Stub Mandrel

That mount casting looks like a die casting. If it is aluminium it should clean up with caustic soda (take care and not for long though!)  It woudl be really nice to get it anodised if you can't source the textured 'black japan' paint (not easy to find).

If a zinc/tin-based alloy the level of corrosion on the surface is worrying.  If contaminated with metals such as lead it can fail like this 35 year old guitar part, it may no be clear but internal cracks have opened up, filled with oxide causing it to swell and crack further:

Tin oxide catalyses its own formation so clean every trace off and then paint it with something like hammerite to exclude all moisture and air.

19 minutes ago, johninderby said:

California businesses are now required to warm of potential health hazrads of goods sold. In this case I’d imagine it’s down to the paint used on the weight so don’t put the weight in your mouth and chew on it or something.. ?

The P65 warning stickers are printed using carbon black as a pigment...

1 hour ago, Gfamily said:

A Celestron NexYZ smartphone adapter (belated Christmas present from our daughter). 

Very impressed at how well it allows the phone to be accurately positioned.

Much better than the £2.99 one that needs 2 pairs of hands to centre

I was looking at one of those at the Practical Astronomy Show, I thought it was very well designed.

9 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Excited about this, postman brought me a new Skywatcher Star Adventurer with all the trimmings. I’ll be digesting the manual over the next few days, always makes one feel like a kid again when you get something neat in the mail.

 

Stoppit! Stoppit! I really don't need one of those...

1 hour ago, MarsG76 said:

resulting in the actual sensor temperature hovering at around ambient temperature while exposing (give or take a degree or two).

Don't trust the internal temperature given in the exif data, it isn't measured at the sensor, or is this from the sensor mounted thermistor?

Got to be worth a punt!

Lots of subs was a disadvantage when we were all running 32-bit Windows XP on Pentium Processors...

41 minutes ago, Fraunhoffer said:

Teleconverters

-which ones?

1 hour ago, rhw1967 said:

Excuse the mess in my home office / mancave, we've not long moved in ?

I've been studying those pics for several minutes and I give up - I can't find anything I would call a mess ?

I brought home a 9x50 finder and a little Campo de Cielo meteorite!

Great, thanks.

On transparent at the moment but may give that a go when I'm on black again.

I'm waiting for a red-anodised CNC_machine TV aerial to allow me to centre my polarscope with unparalleled precision.

To save me downloading it and firing up cura - what diameter is it?

7 hours ago, Cozzy said:

Not sure what size the grub screws are for the Canon EOS T ring adapter, do you have any idea what they are?

One here is M3, and takes a 1.5mm allen key.

Good idea to swap out for thumb screws, who needs a rotator?

Not sure this has already been mentioned but a light touch of boot polish seems to work wonders.

On 22/08/2018 at 16:05, Nyctimene said:

Not at all; it's a very sophisticated product, developed by a group of avid stargazers, and it's build oozes quality (e.g. all fittings stainless steel)! A real joy to sit on, moreover for guests in outreach situations, or children. Good value for money.

Stephan

Out of curiosity (and with my router at the ready...) how thick is the plywood?

I see Craig has used 18mm.

Take a close look at the logos on the capsule...

Good stuff Rob! it's about time I tried some Ha on a moonless night.

26 minutes ago, RolandKol said:

Not sure which software you use,

in Pix, you can run Color Mask script to generate Mask for each color and brighten the part for OIII.

In this case, I was actually made to push it very hard... as most of my OIII subs went to the bin ;(

I use Photoshop + paints Shop pro

33 minutes ago, Rustang said:

Beautiful, because of my newbie lack of knowledge, what is this of? ?

I'd love to say  the bagel nebula, but it's called the Rosette.

Here's a question... in RGB the OIII part of the Rosette looks a sort of washed-out red compared to the Ha parts.

Is there a trick with selective colour or similar I could use to turn it blue with being overly artificial?

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

Stu seems to be stand on his own when I’ve met him.... ?

 

Peter

But has he got three feet?

3 hours ago, Stu said:

This one arrived today, intended for use with my little Vixen spotting scope. Very pleased with the height and the little support at the bottom. Am getting a trigger grip ball head too which will arrive next week. Have also picked up a higher power eyepiece which should give me x30 ish, could be fun.

Hmm...  the Ancient Greek 'pous' is ambiguous as although it usually is taken as meaning mean foot it can also mean leg. No problem with a tripod, but that appears to be a monoskele (compare with the Manx triskele) and a tripod at the same time!

I'll stop blowing smoke rings up my fundament now...

You know it's bad when your SQM reading and Bortle scale are the same number...

1 hour ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Does that augment Sidereal+PEC in EQMOD or do you turn it off there? 

It's meant as a standalone