Alien 13

I have had similar issues with the sharpness of cross hairs on finders/polar scopes and rifle scopes when not wearing glasses, some can be adjusted or modded but some cant.

Alan

+1 for "shortcut" fairly intuitive although have only used it to edit MOV files from my Canon and save them in a format for use on this site..

Alan

Not sure about the Samyang but in general the spacing has to be as close to the manufacturers spec i.e. 44mm for Canon so that when focused the infinity mark on the lens lines up correctly. The reason for this is that some lenses move the whole assembly to gain focus while other designs move certain groups of elements only, if the spacing is wrong you will get coma etc in the corners.

Alan

As above, with Jupiter any details will come and go depending on the atmospherics but do check the focus by looking at its moons which should be pinpoints of light.

Alan

Had a shave, found my headset mic that I had put in a safe place so ready for the off..

Alan

I do like a good widefield, so much nicer seeing Andromeda like that.

Alan

I can offer some answers.

Nikon or Canon, quality wise nothing in it although Canon might be a bit cheaper. The Canon lenses do have a big advantage with their longer backfocus making it easier to fit filters into the light path.

The later Canon/Nikon or Sigma lenses operate with "fly by wire" systems so are totally unsuitable as the aperture and focus require the lens to be powered up to operate.

The Samyang range of lenses are well received and are totally manual but not cheap or you could look at the old M42 film camera lenses from takumar/minolta etc. 

Alan

I would imagine some of the largest companies invest huge amounts in R&D to get the packaging right, never had a problem myself with any damage...

Alan

Enjoyed that, Astro Biscuit is brilliant a master of video production.

Alan

Price wise you would be looking at a scope around 70mm but it would have a much shorter focal length than you have now, with refractors you will also need a field flattener (£120-200) so there is no escape from the additional optics required for imaging.

Example here and the FF here

Alan 

I like the hint of green in your squid, makes it for me..

Alan

I find that with my Canon camera that its best to set exposure to 20s and NOT bulb when focusing, this with the ISO set high gives me lots of stars visible on the live view screen but they are only visible if the focus is close to optimum. The abundance of visible stars makes it easy to concentrate on the very faintest in the FOV as these will blink on/off with the slightest adjustment.

Alan

2 hours ago, LeeHore7 said:

What do you think of this combo to power the eq3-2 mount and how long would it power it for do you think.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B085WVBYXK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A1DN7NX21S2ZS9&psc=1

In theory it would last about 10 hours but the voltage would be unstable during the last 4 hours or so.

Alan

5 minutes ago, LeeHore7 said:

Hi Alan 

I will give this a go and see how it operates, I've got a dc plug with screw type connectors to connect the wires of the modified USB cable, nothing to lose in trying it, clear skies 

The good news is that most USB cables have a RED wire positive and a Black for negative so it makes it easy but do check with a meter if you have one.

Alan

7 minutes ago, LeeHore7 said:

Thank you Nicola and Alien 13,There's certainly quite a few options out there, regarding the mobile phone battery bank I have a 5v 2.4a output one would this suffice .

Worth a try although some of the very latest "smart" models dont like low current loads and shut down (easily fixed by adding a secondary load like a red LED or similar). Just chop the end off a USB cable and fit a plug for the mount, cant remember though if it 5.5mm x 2.1m or 5.5mm x 2.5mm.

Alan

The EQ3/5 with the 6V motors will happily run off a 5.2V mobile phone battery bank, you will need to make up a lead though from an old USB cable..

Alan

Now that we all have face masks its worth wearing one when cleaning optics, its amazing how much moisture/droplets comes from your mouth and nose ..

Alan 

27 minutes ago, saac said:

Alan, I will have a pint of whatever you have been smoking  

Jim 

I thought that the Universe being infinitely small was still a viable theory..as is holographic projection.

Alan

I am confused as to why the Universe could end when it is already minute in size and all we see is a holographic projection..

Alan

Great image, I do like the tripod as I am a big fan of keeping the camera as low as you can..

Alan

1 hour ago, Jonk said:

Filling a bathroom full of steam, then taking your optics in to clean / assemble is a great way of keeping dust out, just be sure all of the moisture in the air has cleared first.

It’s probably the closest you’ll get to a cleanroom at home.

I thought it was just me that did this...I have a wet room so no mats and I remove all the towels too and even wear one of the "clean room" all in ones with a plastic hat for good measure.

Alan

A similar issue exists with the lower end skywatcher mounts like the EQ3/5 and an effective solution is to unbalance the scope so that the worm drives are under constant load..

Alan

Interesting, have a few 200W lasers lying around, wonder if I could colimate them all to fire at the same spot?

Alan

I have found that the USB powered adapters a bit hit and miss especially with the more power hungry DSLR models, my own Canon 80D needs about 1.2A to run successfully which is on the limit of what a 5.2V 2A battery bank can provide... The solution for me was an adapter cable to the inverter that had two USB inputs so that I had 4A available.

Alan

9 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Sometimes people see what they want or expect to see. 

I think this is quite common for example, spitting double stars when you know its there/finding structure in some feint fuzzys when you have seen an image of it..

Alan