MattJenko

Hi Chris, I sold my LightWave 60EDT last week and got this today. It is much lighter and I do indeed want to put it on the StarAdventurer as a travel kit and easy to setup rig. A focal length of 260mm with the flattener/reducer makes it it a rather nice option for either a DSLR or a small pixel CCD. Maybe even a good enough excuse to try out an ASI1600. I really hope it lives up to expectations as the Lightwave never really did it for me as a grab and go and I love the ease of a lightweight setup. A polemaster adaptor for the StarAdventurer arrived today as well

My new addition to the family. Teleskop Express Photoline 60ED.

Here are my thoughts on polar alignment. My polar alignment was about as slapdash as you can get. A simple app showing where on a circle Polaris is and then eyeballing it through the polar scope in 10 seconds max, and that was that. Alignment is completely ignored and I use platesolving to line up objects. I then rely totally on guiding to mask all sins. Field rotation was never a problem with the shortish focal length and smallish sensors I use. Recently I got hold of a PoleMaster and my PA accuracy is considerably higher. Guiding now has significantly less work to do, as the tracking has improved massively. However, the end images are not that noticeably different. They are better, and I have now started using a longer focal length instrument, but the difference was not that much for the shorter focal length refractor. The seeing wobbles my stars with my long exposures more than the tracking wobbles them.

Picked up a second hand Starlight Xpress 694 recently. Very nice upgrade from my Atik 414ex. Also moved to a finder guider setup to make things a bit less cluttered. Works a treat.

Most of the Newts on display are EQ mounted. Here is a setup I have used which is a little easier on the posture.

Here are my 5 best from last year, when I started this rather stunning pastime. All taken with a Canon 450d, a 50mm lens on a StarAdventurer. Saggitarius from holiday in Crete. Scorpius from Crete as well: Cygnus from Cornwall Some rather famous open clusters: and finally Cassiopeia

Lovely.

I have had a brilliant 2015, with an Atik 414 added to the Canon. 18 months since first looking through a telescope and I am more enthusiastic now than when I started! Mosaic Double Cluster: Bodes Nebula (M81): A holiday Milky Way widefield Iris Nebula and finally, HST narrowband PacMan: Looking forward to 2016, although the weather needs to improve a LOT Thanks Matt

Not a new Dob, but a big shiny red upgrade and it certainly feels like a different class of instrument now :

Friday was clear for a while but very windy. Focuser is lovely. My collimation is much better than before as everything is much more secure. I wonder how far down the storm alphabet we get before I get back outside.

New focuser for my Dob. I am trusting that the cloud for the last 3 weeks was because I bought this weeks ago and it has only just arrived, so penance has already been served!

Excellent purchase. I think the StarAdventurer is a complete winner. I picked up mine in July (so I should have posted it here!) and have used it loads. I have been using a 50mm lens with my DSLR (Canon 450d) and the results have easily surpassed what I hoped. It has already been to Cornwall and Crete with me with excellent results. I hope yours treats you as well as it has treated me. Here are my best shots from each location to show what can be done by a rank amateur like me. 20 x 2 mins each. Wing of Cygnus from Cornwall. Milky Way Centre from Crete. I have also had a few solar sessions with it. It does struggle with this, although your tripod looks much more the real deal than my rather lightweight one:

I forgot the show-off Skywatcher ED80 thread I started a while ago. Check out Uranium's images with it.... http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/236987-what-can-the-skywatcher-evostar-ed80-do-for-me/

A beginners setup which will outperform many not so beginner setups I would say. I started out with a Pentax K500 on the same rig, and other than a change to a CCD, am still loving it.

Post #6 in this thread looks useful : http://www.astronomyforum.net/telescope-accessories-forum/170309-9x50-finder-scope-how-determine-focal-length.html if you haven't seen it on your interweb travels.

sold

Every house should have a pair. Here are my Bar & Stroud Savanna ED 8x56s.

Welcome to the forums. That is one monster of a first post. I am very interested in reading this, as while I don't own an AVX, I know a few who do, and currently they are all run off power packs.