Moonshed

I’ll be happy to take it off his hands for him, even give him a score for his trouble, and I promise I will look after it with the same undying attention, love and care as I do for my dear….err…..my dog.

That reminds me of a similar dark night situation where I was walking my dog along a country back lane that was so dark I could not see a thing. My dog however knew the way and led me along the path tugging on her lead, taking me down the lane as though it were broad daylight. After a few minutes we met another dog walker coming the other way and we stopped awhile and chatted, even though neither one of us could see the other. After we had parted company and continued our walk It made me realise how brave I felt simply because I had my dog with me. I would have been very concerned meeting that other dog walker if I had not had my dog with me, in fact I would have been very afraid! It didn’t matter that my gorgeous border collie was as daft as they come, if she felt a stranger was a threat she would stand between them and me and growl in a very menacing way, bless her. So there’s your answer, when you go to a lonely, distant location to do some observing, take your dog with you, providing of course it’s big enough to have a frightening bark. If like me you now have two silly little Bichon Maltese, stay in your garden 😃.

Very well done, brilliant image with tons of detail.

You’re right about the timing! Following the good advice that I was given in that thread I ordered the TG cover and it arrived Feb15th. I didn’t think to use on my scope while it was in the shed until reading some posts where they said they did that. I gave my scope, mount and tripod a good clean then covered it a week before roofgate.😃. That was perfect timing considering I have been storing all my astro gear in it for 9 years!

I also keep thinking about putting in a fixed pier, save an awful lot of work. But with the price of everything going through the roof, especially home energy bills, it’s very difficult to justify that expense on a hobby. It would take a truck load of “good boy” vouchers 😂. Good luck with being able to install your pier.

That I will do. So relieved to have got the roof re-covered on the same day otherwise if we had had any more rain it would have taken ages to dry it out. As it is the floor is almost dry already.

All I can add to the conversation is to say that the only time I have received an electrical tingle when using my kit is when I have used a dummy battery in my Canon. Feeling sure there must be a wiring problem with the dummy battery I ordered a new one but have not had the opportunity to try it out yet. If the new one gives a tingle then I’m stumped and will have to stop using it because the tingle is such that I cannot work with it, too strong to keep my hands in contact with the mount. It will be back to the Canon battery and hope it doesn’t run flat mid-run or that I forgot to charge it.

Happy to report, at 5:00pm, the shed roof has been completely recovered and looks brand new, it’s great to have friends in the building trade. I left the doors open all day and a stiff breeze has helped dry out the interior and having now returned all my gear to the shed you would never know the state it was in this morning. Happy days! All I need now is some clear skies and I’m back in business. 😄

I would never have dreamt when I bought the TG cover it would save my Celestron from a soaking when it was INSIDE the shed!

Had I known in time I would have ordered the pond liner but as I was in a hurry to get everything ready to go for this afternoon I had already ordered the roofing felt. But, my garden shed desperately needs the roof felt replacing so thanks to both of your recommendations I will use pond liner on that. Thanks for the tip guys.

Thank you, I have just ordered a couple of rolls of roofing felt and plenty of clout nails. I have a friend coming at 4pm this afternoon to help me re-cover the roof. Praying the weather stays calm and dry until after the job is finished. I have no idea when the weather will allow me to do some astronomy.

It so often happens in life that the good deeds that you do are returned in spades, albeit in a totally unexpected quarter.

I store my ‘scope and all related astro gear in a wooden shed. Last month I asked members if it was possible to leave the ‘scope out overnight with a good cover over it so I wouldn’t have to do all the polar alignment and two star set up again the next evening. The added benefit would be it would save me so much work just lifting it all in and out of the shed. Members strongly recommend the TeleGizmos telescope cover so I got one. I have had it a few weeks now but the weather has been against any star gazing at all! As I had the cover I decided to give the ‘scope, mount and tripod a good clean (surprised how grubby they had become) and then put the cover over it to keep it clean. So that’s how I left it, in the shed with a shiny new TeleGizmos cover over it since last week. Yesterday the wind was whipping up pretty bad but all was okay when I retired to bed. This morning I looked out the window and saw with growing horror that it has been raining and the wind had ripped off the central sheet of roofing felt off the shed exposing the bare wood to the elements. I quickly went out to check the damage. The shed floor was very wet, as was my table and chair, but luckily all my eyepieces and filters, Barlows etc are in a photographic case which kept them dry, all cameras and PoleMaster are kept indoors. As for my Celestron, what can I say? The TeleGizmos cover had done its job and all was dry and all was well. How lucky am I? Without that cover my beloved 38 year old Celestron would have had its first shower 😂, pure luck that after all these years I buy the cover and fit it over my scope only a week before this happens.

EDIT I did post a comment but on reflection realised it wouldn’t help on your type of mount. On thinking about it I suspect it’s due to the mount’s altitude control knob either being broken or simply not tightened up enough to hold it steady.

I was told “You last Won The Day on March 3rd. Congratulations! You had the most liked content.” I think that’s all there is to it.

I can tell you a short story about money laundering. Prior to us moving to Spain in 2008 I decided I had to sell my pride and joy, a 2004 3.0 Litre S Type Jag with automatic and voice command everything, including the phone. I advertised it in Exchange & Mart and I had no responses. After a month I had a phone call from a man asking if it was still available and I told him it was. He replied that he didn’t expect me to accept an offer for such a well equipped car and offered the full asking price of £9,000. He turned up next day as agreed, did not so much as cast a glance at the car as he walked past it on the way to the front door, came into the house holding a carrier bag and said “there’s your money.” It was all in cash, all used £20 notes. My bank was not overly impressed with my explanation as to why I was depositing £9,000 all in used £20 notes!

Well done, that’s a very nice image and the focusing is spot on, I like the colour too.

That being the case regarding the price I must have got my wires crossed somewhere. This is the add I was referring to. I have very limited knowledge about computers so I expect you will put me right regarding this one.

1k ZX81? Bet that would be worth a few bob now. NB: Just found one on eBay asking £750. That’s about how much I paid for my Acer Laptop with 3.2 GHz Intel Core, 4 GB DDR3 Memory…..and so on, (I’m obviously not a computer geek, only know how to use them.)

I know how you feel. Len Goodman, ex Strictly judge, summed it up perfectly for me when he said “I’m a wind-up watch living in a digital age”. (Please note I wish to cause no offence to those that wear digital watches, or indeed wind-up watches. Humble apologies, discrimination against watches is a terrible thing. No discrimination allowed on my watch!) 😄.

Yes, I remember that, I confess I liked the idea, a bit of silliness that I would like to see reinstated. I will have to write a stiff letter to those that run the show and demand that they are reinstated, I will sign it “I’m Right Miffed Innit, from North Norfolk” as a bit of culture never goes amiss.

Oops! I’ve just had a thought that although I assumed the diffraction spikes were exaggerated by a PhotoShop type program that has filters do this, it is perhaps far more likely that they are natural diffraction spikes and only look exaggerated due to enlarging the image. That being the case please accept my humble apologies. 🤐 This does not in any way distract from the fact that your images of M82 and M82 are first class. 😀

The detail shown in those images is really remarkable, I only wish I could achieve the same. Purely from a personal view I would prefer to see the same images without the diffraction spikes as I find them distracting, but that’s just me. Well done, excellent images.

I checked out the link, my goodness what a brilliant mind that women has!

Nah! What would I want with a few million quid? *starts to write comprehensive list.* 😆