symmetal

As most of your equipment is 12V you could run everything of a leisure battery with the battery permanently on charge using a Ctek charger or similar which won't overcharge the battery. If you have a desktop PC get a 240V inverter to run it off the battery all the time. It needn't be a large capacity battery if it's only needed for 20mins or so, but a 100AH battery you can still use it if your power is off all night. If it's a laptop then you won't need an inverter for a short outage. Alan

Yes, with the mount turned off just manually put it in the home position using the spirit level, setting rings as you prefer. Connect your eqmod cable and power on the mount and eqmod will assume it's in the home position, which it is, so all's well. Alan

I developed a large floater in one eye about 4 years ago (had smaller ones for as long as I can remember) and had it checked as it can be an indication of retinal problems but it was just a floater and was told to live with it as they are not treated under the NHS. A year later a similar one appeared in the other eye which made reading or using a computer very tiring as every time you moved your eyes my vision blurred as the floaters drifted past. I researched treatments and laser surgery had had some success with certain types of floaters so I paid for several sessions of treatments but to be honest it made little difference. I contacted an eye surgeon as to whether a vitrectomy (removal of the vitreous jelly in the eye) was a possible solution and he said it was if I was willing to pay for it. He said it's the only treatment that really works on removing floaters. I had one eye done and it was amazing having perfectly clear vision in that eye. I had the other eye done six months later so I'm now floater free. It's done under local anaesthetic as an outpatient and took about 45 mins. Three incisions are made in the white of the eye to insert three instruments, a light, an ultrasonic cutter incorporating a suction pump and a third tube to pump saline solution into the eye to replace the vitreous jelly as it's chopped up and sucked out, maintaining a constant fluid pressure in the eye. It's a bit uncomfortable while it's happening but that's all you feel. After a cup of tea and biscuits you're allowed home. The following day you go in to have the eye patch removed and given eye drops to put in for about six weeks. The only after affect from the surgery (apart from a very red eye for about two weeks) is the sensation of a bit of grit in your eye from the suture put in to seal the hole made for the cutter. The holes for the other instruments are small enough that they self seal. This sensation fades over a week or so as the suture dissolves. Hope that helps anybody who has wondered what's involved.

I had cataract surgery on both eyes about 20 years ago ( a few months apart) and the first thing you notice after the eye patch is removed the following day is how colours look super saturated as well as everything being sharp again. The higher contrast is also very noticeable. Black objects are black instead of diffuse grey. The colours go back to normal after a few days and the brain readjusts. The only long term affect was 2 multi coloured diffraction spikes when looking at bright lights, streetlights in particular. These were from the slit cut in the eye to replace the lens. It gradually fades as the eye heals but lasted for a year or more. It was quite pretty actually. I wasn't stargazing at the time so couldn't say if they were present when looking at stars through a scope.