Bruce Leeroy

Hope you don't mind I had a little go with your image in Gimp. Duplicated the image and set the top layer to Multiply. Not a great difference but a little more colour and slightly reduced contrast/exposure.

Mine look the same, the pair I have where left outside by the previous owners and where gifted to me, they cleaned up ok but not great. The views are still good.

12 hours ago, AllanK said:

I misread initially and thought you had written 2:45am.

It's a good job I didn't finish on "Japanaese Swallow".😅

I met a fella in a car park on Monday 2:45pm  and bought some Japanese Swallow 15x80 binos (£20 bargain) literally as soon as i got out the car it started to spit rain.....drove home in biblical rain.

12 hours ago, Markkk said:

What would you do if You were me?

Try a filter if you have any, you could use sunglasses/tinted film to reduce brightness as a test.

14 hours ago, AMcD said:

Is condensation a year round issue or one that tends to arise in particular conditions?

If you imagine that through the night everywhere will cool then when the sun hits the roof in the morning there will be a temperature difference between the top of the metal roof sheeting and the underside this "may" cause some condenstaion on the underside but should burn away quickly if it's a hot day, another scenario at night time is that as you breathe your warm breathe will rise to the underside of the metal sheeting and condensate on the cold roof, good ventilation may be enough to minimise/stop it. Dramatic changes in temperature/moisture are the main culprits....your roof looks to be quite airy so see how it goes would be my advice.

Not sure, using Nexremote if you right click the floating handset there is an "Always on top" option, there is a utility AutoHotkey which claims to give you that option on any window but I've never used it.

1 hour ago, Trickyhammer said:

I set the time in the scope set up menu, but this does not seem to hold after powering off

From memory if you use Nexremote this info is automaticaly entered from your laptop/pc.

My best lunar shot taken with a iphone 4s in panorama mode attached to an old 9" Darkstar dob.

As someone else says above, your barlow may have a removeable lens cell...if so then unscrew it and see if it will screw directly onto your eyepiece barrel you may be able to gain focus then, what this will do is reduce the barlow effect from 3x to a lower factor. If you can gain focus on a roof/tree of in the distance and still have some inward travel you will probably also have the possibility of infinity focus.

1 minute ago, banjaxed said:

The second video is very interesting for the future but it doesn’t look like you can refresh or update the firmware with NexRemote.

Correct, it only loads the firmware, I thought it might help troubleshoot your problem if you had the necessary cables. It does help in the way that if you run it from a PC you don't always have to enter time/date etc as it gets that info from your computer automatically.

If you can connect the mount to a laptop or pc and use Nexremote you can load firmwares in a virtual enviroment. Not sure how helpful that info is for your problem!

The lower video demostrates what I mean.👍

I think a common mistake is contaminating a cloth/wipe with skin grease, I use disposeable gloves.

Theres some discussion here, I don't own an spc so am not qualified to say much on the subject.

I haven't done alot of testing, using a standard computar cctv lens I managed to get the image posted below...it's a live stack of around 30 seconds showing a little milky way structure and the Andromeda galaxy lower center. A quick attempt on the Orion nebula dissapointed but I think that could well be user related, I'm also testing a very inexpensive Samsung cctv camera for a wide field view that's giving fairly good results using the standard lens. I use a video grabber to connect it to laptop/sharpcap, the highest resolution is 720. Theres a few youtube videos using the scb 2000.

3 hours ago, WinchesterAstro said:

Is it possible to get spares..?

I don't know tbh, you could try taking them to a hardware shop and seeing if they have something suibtable, I have no idea on the thread size all I can add is that it needs to be a fairly slim washer/nut and would benefit with some type of thin rubber washer between the binos and plate. Good luck.

I'll have a check tomorrow and see if I have anything suitable...are they celestron 20x80's ?

The part circled in red, this gives a bigger footprint for the binos to sit on the plate.

I think your binos are missing a threaded washer that locks down onto the quick release plate.

On 15/12/2020 at 00:50, rohanpai said:

Got these streak on the glass when trying to clean it with isopropyl alcohol

The grease from your hands will transfer to any cloth then onto the optics, try to use a brand new cloth (with gloves) or use wipes and allow a little time for the cleaning fluid to completely dry/evaporate then "if" you see any residue give a little buff with a dry unused part of the cloth.

I've had best results using wipes rather than the Baader wonder fluid.

9 minutes ago, Mr Thingy said:

No sense in buying umpteen extenders for temporary use.

If you have a couple of barlow lenses you may be able to remove the lens part and use the body as a temporary extender or stack 2 together if 1 isn't enough or draw 1 out to make a few more mm's.

I would say any face that is hit by direct sunlight would benefit from insulation and vent from the shaded areas.

2 hours ago, Mark Lane said:

Hope the original poster of this thread is still online.

He is still active.

On 19/11/2014 at 22:33, Avocette said:

My childhood interest in astronomy

How about trying an aperture mask or moon filter using your existing camera. And the fastest frame rate possible.

If you need an extension remove a barlow lens element and use the remaining body as a temporary extension tube.

9 hours ago, striving_amateur said:

Guys any suggestions on how to get better results using a 5inch reflector?

Looking at the video I would guess it's a little overexposed, I think there is more detail in your video that will show if you can find how to lower the exposure in your video software, from what i've read on SGL you should highly reduce the exposure when capturing!!