DAVE AMENDALL

I am in the process of inventing a gizmo which measures the ammount of light pollution,  and if high, gives out a continueing beep beep until the offending light is switched off. It isn't perfected yet. When it is, I hope to  place it on my house roof.  

A bottle of wine is one idea for this type of Neighbour. Free ear plugs is another....Dave

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

If I had been out at 1am last night my neighbour wouldn't have heard anything over the top of her rap music and door banging...

My friend in South Africa has  a  dome with noisy rusty bearings that sets all the neighbourhood dogs off barking at 2am  Nobody ever complains. They are probably not so mamby pamby there. That should cover the noise of the camera...........Dave

On 16/06/2021 at 11:34, jacko61 said:

I have the altair astro pier and have around 12" of concrete above floor level in my shed to get the eyepiece to where I'm comfortable.  That's with a celestron advance GT mount.  I also have the pier top plate at it's fullest height. I started with the concrete at 4 inches above floor level but found it was too low for me and didn't take the scope high enough to clear the walls of my shed.

In the photo, I've raised the floor to the height of the original block after adding 12 inches. The floor isn't touching the block.

 

Graeme

edited to add a pic

 Graeme,You have done a nice job raising the Pier. I have always liked the Altair Astro Pier but often thought why they did not make it taller or at least the availability of a tube extension and fitting system with Fracs and SCTs in mind. It would save a lot of work......Dave

On 01/06/2021 at 23:23, AMcD said:

I have not been able to find any replacement wooden joists at all so have gone with 3.6M long aluminium decking joists instead - they are actually cheaper than the wooden joists that are not available.  I am replacing the OSB wooden board on the roof with lightweight metal sheets in order to make the roof lighter and easier to handle.

Hi, I replaced wooden boarding last year with lightweight metal sheets the same as you ,but ran into condensation problems which were sorted eventually. Hope you don't get the same problems

If you can get a sharp focus it will have been a good investment of your £4..........Dave

How would you fancy going down the garden on a windy night with this one !................Dave

5 hours ago, Merlin66 said:

From memory the EQ mount was black.

you may be correct about the eyepieces, I need to re-visit my observing logs of the time to see which eyepieces were used.

 

I think the size of the the eyepiece diameter was 0.96 ?. The mount was originally black.............Dave

Hi, Sounds like my first scope 1969. like you say lovely wooden box that smelt of fresh pine. The 3 eyepieces supplied were smaller than 1.25". You got a barlow as well. Astro Optical Co inc Now Takahashi ?    ...Dave

No Need to buy any more  kit now. The biggest fears are dropping something or getting gear nicked...Dave

Celestron  C11xlt  OTA was just over £2000 this time last year. It's now currently at  £2,450 .

If you can get one!...Dave

Hi , Certainly with film the higher the ISO the more grain in the image therefore you are right. Also true of digital. Sounds like he made an Oops! in his video presentation. .........Dave

1 hour ago, Altair8389 said:

Hi, you may have to update (or refresh) the Synscan flash memory to the latest or most recent update.

Just lookup Synscan update firmware, if you have not done it before. Doing so, I think will erase your User defined objects.

Unless there is a menu option in that menu location.

 

Good suggestion, I will give it a try,  I suppose I could return to factory setting but would have to enter the details again...Dave

Hi Does anyone know how to delete user defined objects in the Object List. The user manual tells you how to enter objects but not how to delete them.....Dave

On 13/02/2021 at 15:14, david_taurus83 said:

Thankfully I have all the astro equipment I should ever need with no intention of spending another penny! Yep, that's me sorted!! 🤣🤣🤣

Me Too! It's been a long hard struggle getting it and has taken a while to cobble it all together. Be careful not to drop anything or get it nicked. Replacements will be for ever expensive,  and shortages imminent

Hello Michael, I must agree with you that F 10 is the best results

I use F 6.3 for the open clusters  ectc

I have the Celestron  SCT  adaptor which gives 105mm length  overall automatically for the canon.

I have added a spacer ring to the system to give me an overall 110mm from the Nikon sensor to the rear lens of the focal reducer.

However, I did not know that the Nikon flange distance was 46.5mm. I just carefully measured the overall distance.................Dave

HI all, There is a Celestron video on you tube which recommends that the Camera Sensor should be 105mm from the focal reducer for best imaging results.

I find that at this distance some vignetting occurs at the edge of the field. Also some stars are slightly  vertical pear shape.

However, on increasing the distance between the reducer and the sensor to 110mm things improve all round with good star images right to the edge of the field and no vignetting to speak of.

I am using an IR/Cut filter with a modded Nikon  with a Celestron C11 SCT and wonder if the longer focal length of the scope has any influence on  the increased distance between reducer and sensor ?

Any comments and advice would be appreciated...........Dave

7 hours ago, osbourne one-nil said:

Yeah, ok, but apart from those things.....

What a mess! Perhaps I should swap hobby and become a Morris Dancer. I think the UK is the world's leading sticks and bells manufacturer. 

You would probably find deliveries a problem on the sticks and bells as well. Hey nonnie no!...Dave

19 hours ago, wulfrun said:

I think you're unlikely to find a battery-powered heater of 300W. Worst-case, it runs for (say) 10 hours "on" time - that's a 3kWh battery, which is about the capacity of an electric moped (moped, not bike) battery. If you can actually find one, you won't like the price!

You are so right. The best I could find was 150w and that  had poor write ups

On 12/02/2021 at 12:00, JamesF said:

No, I don't think dew heaters would have made any difference there.  The problem surely has to be water vapour in the warmer air inside the OTA condensing on the mirror as it cools even further?  Fans to keep exchanging the air in the OTA with ambient might help, but even then the mirror can presumably cool even further because it's facing the open sky.

James

Yes that seems to be the root of the problem or at least a pretty accurate assumption

21 hours ago, skyhog said:

Never had that, got an obsy mounted 12 lx200gps. I have a little 300w Heater on a thermostat in there. Set at a few degrees. 

I think you may have the answer with the little 300w Heater. It would be ideal if the heater was battery operated because I am not keen on leaving mains electrics on overnight. I will do a google and see if I can find one.......Dave

Like many others, I have a C11xlt permanently sited  under a dome. Last night was so cold the main mirror was fogged up on inspection this morning. I don't think a dew heater would have made much difference even if it had been on all night. Any comments welcome.......Dave

I had a phase where I decided to forget the AP and concentrate solely on observing.  I sold off all the camera gear and spent the money on a larger  scope . That was a good move from an enjoyment point of view less frustrating and more relaxing and have seen many more deep sky objects since. Lately, I have been thinking of AP again and perhaps getting a modded DSLR.  I was wondering if my GP can  give me some tablets to make me forget about it. Whatever, the weather is the weather anyway...Dave

 Is the inside of the dome treated with that black anti- condensation paint ? (the brand name escapes me ) but it works well. My dome came already treated with this as standard...Dave

I also use a tubular greenhouse heater in my fibre glass observatory in conjunction with a 12 volt 6 " diameter fan. This seems to work as well as the mains operated dehumidifier which I run as well if the conditions are really acute.   Dave