The Admiral

I spotted it with some 8x40's, though it bordered on needing averted vision. Bigger than I expected to be honest, but as Stu said, it does have low surface brightness. Ian

Congrats for getting one decent image! I'm with you on that one! I've more or less given up astrophotography as I find the frustrations too great. It wouldn't be so bad if one could rely on forecasts. As it was a 'special event' I thought I'd see if I could get a snap of the comet, so having lugged all the equipment downstairs and set up in the garden, fighting a heavy cold, I managed to align on the first star and then the clouds rolled in. Probably the same ones as you were seeing! An hour later I called it a night and got the gear inside, I wasn't up to waiting longer. I think that might just be my last astrophotography venture, unless there's something really special going on. Interestingly, though, it seems that Oxfordshire is in a hole in the middle of the country, weather-wise, clouds from the West don't quite penetrate this far. But sometimes they do! And I guess that's the difficult bit to predict. Same as last night, if the Met Office's cloud chart was anything to go by. Not to mention the vapour trails from the Green 1 air corridor to the South going in to,and over, Heathrow! Ian

Pretty sure I didn't . In fact, the current offerings from FLO don't include either batteries or mains power supply. Ian

Welcome to the forum. I use this https://www.firstlightoptics.com/power-accessories/baader-outdoor-telescope-power-supply-128v-15a.html Works fine. Ian

Can you link to it please? All I can see on the November news are pictures. Ian

Is it strictly Tri-band? H-beta and OIII seem to be in the same pass-band and wouldn't be resolved. It does have a 3nm H-alpha pass-band though. Filter TypeTriband wavelengths H alpha/656.3/3nm wavelengths Oiii/H beta/ Center 493/18nm Ian

One thought has crossed my mind following on from another thread: Given that OIII and Ha are in quite different parts of the spectrum, can the filter be 'parfocal' for each wavelength, given that the 'optical' thickness will be different for each? Also, presumably if the 'scope isn't truly apochromatic, each of these wavelengths will focus at a different place. So all this leads me to wonder if the image can be truly in focus simultaneously for OIII and Ha? Any users care to comment? Otherwise, it has the potential to be a great time saver. Ian

A lot of people use the design given in the Sky@Night journal. Simple to make using readily available bits. Can't find a link to the pdf right now, but I think somewhere it's given in this thread . Being a long way north you might want something with more elements, but give it a try first as you've nothing to lose and it's not difficult to make. For something more refined, I'm sure BiggarDigger with his radio background can provide further information. One of the advantages of using the rather more expensive Funcube Dongle SDR is that it works directly on your PC out of the box, I think for the others it is a bit more involved and there are work-arounds. Good luck. Ian

I'm not sure what you mean? What plan are you following for making the Yagi? I don't think so. You need to be able to convert an unmodulated wave (the Graves scattered radiation) into audio, which means the receiver needs to supply it's own frequency. You can use Single Sideband (SSB) or continuous wave (CW), not frequency modulation (FM). Generally, the bandwidth for CW is set quite small, and isn't ideal for detection of what is a rapidly changing frequency wave followed by a fairly constant frequency wave. Ian

This has all been a very interesting read, and the perceived trajectory of imaging cameras becoming more affordable CMOS astro cameras. But would I be correct in thinking that the price change that you are envisaging would result from the switch from CCD to CMOS? In other words, you wouldn't expect a price fall for the likes of ZWO cameras which already use CMOS? Or are you saying that you see the prices of all astro cameras, in general, falling? Also, it strikes me in my naivety that one of the consequences of the take up of CMOS cameras for astro is that they'll be through a re-purposing from existing applications, so there might not be such ready availability of mono cameras, to wit the ASI071 AP-S and ASI094/128 full-frame cameras being only available in colour versions. I hope I'm wrong! Ian

This bit is intriguing: "Forget quirky handpads and software installation. Control your AstroTrac 360 from your familiar browser environment out of the box." "Future software updates will include GOTO and support for popular 3rd party software such as SkySafari and TheSkyX." (My emphasis) So exactly how does it work? Still an unfinished product then. Ian

There is a paucity of technical info, just pretty pictures. I see that there are now pictures of the dovetail clamp in use, but there needs to be more than just 'newspaper headlines' accompanying them. A downloadable manual would be of use, not least a review or two. Who would cough up a grand deposit on the basis of this? The 10kg capacity is claimed to be the imaging capacity, so it may be better than taking most mounts' capacities and dividing by 2 . Ian PS. Odd website! https://www.astrotrac.com/ I've just discovered a bit more information by continuing to scroll down. Doh!

A good start! Could you add a few more details please, such as camera and lens, how many exposures and what individual durations you used? Ian

Indeed I was thinking of JC Maxwell. Ian

These idiots are everywhere. We had a laser 'strike' in Oxfordshire a few weeks ago https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/17002406.raf-helicopter-hit-by-laser-beam-in-wantage/ Of course the issue is one of pilots being dazzled and losing their dark adaption for a while, rather than injury (though that is also a concern), so I guess the laser doesn't need to be that powerful. As usual it'll be the law-abiding that end up paying, rather than the imbeciles who will buy off t'internet and not register. And would it ever get policed in our present climate? Ian