Stub Mandrel

It's worth remembering that ANY image of a DSO is an achievement 🙂

@MarsG76 My early 'works' were no better! Not sure if I shared this (claimed to be the North America Nebula) before:

5 hours ago, Susaron said:

The flats I did created a red background, and the color correction given by pix was almost brown. So I processed without flats.

I took the liberty of grabbing the image and putting it through Gradient Exterminator; this is a jpg so expect better quality if you do it yourself:

Edit: Bottom centre you can see what happens if you don't mask off a bright DSO before using Gradex...

This, 150mm x 914mm (36") mirror of otherwise unknown properties, freshly recoated by VCSM:

1 hour ago, rotatux said:

so I should remember to regularly switch off/on the camera to let the auto-cleaning supersonic waves to move them.

Most folks switch this off so they stay put and use flat frames instead.

Nice horsey 🙂

5 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Moral of the story is get insurance.

... before you set fire to your neighbopur's trees ...

4 hours ago, Geoff Barnes said:

It suddenly occurred to me that when the next Carrington Event happens (as it surely will one day, resulting in the end of all electrical power and the consequences that go with that), us astronomy nerds would finally all have Bortle 1 skies at last!!! 👍

 

So keep your batteries charged :-)

1 minute ago, iapa said:

ah - maybe I've had a dram too many  and missed something

I retro-edited it in 🙂

2 minutes ago, iapa said:

did you miss a link?

>sneak edit<

No.... 😇

15 minutes ago, iapa said:

I wonder which it is, whisky or whiskey? 

there's a manufacturing difference apparently - although if it's not at least 20yo scotch......... 

I am very much a whisky drinker, but I don't have a problem with a decent whiskey. Decent mass produced bourbon (including JD) is generally better than cheap whisky.

23 minutes ago, iapa said:

4yo grandson is "properly into"steam trains

keep taking him to exhibitions and such - OK some are engines with pictures of characters from a children's programme narrated, originally, ab a member of a group of musicians establish in the 1960s.

 

BUT - he understands the principles of firebox, feeding the coal and it heating water to create steam to make if go

OK - I cannot help but educate the younger members of the family in earlier technologies

 

Does he know about these?

https://petersrailway.com/

Chris Vine is a great chap and a very skilled modeller.

That's a very nice image. Great for a first DSO.

You might want to fiddle with the colour balance slightly to make it less blue and bring out the yellower core. I think the background has a slight blue cast too, but it may be my monitor.

19 hours ago, JamesF said:

The adjusters work fine against the pin, but the pin can rock slightly in its threaded hole (not unsurprisingly), which means the mount can still shift position with the adjusters locked up tight.  The obvious solution is to use a locknut as the NEQ6 does, but the HEQ5 adjusters are so close to the body of the mount that a locknut fouls the body.  I even tried filing the corners off the nut (I have some wall-drive spanners so it's not a problem to do it up even without the corners), but there was still insufficient clearance.  I suspect the clearance is only a couple of millimetres, which isn't really enough for a nut of any sort.

You could use an M10 nut off a suitable potentiometer or switch - only a couple of millimeters thick!

Or use an M10m bolt with a plain shank, cut the head off and shorten the threaded part. It will lock when the shank reaches the hole.

Or use stud lock,  or even epoxy on the thread if very loose.

I have thsoe in my workshop. they make prolonged standing much more comfortable.

2 hours ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

define work.....

Expending energy to move the point of application of a force.

Sounds a waste of time. Probably best avoided.

I use a 450D, modded and cooled.

It's much better than a modded uncooled 10D, I can't say much more!

After a bit of deconvolution of the previous pic in Astra Image... I give you a relativistic jet out of a black hole! Wow!

Went back to my Markarian data for April 18.

M87 in the bottom left corner of a fairly small number of subs.

Nowhere near as clear as John's pic, but it is visible:

Good idea, I will copy! Beats messing with an allen key in the dark.

49 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Need to give the locking bolts a bit of a clean-up before they go back onto mounts.  There's some corrosion around the threads on all of them and one is particularly bad.  Might need to look into something I can put on them to help prevent the dew getting to them that isn't likely to get spread around places I'd rather it wasn't.

I would suggest fixing them all together, but then you might be in for a long wait.

30 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

The Lacerta adapter, gets very good reviews and certainly feels very solid and chunky, and surprisingly heavy.

I'm wanting more precise focusing at high power for planetary viewing in the coming months, so we'll see how we go with this.....

Hi Geoff,

Is there a plastic insert in the pressure block (the bit that presses the spindle into contact with the tube)? Or is it plain metal? I've used PTFE on my home amde focuser and I wonder if a plain block would be less likely to slack off over time. 

7 hours ago, vernmid said:

130PDS + HEQ5 + 1100d modified + 80mm ASI120MM Guiding

40 * 240s subs + Bias and Flats

Much better faint stuff than I can get, I envy your skies!

The one I made just fits in a normal finder holder:

7 hours ago, fwm891 said:

Should be easy to find one then....

I remembered I'm waiting on a mirror being silvered - I checked and it stripped well and is in the coating machine today, it should come back next week.

If you can put motor above the rack on a hinged mounting you will have a  simple drive that won't need any cleverness to adjust the backlash/engagement and if you balance it right in the even of a jam, the gear will ride up rather than stall the motor (although you might want it to adjust it to stall so it blows a fuse if it gets stuck - for unattended operation).