newbostonian

I was just reading the comments on this topic and wonder if people with garden observatories have used any of the specialist all-weather telescope covers over the equipment inside the observatories in order to leave them there all year around? The covers would help with dust and extremely low temperatures, but might just add to overheating problems in Summer?

Thank you Geoff, I have a large roll of corrugated card, so I might just have a go!

An update on the 'black' foil-backed foam camping mat - it arrived and it's grey! So it would still need blackening really. It's a shame as the detachable elastic strips and holders to keep it rolled (which are black) would have worked well to hold it in place without additional attachments. A first night outside with the 'scope at -7 degrees and it didn't dew up anyway. Nor did any of the eyepieces. I'd left the 'scope outside for an hour or two prior, but I don't think I really needed to as I live in an unheated Victorian house and when I came indoors at 2am it actually felt colder inside than out!

Thank you catburglar. Yes it was set to sidereal tracking and no the tracking wasn't going - objects drifted out of the field of view. I found out from a different old Meade LX90 catalogue that once you have an bject located you then have to set "Object:Astronomical", centre your chosen object and then press "Enter" for the tracking to start. I wouldn't have guessed you needed to call up that menu AFTER you already had an object in view, but I'm going to give that a try next time!

An update after a first clear night experimenting with the Autostar handset. Several drive training sessions have made the 2 star alignment process a bit more accurate. The stars that the 'scope finds are now just outside the field of view of the telescope at low power instead of several constellations away(!) but I wasn't able to correct the positions with the arrow keys and hit enter to confirm they were centrally in the field of view as the arrow keys aren't live during the process! Still a work in progress. I also still haven't managed to get the drive to track the object that I'm viewing, even if I've located it using the drive slewing/arrow keys. I've read a different pdf manual online that says to make the telescope start tracking an object, you have to do this: (1) find desired object (2) press "Object: Astronomical" on the handset menu, then (3) AFTER centering object in field of view press "Enter". So I will be trying that on the next clear night! So far deep sky object views are good, stars OK, but the 'scope cannot focus a planetary disc to save its life even in the clearest good seeing conditions! I tried defocussing stars to get a collimation check pattern and the central dark area is slightly off-centre, so I will have a very careful go at adjusting with an allen key, but the oddest thing is that the bright concentric rings around the dark centre were crossed (at lower left in the field of view if I remember correctly) by a large dark triangular shape with a slim rod. If this was a Newtonian with a flat mounted on one side of the inside of the main tube, I would suspect that, but it's an SCT with a centrally-mounted secondary! I have no idea what this is and can't see any images online like this. Any ideas? Sorry I don't have the means to photograph it. It was -7 degrees out there between midnight an 2am. I put the 'scope outside for a couple of hours before observing and it didn't fog up once. Neither did any of the eyepieces. My coffee froze(!). Just shows how cold my unheated Victorian house is. I'm not sure the 'scope needs any cool down time from house to outside here!

That is indeed the case cajen2, though they're in stock at teleskop-express. de. I'm hoping for some user reviews / experiences on here to see if it's worth buying one.

Thank you catburglar. I've discovered which of the arrows on the handset will do that nudging (the upper set) and that's OK, but I really just want to be able to turn sidereal tracking on for (largely manually) located objects once they're in the centre of the field of view and I haven't yet discovered how to do that. I've experienced the drive slewing during alignment and GoTo functions, but it hasn't yet tracked an object. I also discovered that when doing the 2 star alignment, you don't just assume the GoTo system has correctly located the stars in the centre of the field of view (which I was having to do as it was hazy and I only had Jupiter visible on my only trial so far), but that you have to correct each of the 2 star located positions with the arrow keys and confirm when the image is actually found and centred (that bit isn't in the manual that I downloaded, but I watched a YouTube video that was very helpful!). We're in a prolonged period of freezing fog at the moment, so I've yet to be able to try the telescope properly.

Has anyone tried one of these with a 12" Dob? I'm waiting for Bresser's Messier 12" Dob (which was rumoured to be released around now) and although I've only ever used telescopes manually, I can imagine that in my dotage I might find it frustrating to have object drifting out of the FOV every few seconds(!). These platforms would seem to be the answer and this particular one seems heavy duty enough for the size of my chosen telescope/base. If only it had wheels.... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/asterion-ecliptica-pro-tracking-platform-for-dobsonian-telescopes.html

UK suppliers all seem to be out of the right sized dew shield for my 'new' Meade LX90 EMC 8" SCT (other available brands' offerings look a bit thin and unhelpful) and I gather from chats on this site that dew is going to be a massive problem in Winter in the North of England, so I've taken the advice of numerous posters and ordered a foam camping mat to make my own. I looked into the adhesive-backed flocked/felt fabric to line the inside, but I found a rather handy 'cheat' that I thought I would share in case it actually works! There's one foam camping mat (Trail brand) that's black AND has a thermal foil backing, so I'm going to try it (with the thermal backing on the outside of course) in the hope that that might help further and might avoid having to use a dew heater or fan arrangement as well. This mat is also 1mm thicker than usual at 7mm. Although I have plenty of black Velcro, I've ordered an industrial strength adhesive-backed version for securing the foam tube together. Although it's purportedly for outdoor use, I imagine I'll need Gorilla tape instead outside in the cold and damp. We'll see. Supplies should arrive next week. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0957MHS4D/ref=pe_27063361_485629781_TE_item

Thank you Shimrod, That's really helpful. Hoping to give it a go tonight! I'm not sure which of the handset arrow keys will move the 'scope (I was thinking of manually locating but I'll try using the handset to slew as well).

Hello folks, After almost 4 decades without a decent telescope, I've just been lucky enough to acquire a second hand Meade LX90 EMC 8" in fantastic condition. I've never used Autostar/GoTo before. I always loved using star charts and star hopping to find deep sky objects. The Autostar's GoTo function could be handy to confirm the positions of faint objects, but I will almost certainly locate the majority of objects manually. I do want to take advantage of sidereal tracking though to keep my located object in view. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to just set the handset to track whatever I'm viewing if I've found it myself without GoTo and whether that involves doing the alignment process at the start of every observing session? There was no manual with the 'scope and the closest I could find online to download as a pdf was for the ACF version. I have read and followed it when setting up the 'scope for the first time today. There are minor differences, but going through the menus on the Autostar handset, the settings were pretty intuitive. I set the date and time. The options to set location were too vague for positioning to be accurate (the nearest local city offered is a long way away from here!) so I looked for the option to set latitude and longitude and did so. I ran through the drive trainer process on a centred daytime object. There's no GPS or compass with the 'scope. I have a compass and used magnetic North during the day today to run through the alignment process. Obviously I can't check the 2 star alignment method until nighttime! I'm hoping to be able to self-locate objects, but to use the handset to keep them centred. Do I have to point the 'scope to North and do the 2 star alignment at the start of each observing session before I can expect the 'scope to automatically track whatever I MANUALLY find throughout the night (if it can do that at all)? I've checked that the tracking is set to sidereal in the menu). If that isn't possible, can I use the arrow keys on the handset to nudge drifting items back to the centre of the field of view? I briefly had a Celestron C8 in the 1980s and that had an electric drive which you could just adjust by + and - keys and that kept objects centred nicely, though I rarely used it.

mwayne, I'll be looking out for a trailer jack if this is how successfully a rising pier mount can be made with one! (Here in the UK, I haven't been able to find a maker of rising piers, just static height ones). What a tremendous job you've done.