely at Stellamira 80ED... not sure if anyone has any comments on this for imaging of DSO's Thanks Nick

Last night I took the opportunity (as we finally had great clear skies) to run an autofocus routine with my new Sesto Senso 2. I connected the play software correctly and ran a calibration from zero to just before max out. Calibration successful. I closed play and went into NINA and selected the focusser from the drop down list. Heres where the issue comes:- Nina spins and spins and then I get an error from Ascom saying conflict in Com 4 This happened repeatedly even after disconnect and reconnect, reboot etc. Then suddenly there it was showing the correct position and connected successfully. So I entered a new position and tried to move it in NINA to the new position. Didnt budge; the little red "X" didnt change colour and nothing happened. So I tried to run an autofoocus routine and found that the motor will move the rack outwards by the amount I have asked for and start the graph, however it fails to move inwards to complete the graph. Power was steady red and on. Currently linked through a hub into my PC (could this be the issue I wonder) I have heard that it could be worthwhile completely removing the software and reloading (really!!) I have the latest Ascom version, but should I reload this do you think. 3 hours completely lost last night Any pointers would be very helpfull Thanks Nick

Thank you for the explanation. At least now I won't waste valuable and rare clear nights in experimentation and achieving nothing

Thank you very much for yur detailed response. I presumed unity gain would be better but have noticed many imagers doing DSO with zero gain and I just wondered why Thanks again Nick

I have an ASi585mc coupled to a skywatcher ED80 Equinox Pro with a ZWO OAG As its galaxy season I would like to try my hand at taking some extended length subs of lets say for example M51, with sub lengths of around 180 secs plus. I understand that in order to utilize the well depth of the camera it is recommended to reduce the gain down to "0". Is this the case, or should I increase the gain to the unity point. I understand if i set the gain to zero i probably wont see a great deal on the screen after each sub even with a stretch, and presume that in order to know the framing is correct an initial sub with the gain higher is possibly the way to go and then knock it back for the imaging run. (I think I know what I mean but I could be completely off) Thanks Nick

So there I was on my way sheepishly creeping out of the Popastro show in Kettering last week with my little bag of goodies (spent too much) and my eye spotted a rather simple exhibitor showcase of dew heaters and controllers from W & W Astro. I have never heard of them but the heaters and the controllers appeared incredibly good value (I dont like using the word "cheap"). Had a quick browse on their website and they also offer very reasonably priced Celestron Dew shields with heaters attached, interesting for my C9.25. Has anybody had any experience with these products? The sensible person in my household has gently warned me about splashing too much out again so I need to be careful 😟 Thanks Nick

Hi I use DSS for initial stacking, I then use SIRIL for 1st stretches and colour calibration , the resulting file is then opened in GIMP for final tweaks. All are free to use and some fantastic You Tube videos to help. I have found all 3 programs to require a little learning curve and at the end of the day its about your perception of what you like for your astrophotgraphy, so you do as much or as little as you feel. Nick

Thank you very much for your kind words. At the moment I feel a leap in confidence and my family are positively wowed by the capture (which is the most important to me) Cheers and clear skies Nick

So here's the old family favourite M42 (yawn, yawn, I know) However it is my first real go a DSO and Im chuffed to bits. Its nothing like some of the wonderful stuff you guys show all the time, but it proves I am clearing hurdles in my learning curve. Anyway the tech stuff Skywatcher Equinox ED80Pro Cem60 Asi585MC OAG with ASi 120mm (not the mini) and guided in PHD2 100 x 30 sec lights 100 x 30 sec darks no flats no bias no calibration no flat darks Stacked best 68 frames in DSS Pre stretched in SIRIL Finalised in GIMP with new plug in for removing purple haze around stars (which I thought was a brilliant tool) I know the trapezium is blown out but even at 30 seconds I couldnt save the stars . (I neded to get better) When it comes around again I may have to look at different sub lengths down as low as 10 second to capture them. Hope its acceptable enough to go on this forum area. Thanks for looking Nick