Knighty2112

18 hours ago, SthBohemia said:

Sighs, whatever do you lot think we did in the 60's if we wanted telescopes? WE made them! I stated somewhere else that I made my first scope aged 15-16 some 60 odd years ago along with an equatorial mount...

If I remember rightly didn’t Brian May make his very first electric guitar also, before he went on to fame and fourtune with Queen? Sadly, never had the time (or patience) to build my own scope, although I did get a replica of One of Galileo’s first scopes from Astromedia a few years back to make, which works well (but really narrow field of view) on the moon, so does that count?  

53 minutes ago, Oldfort said:

I have bought a couple of books direct from Sky Publishing in the last year.  They worked out cheaper than buying new in the UK, although that was before the £ tanked. They also arrived much quicker than I expected.

Yeah, I have bought direct from them too previously. Delivery times where very good, and not too bad with price either a while back ago.

22 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

That’s a ridiculous price and not in the ballpark that I am willing to pay. I’ll have a look through the various recommendations I’ve been given. Thanks again  

  Ian 

Yeah, its good but not worth that price. 

Nicely done. 👍🏻

Wow! Just looked on the A place and they are asking nearly £185 for the Sky and telescope pocket sky atlas! Their having a laugh surely! Be miles cheaper to buy one from sky and telescope in the US and get it shipped over! Streuth! 

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

A decent star atlas is the next acquisition on my shopping list. Any recommendations? Thanks  

    Ian 

Oh, that’s a hard one to answer. I have quite a few, but to be honest I generally tend to use Skysafari on my ipad when I observe, especially when using my goto mounts. I tend to use the paper manuals I have for general scouting out of things before I observe (and also for the beauty of a few of them like Atlas of the Heavens & now Skyatlas 2000.0 which is very similar), making note of interesting things etc to observe. The larger ones like Skyatlas 2000.0 are a bit to unwieldy unless you have an observatory to use it in (I don’t) so if wanting to use it at the scope I’d recommend something like similar to as Jeremy says as the Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas which is more manageable. They did do a Jumbo version of it, but not sure if that easily available.

Took a punt and got a copy of Sky Atlas 2000.0 deluxe edition from the A place, which arrived this morning. Got this for £40, which is cheap considering the crazy prices asked for this out in most places. In very good condition (only thing I can see are 2 small marks on the 1st page), so well pleased with another addition to my star atlas collection! 😀😀😀

Your getting the Astro bug alright! Well done on nabbing a view of these two sights. No matter how many times you see them they are always a great sight to see in binos or a telescope. 👍🏻

Great work Reggie. Mars is warming up for opposition well. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

2 hours ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Received the following book recently and it is excellent as expected. 
Tear cover photo showing the great man himself. 
Note at the time not Sir, spectacles in top jacket pocket and not a monocle to be seen. 
I maybe wrong but I am assuming that the scope in the shot is his own 15” newt mentioned in the book.

The best bit was the price. 1 euro!

Marv

Excellent book. I got a copy when it came out from a book club back in the day, and managed to get a signed copy also. Have another of his books (One of the yearly guides he did) signed too. 
 

Very nice Nigella. Best one I got a-focally with my iphone at maximum coverage. Used 2” Lunt wedge, with Baader contumuum filter, but edited out the green incredible hulk colour you normally get of the sun with it. Can make out 4 sunspots which isn’t too bad considering I was holding the phone by hand. 

Yes, I have little brother 102 Mak. Once the grub screws (2 on mine) are slackened off sufficiently it allows you to slide off the knob fully.

Got the 70AZ ‘frac, and as expected the scope and mount itself is not up to much, however the Starsence worked extremely well. I managed to find all targets I went for for the time I was outside, and M81 & M82 were just visible in the scope too. Didn’t work in my front garden that has the worst of the street lamps glaring in, so clearly needs a certain level of darkness to work with, but with a relatively dark space it seems to work well. Now just need to transfer the starsense bracket on to my 10” inch Newt at some point and test it on that. If that works OK I will fix it permanently on it if all goes to plan.  

Good ta see you again!  

+one for the light oil in the thread and let it soak in for 24 hours then try it after that.

15 minutes ago, Earl said:

 

There is a storage place in Hereford all 20 foot containers, they have  a good few hundred and all are full, my toy soldiers live in one, power, lighting, heating and 4g internet, not perfect but great .

Wow! I didn’t know toy soldiers needed access to the internet, along with all the other home comforts in their base/storage locker?  

Nice write up Reggie on a fascinating subject. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Is that the adapter that was supplied with the mount when you bought it? Seems odd that they specify the current to be max 0.75A, but then only supply one with max output of 0.5A?

5 minutes ago, osilvab said:

The manual says that input voltage is 7.5 - 14 V with at least 750 mA and recommended 12 V.

and there is a note saying that  if the power is too high, the motor controller will stop the motors automatically. 

The supplied AC adapted is rated for 15V and 500 mA. so it's not ideal. It might be the cause of the malfunction. Something to test.

Over volts protection on the mount sounds like it is kicking in then. 

Power required according to the manual below to be between 7.5 volts to 14 volts dc input, with 0.75 amp current.

 Not sure what power your using for the mount, but have you made sure there is enough to power it fully? I know when I use battery power on my eq6 pro goto mount that if the power is below a certain level the mount still appears to be powered OK, but then stops working in up and down in declination. Don’t get any problems when I run in from mains power at all.

I am assuming you’ve checked that the clutch is tightened correctly to work in goto mode & not move it around in manual mode?

Just ordered the 70az also (cheapest model) to get the bracket off too to fit on my 10 newtonian to use. Much cheaper that buying another goto mount to hold it which with the weight of the scope would cost over £1,000 even if bought second hand, so looking forward to it working on my 10” newt too. Should arrive tomorrow!  

Any further news on whether it worked OK on the dob with the swap around?

I use my AA Ascent 80ED scope regularly as a quick setup scope for planetary work, lunar and also some double star work, which works very well, so should work OK with these targets for you too.