Knighty2112

On 01/10/2018 at 18:35, david_taurus83 said:

My first foray into WL solar observing thanks to Gus @Knighty2112

An almost cast iron guarantee that the Bromsgrove Astro star party at Ledbury this weekend will be wet and cloudy!

 

Nice to see it arrived OK. Hope you enjoy, and we get some WL action to view with them too.  

Uh oh! I can see your bank account starting to reduce down already! Hehe!  

52 minutes ago, Alan White said:

I have one of these too, very comfy, just be careful if you push back against it when moving about, it can get interesting!

Thanks for the tip Alan! (No pun intended!  ) 

 Now fitted with comfy derrière protector! Lol!  

And just in time for Kelling, for the old foggie that I’m getting, a nice observing chair from RVO arrived just over an hour ago!  

New Skywatcher powertank arrived today, along with a dew strap for my C8 SCT to cope with the damper nights coming up. Plus tomorrow an observing chair from RVO arrives to make it more comfy when observing, and just in time for Kelling too!  

I got the Celestron AUX splitter when I had my 8SE goto mount, which so far has proved to work OK, although TBH I don’t need it on my new AVX goto Mount as there are 2 AUX ports built into it.

On mine it’s just labelled as an ACD. No other details that I can see.

You can can get a replacement Starsence handcontroller here although I’ve never bought anything from these before so don’t know how good they are.

http://www.microglobe.co.uk/celestron-starsense-hand-controller-p-16770.html

1 hour ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

It wont be the postman who brings it, but by Sunday i will have Netflix (the all inclusive deal for 10.99 a month). Im sick of friends talking about all the great stuff that ive never seen.

TV is rubbish (all 300+ channels).

More is less it seems these days. Back when (and showing my age now I know!) we only had two channels to choose from seems like we had it better. Progress ‘eh!  

1 hour ago, RiponJas said:

Just arrived to me today courtesy of @kerrylewis a nice little Opticstar Ar80s to go with the 90mm I recently acquired. Happy little family now!! ? Hopefully one for the imaging and one for the guiding when I eventually get all the required gubbins. 

Breeding like rabbits I see! Way to go Opticstar!  

New ADM puck for my AVX Mount arrived from FLO this morning, which allows me to replace the saddle with an ADM Vixen saddle (had spare one from Skytee II) to improve the mounting of my scopes when used on the AVX.  

3 minutes ago, Nyctimene said:

One of my best buys 2012, the "Füssener Astro-Stuhl" in the magnum version:

Extremely sturdy (Birch plywood and mountain ash (used for traditional sleighs)); the retailer, a man of heavy weight, has been reported to demonstrate it's stability by jumping up and down on the seat board put in the top position!), doesn't topple over; I'm seated safe and comfortably in the highest position when pointing the 18" towards zenith. Easy to handle; you can change the height of the seat within seconds without looking and (it's well balanced) shift it with one hand. Stretched out (using the rope shown), it serves excellent for binocular or meteor observation. Folds down flat to 45 mm thickness, so easily to store and transport. Bought this from here (website in German only; of course, no affiliation etc., just a pleased owner!);

https://www.intercon-spacetec.de/zubehoer/astronomie-zubehoer/stuehle/4889-ics-astro-stuhl-magnum-grau-hoehe-115-cm-beobachterstuhl.html

at 248 Euro not cheap - but just the price of a better 2" eyepiece, and much more useful!

Stephan

 

That’s an expensive bit of wood to sit on! 

2 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

DOH! I think I've confused Harrogate and Billingsgate...

 

Something fishy about both places if you ask me! Hehe!  

I like it. Looks very natural as if observing it through a scope. If only we could see it by eye so good!  

Hi Alan. Thinking of a wooden chair for observing. How stable is the chair when used on grass? 

1 hour ago, Lockie said:

I've emailed FLO now, so I'll just wait for their response tomorrow. I don't seem to have the best of luck with this kind of thing, or does everyone else have lots of scope issues?

It’ll still be under warranty still, so best to get FLO sort it out Chris. Hope all goes well.

20 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

My new frac .   ?

 

 

 

 

Looks great, just don’t try it on any solar work! Might end up melting!  

And here’s the ‘frac that ousted the Opticstar above!

17 minutes ago, RiponJas said:

My new to me baby frac which shall soon be pressed into service mounted with my big frac.. Opticstar AR90S. F5. 5 Quite pleased with the build quality of it.. 

I recognise that beauty!  

I acquired in excellent condition an Altair Astro 66ED-R refractor which was pretty much brand new last week. So as the moon was out last night I thought I’d test it against my other smaller refractor, the Opticstar AR90S. No surprised really that the AA 66 blew the Opticstar away really, with razor sharp images of the moon with with my LV7mm EP. Contrast was much better too than the Opticstar, even after fitting a Semi Apo filter to the Opticstar which did improve the image in the AR90S it was still slightly mushy when compared to the unfiltered AA 66 views. The rack and pinion dual speed focuser works extremely well. All in all extremely pleased with the new scope. Just waiting for a finderscope shoe to fit the scope better. Only downside I’ve seen so far (and this really is a very minor quibble really) is the push end cap does have a tendency to slowly slip off the dewshield if the scope is held with the main lens cell pointing down. A little extra padding in the end cap should stop this though, and not any issue for observationally work at all, only for care of optics.

The image taken below with my ZWO ASI 120 mc camera from last night gives a hint at how sharp and good the views where last night of the moon with the new AA 66ED-R ‘frac, along with the two scopes side by side too.  

41 minutes ago, Cjg said:

ive gone from one extreme to another. After finding that i might have difficulties taking my Tak as carry on (too heavy) purchased this as an open box.

Here with a Manfrotto tripod with ball head...not recommended, and I could have packed my Vamo mount, but this was a very lightweight piece of kit..

Still to fathom out how to fix a finder scope to this too, so delighted to find my targets with this rig! Shared the views with some fellow hotel guests...my "dark patch" above the beach was where they congregated to share a beer and chat until late into the night...fortunately their English was better than my Romanian!

Chris

See my thread I started a few days back over just the same issue with a finderscope as you.  

New addition of a new (to me) Altair Astro 66ED-R ‘frac seen here on my 6/8SE GoTo mount, next to (dare I say it in this thread?) my C8 on my new AVX Mount tonight before clouds scuppers play. (I’ll await the pitchforks and mob turning up for dating to mention anything other than a ‘frac in this thread!  )

Thanks. I’ll give it a try.  

For Jupiter I regularly use an 80A blue filter. Works a treat I find, and certainly brings out more fine detail. Not tried a contrast booster so can’t say if it is better or worse. The key thing to make sure you do is give the filter time with the seeing as when that seeing snaps into the right spot then the 80A certainly brings out a lot of detail to my eyes. Another plus too is it’s a hell of a lot cheaper too; approx £13 as against £53, plus P&P of course. Kerching! It also seems to work quite well on other planets too, although not as good as Jupiter I find.