bish

16 hours ago, Space Hopper said:

 

But the perfect answer to 'what are all these telescopes doing' ?        ......is they are society scopes !!

My astro club has a 'scope loan scheme' and i'd simply been delegated to look after them.......😉

Great idea.

I like the NASA sticker on your scope. Might put one on mine!

Not so sure about pork scratchings though.. 😀

Hello,

I have thinking about my 127 mak because I am not bothered with a goto. I have now just decided to buy a manual AZ, but want to keep the cost down. The AZ4-2 would do the job, but I was wondering how the lighter tripod legs of the AZ4-1 would be. I want it light for a grab n go.

Thanks

Hello all,

My wife is expecting a fairly large paypal refund from something she cancelled. When she chased it up again the person told her the refund hadn"t worked, which was typical Mercury retrograde! Be careful out there!🤣🤣

43 minutes ago, PeterW said:

100mm really need a parallelogram, though the angled ones can get to zenith with a tripod. I’d look at parallelogram options before buying. I had some 25x100 ages ago and they didn’t get used enough as the tripod I had really wasn’t good enough.  
 

Peter

Thanks. Yes I am worried that I spend a load of cash on something that isn"t that comfortable to use. One of the best things about bins at a dark site is the ease of just sweeping the sky.

Hi all,

I was at Kielder last week with my celestron 9x63 bins as my scope was ou5 of action. Have to that sweeping a dark sky with a decent pair of bins  was great. I would quite like some 100mm bins but can't afford the right angle ones. I"m not sure how comfortable it would be trying to see anything overhead with bins on a tripod. Experience and suggestions welcome.

Thanks

8 minutes ago, niallk said:

Sounds positive! 👍

Yes it was a big relief when I focused on M103 and the stars were sharp.

Managed to grab a quick look through a lot of passing cloud. I think the scope is OK. Had  a great view of M103 and a crisp view of Mars and The Moon. Seemed to be a lot of coma at the edge, so had to re-focus the edge to get it sharp. I think it was always like that but it has never bothered me and I am looking out for flaws now. The main thing is I enjoyed my grabbed quick session and the view was massively improved.

Looks good. My wife keeps asking me to tidy the garage. Not sure if she had this in mind though.

4 hours ago, niallk said:

You only need the clamps to stop the mirror from falling out ... there's no clamping action at all   I had a 250px and man those clips were tightened down - difficult to remove.

On my 15", the mirror hangs in a sling, and there are 3 prongs which are about a centimeter clear of the mirror to catch as a fail safe.

I think the only risk is if you transport the tube on its side or turn it upside down.  there should be no contact at all.

I doubt that the glass is permanently deformed - fingers crossed.  Can you loosen them to a point where the mirror is free to move just a little?

Thanks. I have loosened the bolts today. They don"t press down at all but hold it in place when it"s collimated. Just need a star to look at now!💭

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

Overtightening the clamps on the mirror can distort the mirror. I tighten them until they just barely touch the mirror then back off a tiny, tiny bit.

Thanks. I will try that and hope I haven't done anything permanent.

12 minutes ago, banjaxed said:

You don’t say what scope you have but it it is a decent make I can’t see how you could warp the mirror as they are normally a big chunk of glass.

It is a Skywatcher 250px. It does seem like a fair chunk to warp.

I put off cleaning my mirror for quite a while because I am a bit clumsy and thought a dirty mirror is better than a broken one. However,  it looked very straight forward, and it was. My mirror is (almost) spotless.

Now for the problem. The clamp bolts were very tight and 2 of them broke off. There are 10 more, so no worries. I assumed that being so stiff that the bolts must have been screwed down really tight.  I expect you know what"s coming. I screwed the clamps down hard, collimated the scope. 

The first light after cleaning, the stars were all streaky and Mars all elongated. I loosened the bolts quite a bit last night and it did seem improved but not cured. I intend to loosen the bolts as much as possible without the mirror moving around. If it is not better I will assume that I have warped the mirror and just buy a new scope (although there is quite a wait at the moment!).

The main thing is that I have learned from my mistake!

Booked up.

35 minutes ago, philthy said:

The site is always posted up as fully booked  during the Star Parties. This is done on purpose to stop non astronomers trying to book  pitches for tents or caravans.

All bookings are by email or telephone calls to Lesley at Drumroamin.

http://www.drumroamin.co.uk/

Thank you.

Where do I book?  Thanks.

15 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Hi

The altaz mount tracks the object by tiny left right up down movement which keeps the object in the field of view, but this isn't following the earth's rotation. In imaging terms this means there's a finite time before star trails appear. With your camera and lens you could start imaging with the mount you have, you'll have to work within the capabilities available and this particularly applies to deep space objects where long exposures are used. Planets on the other hand are fine as generally we would take fast videos.

So you could start now with what you have using the 127mm mak on planets, turn removing it and using your camera on DSOs from 15-45 seconds exposures. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge

A star adventure tracks equatorially so longer exposures with a camera are possible on DSO, but you wouldn't use it for planets really. There is a thread for this mount here. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/303949-imaging-with-a-star-adventurer

Then for similar price there's the az-gti with potential eq capability with firmware update.

Many thanks. That is really helpful.

Hi,

I was thinking of having a dabble in some low cost astro phtotography. I have an 1100d , 50mm and 70-300 lens I could use, so thought I might get a star adventurer. My 127mm mak is on an AZ goto, which I could mount my camera on, but don"t know if it would be as good as the star adventurer.

As an aside, would the mak/mount be OK for planetary/lunar if I got a celestron nexstar or similar.

Thanks

Bish

8 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Is this an official meet, or an informal arrangement? Is it at the Kielder obsy and where do you stay? I was up there a couple of weeks ago and thought I’d love to go back To observe sometime.

It"s the Kielder star camp . I think electric hook up pitches go fast but I always get a spot for a tent.

16 minutes ago, davew said:

Oh yes, arriving Thursday.

Looking forward to it as holidays are few and far between these days. The weather may not co-operate but I'm sure a few walks in the forest will ease the mind.

I'll be doing my usual and that is looking for puddles to image the Milky Way in 😉

See you there ?

Dave.

Yes I will be there. I never bother checking the forecast anymore because I will go on the off chance of a patch of clear sky! It's a bit of peace regardless. I take more home comforts ever time I go. Think it"s my age!

Is anybody going up to Kielder this week?

Looks good to me.

The Skywatcher 250px is a great scope for the money. There are more expensive lighter better quality scopes, but I have never compared them. Easy to use, quick set up, not too bulky or heavy. DSO"s will be brighter and easier to spot.

1 minute ago, niallk said:

Nice one 👍 Shiny!

I couldn't loosen the clamp bolts on my 250px, so i just stuck the cell under the shower with the mirror 😉  It was grand!

I came very close to cleaning it in the cell because the bolts were so tight.  I was lucky to only break two of them!

4 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Ooooh, shiny - well done but ouchhh on the clamp bolts failing .......

Yes the bolts were in so tight that two of them just sheared off.

Thanks for the tutorial. It worked a treat.