Bizibilder

With your budget have you considered a 150mm (or even 200mm) Dobsonian?  These scopes give you by far the "biggest bang for your buck".  The aparture will help you see fainter objects and the greater focal length will give far better views of the Moon and planets.  They are easy to use and come apart (or simply stand vertical in their base) for storage if that is an issue. 

As Reddoss says they are in scale to each other, not the background.  From those that I have imaged myself they seem about right, for example M32 is about "6 Moons x 2 Moons" - although the exact limit can depend on where exactly you define the "edges" of some of the nebulae.

It has always amazed me just how big some of these objects actually appear to us, let alone their "real" size.

I assume you want to apply the same wavelets to a series of TIFF's? - then the easiest way is to "save scheme" after setting the wavelets of your first TIFF.  Open the next TIFF and "load scheme" - this will load your saved wavelet scheme for your second image.  Continue with this process for each of your images.  Whilst not strictly batch processing this will speed up your processing somewhat.  Once you have "loaded scheme" for each image you will most likely want to add a final "tweak" to get the best out of each final image - wavelets seldom transfer between images and this manual final adjustment is usually needed.

I now prefer to use Registax 6 for wavelet adjustments on images stacked in Autostakkert.

A hint that I picked up from a video on the web (sorry - I can't remember the source!) is to first move slider 6 and then put the "denoise" for slider 6 up to around 0.1 to 0.15.  Then move slider 2 and its denoiser to 0.35 or 0.4.  Then slider/ denoiser 5 (denoise 0.1) followed by 3 and then 4 (again denoise around 0.1).  Don't actually touch slider 1 at all.  The sliders can often be moved almost all the way to the right for 6 and 2, a little less for 5 and 3 and slider 4 a touch less again - they end up in a "v" formation.  Seems to work quite well.  Occasionally I do use slider 1 if the image is really crisp and I think it will take the "extra bit" of sharpening that slider 1 gives.

Bolts have a partial thread up the shank (usually one third the length of the shank).  Screws have a full length thread.  So you need "Socket head screws" of the required diameter and length.  Screws for wood (usually called woodscrews) are a different thing all together and are not used by engineers!! 

Hello Nagarajan and welcome to SGL!!

Hello Jason and welcome to SGL!!

Exellent progress - A swift question - How do you propose to cover the corner end grain of your log-lap?

Are those overhead wires as "in the way" as they look?

Very good -keep posting!

The main advantage is rigidity. All tripods have joints and hinges (as they are collapsable) and therefore are not as solid as a pillar. Even so, a well designed tripod is pretty rigid!

Exellent write-up and thanks for passing on your tips and experience with R6 (I still usr R5 as I'm a bit of a luddite!).

Looking at the full Moon can often seem lacking in detail as there are no shadows (the Sun is overhead, if you were standing on the Moon) and it can be difficult to even see some craters! Secondly the Full Moon is very bright and this will also affect what you can see as the brightness will swamp any detail that is there. It may be that the smaller scope was producing a much fainter image allowing you to see more detail.

I did the "O" ring mod as well - not worth the bother or cost of a return to the supplier. Yes, it is under warranty, but is it really worth the cost and hassle for a repair that costs a few pence and is certainly not essential?

Sounds like its dry/dirty - just try a dismantle and clean with a clean cloth. You may just need a tiny touch of white lithium grease on any sliding bearing surfaces.

Nice job.

Hello and welcome to SGL!!

Probably not the SW diagonal is of pretty reasonable quality - you would have to spend a lot of money to get a significant improvement.

Upgrading the eyepieces is a good idea - but pay more for a couple of good ones that you can keep rather than a "set" where you may well be paying for eyepieces and filters (and a case) that you will seldom use.

With an Evostar 120 (achromatic NOT the ED Apo) you can get full disc pictures of the Sun and Moon quite easily. I have attached a Pic of the Sun to show the disc size within the frame.

If you use a webcam then you would need around 5/6 webcam frames to cover the disc from edge to edge.

Hopefully this will give you some idea of the field of view.

For Deep Sky Objects (DSO's) try downloading ccdcalc - its freeware - just put in the details of your camera and scope ant it shows you a picture of your chosen object within the fov of your scope/camera combination.

Try this:

Concrete & ballast volume mixing concrete calculator - cubic metre quantity mixing calculator

And use the combined sharp sand/gravel amount to give you the amount of ballast you need.

ADD 20% to the total!!!!! You can always find a use for a bit extra but you can do nothing if you buy yourself "short". Bags of ballast are cheap! Hope this helps.

If you are using plastic pipe then the pipe is purely a mould for keeping the concrete in the right place. Therefore you only need the pipe to surround the "above ground" concrete ie the pier. This, however, leads to a practical problem - if you have wet concrete in the pipe and wet concrete in the base then gravity is inclined to take over! The pipe empties its contents! This can be prevented by placing a strong board over the base (with a hole for the pipe to poke through) and putting some substantial weights on the board. This will prevent the problem!

A second way to do things is to put the plastic pipe all the way to the bottom of the hole you have dug BUT after making several large holes in the wall of the pipe below ground level - thus when the concrete is poured the concrete can freely flow between the inside and outside of the pipe and will set "holding" the pipe in place.

Hope this helps.

Steel fabricators are the folk who make fire escape stairs, railings and cut RSJ's etc to size for the building trade - most towns have one - find them in Yellow pages.

The advantage of a bolted down steel pier is that you can move/remove/modify it quite easily. Concrete is pretty much permanent. In terms of "strength" there is not much between the two if properly built.

My own steel pier was made (welded) by the local steel fabricator - I just drilled the holes and shaped the plates (as I have access to machine tools). All the steel (offcuts) and welding came in at around £70 if I remember correctly.

Use your walls! By that I mean put the scope at a height that is convenient to you - not forgetting that a Newt will almost always have a "high" eyepiece position - then set the wall height to eliminate any neighbours (and your own!) direct house/security/street lights and any other bad light pollution. The only view you really need is south. Don't forget that from the UK it is unlikely you will see much within 15° of the horizon in any direction - even if you have a clear "line of sight".

Obviously I don't know your site but use the walls to your advantage!

Footings!! You could almost build a house on them! You will have one sturdy obsy!