Knighty2112

Sadly, I’ll be away for work down in the SE from Monday for half of the week, so no chance to observe it through a scope, although I do have an astromedia solar projector that I could take with me as it doesn’t take up much room and have a look around lunchtime if I can see it through that. If the clouds allow that’ll be the best chance I get to see it. The solar projector works pretty well when sun spots are on show, so hopefully Mercury will be visible with it.

Excellent sketch! Well done! I see you managed to pick out not one but two alien monoliths residing in Clavius too! Clarke and Kubrick would be well pleased!

As you have a dew shield already I’d get a normal dew strap to fit. A controller box is optionally as larger scopes can have the strap run on full power with no problems when used for visual use. It may prove necessary if doing any imaging to reduce the power (hence heat) as this can sometimes interfere with imaging, so in those cases then a controller may be desired.

Nice work Doug. Always nice to see fuzzies in the EP. Must be nearly 2 weeks since i had a brief spell at the eyepiece, and even then didn’t get to see much ‘cos clouds were rolling in again. Hoping for some clear skies at the weekend fingers crossed.

I think without very specialist equipment the angle of parallax observed even from two different points on the earth simultaneously would be too small to measure. You would have to take readings when the earth has moved further in its orbit around the sun to be able to make out the difference in the stars position due to parallax shifting. Clearly this cannot be something done simultaneously, but a test performed over a time period of months to get any results that could be seen, and even then only for some of the closest stars to earth.

And magic is real, proved by science!

Is that a copy of the image you won with too?

😢😢😢😢

Use the goto and have a sky tour or best of tour.

A good set of ear plugs and your problems are solved!

Don’t forget to bring that Zarkov cloud blaster gun with you clear those clouds away please!

Groan!

Yeah, Paris is real tacky these days I know! Just look at the Eiffel tower there!

Toughie, but personally I find the 6x30 finderscope better to use than a 9x50, purely because of the wider field of view, so find it more eaier to use than the 9x50 because of this, although the 9x50 can scoop up fainter objects so if at a dark sky site then this would work better most likely.

Just hoping we don’t get any excessive rain to cause issues. Wellies definitely need to be packed too.

My older brother is tagging along to SGL too this year, so I have to squeeze his stuff in to my car too, but I'm sure we’ll manage!

Not a good experience Ade. I’d be more than a little cheesed off myself with these problems too, especially with the price of the mount. Was maybe looking at an iOptron mount at some point next year, but now maybe not after your experience. Hope you eventually get it sorted out.

Nicely summed Doug. Tricky choice for a larger ‘frac as unless you get a solid goto mount that could handle it, you’d have to use it on the Skytee2 and loose any goto option on the 8SE mount. If you don’t mind just using it manually then I’d sell the ST120 and get something like a 120ED, or if budget allows a 150ED. The Skytee2 would cope with the weight of these OK. I always found that I got better double stars with my ‘fracs all round than with my old C8 SCT. Currently got my scopes down to a Skywatcher 10 inch Newt, a Celestron 120mm Omni ‘frac, and an AA 80ED Starwave Ascent ‘frac. Using a Skytee2 again, but wanting a good sturdy goto mount that will hold the Omni well, and if doable also the 10 inck Newt too.

Best thing to do is focus the finderscope in the daytime on a distant obtect as far as you possibly can see with it. As John says you do this by turning the front lens section clockwise or anticlockwise until it comes into focus as sharp as possible. It my have a locking ring behind the main lens group that needs to be backed off a little from this front end to allow you to focus it, and then once focused you screw the locking ring tight up against the front lens section again to stop it going out of focus again. Video shows Skywatcher finderscope, but same principle to most finderscopes.

Nice report. Glad you got to see some good suff. I’m back at SGL starparty in November at Lucksall, so plan to scoop up more faint fuzzies with my Skywatcher Explorer 250P-DS I bought off Pitbull on here. Got some very nice views in my Bortle 8 skies, so can’t wait to see what it’ll pull out in the Bortle 3 skies at Lucksall. Saw the Veil last time I attended back in 2017 in my 8” SCT, so hoping to see much more with the extra 2” aperture, plus new stuff too, as long as the weather plays ball of course!

Be interested to see if it works for you. 👍🏻

Great Doug - can you just move the clouds out the way on this side of the Pennines please so I can see them? Hehe!

Bringing my Skywatcher 250P-DS to scoop up some nice fuzzies, along with my AA Starwave Ascent 80ED for some widefield views too, mounted on my Skytee2 mount. Binoculars too are a must, and if I have room the binocular mount too.

A Skytee2 should cope nicely with your scopes, and give you better control. I picked up a great 2nd hand one up the other weekend like new. I’ve gone back to a Skytee2 (sold the previous one earlier on this year) from a Sabre mount, mostly as I miss the slow mo control on the mount. Currently using my Skywatcher 10” newt on the mount with either one of my 2 ‘fracs (short and long). The AZ-100 John mentions looks great, but comes at quite a price it seems once it gets released after John’s testing is done.

Looks nice. Great idea to keep the slow mo cables inline with the scope as it moves. However, at nearly £800 it’ll have to be at the very bottom of my list for potential mount upgrades for now.