Demonperformer

if you already have your target in view when you get a power cut, its ok to just quickly switch it back on and go into the set-up menu and select 'tracking' = sidereal and it just starts RA tracking without needing to re-align.

That is really useful to know.

I was thinking - having mobile observatory in a camper van or caravan, and drive to remote or top of the high hills with scopes would be ideal for coping with the LP.

Would it be stable enough for decent observation, or would it be too springy?

Maybe if it could be adapted so it could 'put down legs' like a heavy-plant vehicle ...

I have virtually stopped 'visual' at home because of LP. I tend to put my canon into the telescope rather than an eyepiece and take a 10/15 sec exposure, displayed immediately on the laptop (this is also useful for displaying to passers-by what objects look like, rather than having them grab - sometimes literally! - the scope themselves). Virtual Magnifying Glass is useful for getting that slightly more 'up close and personal' feel.

Not as good as genuine visual, and I know a lot of people feel this method lacks the enjoyment they get at the eyepiece itself, but for me it is better than nothing (which is what my streetlights allow me).

Grew up in the 1960s with the Apollo moonshots going on. I guess I'm not going to be the only one to use that excuse. Spent most of the intervening years with nothing more than a pair of 7x50 binos, and do not regret that, but am glad to now finally have a half-way decent scope to see slightly larger views.

The nice thing about Sirius is that it is totally unmistakable and so you can be absolutely sure you are aligning on the right star. On a number of occasions, I have tried aligning, but not been totally sure which star in the eyepiece is the one I have wanted and had the 'fail' result. I have learned that in situations like this the star I actually want can be just outside of the fov when I initially point the scope at it, leading to the on-board computer's (and my) confusion.

Does the skywather offer a 'solar system align' like the celestron? I usually try to use this as planets/the moon are fairly easy to identify (particularly in the scope itself - sometimes when aligning a star in the scope I am unsure if I have the correct one!). Once that is done I then use the 'add another alignment point' and the scope automatically goes to that star (depending on how carefully I have levelled the tripod. Hit align, job done (or sometimes I will head for another star on the other side of the SS object to reduce any inherent errors even further).

Quick check of the usual suspects (not intending to be patronizing):

Tripod level?

Lat & long entered correctly? E/W confusion is a common problem.

Date entered correctly? MM/DD/YY not DD/MM/YY

Time entered accurately? Daylight saving correct?

If it still is not working (and I could never get the skyalign to work satisfactorily) try going initially for a one-star align (east facing evening, Vega is a good star to use at the moment). If that aligns happily, use the GOTO to slew to another star (menu|named stars) e.g. Arcturus. Does it centre OK (use your longest widest eyepiece)? If it is close, centre it precisely and add it to the alignment stars (undo|align|replace unassigned|enter|align). If that works, and it then slews around the sky properly, you at least have a means of using the scope while you are trying to suss out what is wrong with the skyalign procedure.

HTH

Funny story ... sent email enquiring about SGL discount on an item 10.50am on Wednesday ... heard nothing ... after a discussion on SGL decided the item I was enquiring after was not what I needed, so sent another email 4.23 on Thursday afternoon saying not to worry about my previous enquiry. Got a response to both emails 20.51 Thurs eve, the follow up email #6312, the original email sent 30 hours earlier #6313 ... mmm:icon_scratch:

BH12

Placed order Sat 12th Dec

Email confirming Credit Card payment had been accepted received 12.35 on 13th

Email confirming despatch received 19.17 on Mon 14th

Got home from work on Tues 15th to find card put through my door by RM saying they had tried to deliver it and was able to collect it from the sorting office first thing next morning.

Securely packaged [so much so it took me a while to work out how to 'break into' it - that is not a complaint, I regard it as a positive] and the contents of the box were well 'filled in' with polystyrene bits to prevent damage in transit.

Speaking as someone who does not need a lot of excuse to start complaining about companies, I have to say the service was excellent; it was speedy and they kept me well-informed throughout the entire process. I have definitely listed their website as my first port of call for any future 'new' astro purchases.

Summary: They cannot be faulted.

Thank you, Bernard.

[i have no link with this company other than being a first-time buyer]

Apologies ...

Talking a load of rubbish in my previous. Just loaded the UCAC3 plugin into CdC and found that the faintest star in my picture is one in the faint triangle about half way down on the left - 10m6 - much more reasonable figure. The one between 23178 & 23182 is a mere 10m4. Still, reasonably happy with what 0.2s frames can achieve - now just waiting for my new SC1.5 modded camera to arrive .... and some more clear skies, of course!

DP

This may be cheating a little, as I see some people have gone with double stars and I've put a few of them on the 'Doubles' forum, but I consider this to be my first genuine dso, taken 5am today, 2nd November 2009, with my unmodified neximager [yes, I know you can't image dso's with an unmodified neximager:)], with the reducer lens, on the 6SE. 2167 frames stacked at 1/5s, 5fps.

This is part of NGC869 - just about my favourite open cluster. The bright star in the middle of the frame is SAO 23178. There is a very faint star about 2/5 of the way between that and SAO 23182 in the upper left which does not appear in my version of CdC, which goes down to mag12. Looking at the UCAC3 database, there seem to be three possible stars in that general area, the brightest of which is just below mag14. Maybe I'm just kidding myself with that ... surely I can't really be getting mag 14 stars with my little webcam. If anyone can definitely idenify what that star is, it would be great to know. Thanks.

BTW had to cut the image down, as I was getting star trails on the outer edges - presumably because I don't have an eq mount?