JonC

I have a Asus ROG and a friend has just picked up a HP Omen. Both are excellent, but like all laptops in this class are heavy, unwieldy, but they are generally worth having if your doing intensive stuff like vide encoding, processor heavy tasks, or gaming. If your not doing that kind of stuff a business class laptop makes more sense, and will be just as well / better built. The only reason I ended up with a gaming laptop is that it came up cheap (ish) on ebay. I needed a laptop with plenty of storage, and the power to process 4K video. Storage on this can be 3 HDs in RAID, but I am using an SSD for programs, 2TB HD for video / photo and a bluray writer for backup. Processor is an i7, dedicated graphics card, and 8gb of RAM (might increase that up to 16 if I can be bothered), its a 17inch model, so big, heavy, bad battery, but unlike a lot of smaller models its not thermally throttled if your try and use its power. If I was looking again I would probably get a refurb from somebody like laptops direct, and really check the guarantee carefully, quiet a few gaming laptops suffered with failing GPUs, I used to offer a reflow service using works vacuum ovens, some worked for a while afterwards, most died eventually.

I have spent a quiet a bit of the spring sorting my pond out, main thing was to upgrade the filter and re-route the pipework and electrics for the pump. I also added a small fountain, its a pondmate 1200 and costs £30 with a selection of fountain heads, it has a 2nd output if you want to run a waterfall, seems good so far gives a couple of feet on the fountain. The only downside is the filter built in to the fountain pump needs to be cleaned, especially if you have a wildlife friendly pond. Have also upgraded the electrics so individual bits can be switched on and off.

We had to get a cable along a 50m buried pipe, the cable was to connect a CB to a rather large aerial up the top of the garden. The solution was some fine string and a bottle of compressed air. Tie the string to a bit of foam that just about fits inside the pipe and blow it through. String is then used to pull the thicker wire through. Inside cable routing was generally done using badly trained ferrets, it generally worked but takes ages if the bloody thing decided to have a snooze.

You have probably already thought of this, but its a good idea to run some high vis tape above the pipe to act as a warning if some bright spark decides to dig in the wrong place. Just seen photos, looks like you've got that sorted

The SW tripod is 70cm tall, you also have the plate to store. My old 055C is 67cm with the centre column fitted, 62 with it removed.

Will try and remember to measure it when I get home.. I have tried a couple of different tripods, the Manfrotto 055 (about £50 on ebay) is much better than the supplied one.

Any idea what cable is needed to connect this to a synscan hand controller? The handcontroller is RJ45

Wonder if Telescope House in Edenbridge will be getting them in, they currently call themselves Bresser UK. Unfortunately the showroom is not open Sat or Sun.

Had a quick go with it tonight, and love it. I have been using the mount with my 130PDS, the frac is mainly for visual with occasional imaging. I hadn't seen 1 100ED in the flesh until I opened the box, its a lot bigger than I had expected. I got it from ENS Optical, delivery was very fast, and its exactly as described apart from it came with a finder scope which I was not expecting. First photo taken eyepiece projection using my phone.

Just joined the frac club Bog standard SW 100ED on a HEQ5 that was upgraded to a pro. Have also slung my radio antennas up, meant to be a local net running tonight.

I use one of the buck converters to run my Canon. If you go for one with a display on it , double check the output voltage with a DVM, my one was reading a bit low.

Sitting here, reading the new posts, spotted yours, read it, looked at your location, then dashed outside to set my camera up. Note to self... look out the bloody windows more often. Made the mistake of writing off this weekend, then got rained on walking back from the pub after lunch, so had thought sod it.

Depending on the mount it can be used in equatorial mode, some of the tripod combos come with an EQ wedge, my 105 is setup in EQ mode its an option on the controller on the 125. I have only used my ETC105 for visual, but it does have a port on the back to allow camera attachment. A better start might be to piggy back a DSLR on top of the scope and use camera lenses. Something like an 1100d, T adapter and a 300mm prime would be well under your budget, it would also give the option to attach the camera to the back of the scope, although weight is a problem. But it will get you going cheaply.

I had similar, found that I needed an extension that was half way between the provided extension piece and just using the 2" to 1.25" adapter. Got the length by extending the focuser as far as it would go (without the extension piece) then undoing the locking screw on the EP and moved it back a bit.

Unfortunately the colours are different to what I have. Had a fiddle with it earlier but no joy, will have another search around the net. Last option will be to take the mount apart for a look inside.

I have the bits to make a cable to control this mount. The TTL cable I purchased (5V) has these pins Black 1 power Ground Brown 2 Input CTS (Clear to Send - Device is ready to receive) Red 3 Output VCC (+5v/+3.3v) Orange 4 Output PC serial Tx (TTL Rx) Yellow 5 Input PC serial Rx (TTL Tx) Green 6 Output RTS (Request to Send - PC has data to send) I have a couple of RJ12 cables to plug in to the mount, any idea what goes where?

Think this is just about the best behaved forum I have ever used, also extremely busy. The added photography and microscopy forums add something different that's and interesting diversion.

No even sure if it works in eq mode, not all manuals mention it, one way to find out I suppose. Other use would be a small scope for the Mrs, just need the scope.

Going to order one, hopefully collecting the mount after work tomorrow. Had originally intended to use it with a dslr, but tempted to wait for a cheap small scope on astroboot.

They seem to be averaging 1 a week at the moment, I missed out of a 150pds a couple of weeks ago.

Looks like two of us on here picked up a 130pds from astroboot, they have had a couple on there, the one I grabbed was £99. Hopefully get my hands on it on Friday, just need to sort a mount now.