Alan White

Indeed, papertowel and water was the exercise in my school days, ooooh so many years ago.

Postperson has been twice this week and only just got to open things and post here as its been a tad busy in our lives…… understatement of the month!! A TV O3 Bandmate form @Franklin in the Classified, thanks. And the retrun of a Pentax XW 5mm, stupidly sold to make things lighter... just a 7mm need now to return harmony to my EP case for now.

On a marketing point, indeed not a good name...But for an insurance claim a very good name, ' we did say it was collapsible in its name your honour'

If I knew what a RAM Mount was and what holes we were talking about, I might be able to reply, sorry. A picture paints a thousand words as they say.

Still testing away and its still working well. I did have a drama on Lunar yesterday evening, suddenly woud not move in altitude, most odd indeed.... well until I realised it was doing what I had set it to do with the Altitude Lock on having just changed from Bino viewing to Mono. So all good with the mount but not so good with the grey matter.

An early riser then Paul, at dawn I was still inspecting my eyelids. So thank you for sharing the image.

You got a gap in the cloud, lucky you Roger. Thank you for sharing the image.

Well Postie Pete has been today while I was at work, he deliverd something as rarely found as Rocking Horse Manure..... A Vixen 22mm LVW, only been looking for a number of years. Lucky find on Fleabay on Wednesday evening while sitting in the hospitla carpark.

Funny enough, just in from a Lunar session in the murky sky. Nice to see your image of what I was just looking at and nice it cleared enough to observe all be it briefly.

They only think it.....or They are in Charge. I know who rules our household and it's not me or any of the human kind!

Enjoy the chair, and Good Luck on the clear sky!

A gap in the cloud, lucky you. Nice to see what dear old Sol is up to this week. Thanks for sharing the images 👍

Nice to get your Mojo back, we all have ups and downs of enthusiasm. Like the image and gives sense of scale and place for a number of objects for thos trying to find them.

Nigella, You will be fine, your enthusiasm will shine through 🙂 A couple of years back I found myself our clubs 'Observing Director' grand title eh, but it comes with a need for monthly talks. Suddenly I had to talk on Astronomy every month and sound like I knew what I was doing.... So far I have got away with it and not been drummed out of the club. I work on enthusiasm, a wining smile and interaction. Good luck and keep calm, you will suprise yourself how much you know, one golden rule, if you dont know, say so and then look it up afterwards.

Nice gifting that

Wow indeed, a very memorable night.

I have Astronomy only glasses for Astigmatism at the Eyepiece and so I can also pick out stars to point my finder / telrad /rigel at as well. Yes single lens, no readers in, even though I need them, but thye get in the EP view. No coatings as advised by my optician, they scratch she told me, had to laugh as its anti scratch coating. The lenses and style like @Paz are not my fashion (ahem) choice, but have a bigger rounder EP lens covering size. My dioptre is 0.75 and the lens is set a 1.00, i wish I had tried 1.25 as some slight astigmatism shows, oddly in middle range FL eyepieces, not at the largest exit pupils, but nearer the cusp of it not supposedly showing. So thanks to this thread, I may get a differing set of lenses made up and fitted.

NIce eyepieces, the 16 and 20 are as nice in my opinion, but sadly not enough eyerelief for me now I have to wear glasses to observe.

Nice that you photographed it in UK weather conditions for us to get a full appreciation. Nice job.

That hits the nail on the head. The 103 does what I want well or very well, the faint fuzzies are just smaller fainter fuzzies from home anyway, due to the excess LP. The one scope also makes EP and mount choices simpler as well.

The Vixen obsession grows…..mind you not a bad thing that. I like Vixen kit as well.

Nice to see it being fettled and more importantly used, nice one. 👍👍👍

Experiences like this are so uplifting and a gentle reminder of how small we are as well. Reading your description felt like I was stood alongside you Nick, thank you for inviting me.

Used the mount most of last week for Solar and used all day most days at that too. I managed a Teams meeting at the scope, just had a camera issue so could only use sound of course 😉 Anyway the ED103 and SV50 were dual mounted and all working well, still super smooth and no issues, the mount has been outside undercover for a month and nothing changed, which is good. During this testing period, I have become so happy with using my 103 that I sold my 10” OOUK Dobson and am now sold on the smaller refractor route for my observing. I know some will think this a sensible move and others will think I am nuts. So one thing the testing has done is focus my mind on where I am going (for now). The AZ75 just vanishes in use with the above scopes, it could clearly handle larger longer scopes in my opinion, but not owning these and no one sending me ones to test with, it remains an opinion. The mount is sitting on a Skywatcher EQ5 steel tripod and Skywatcher Riser that was cut down by me to 8” a number of years ago, the whole set up is rock solid, very smooth and being a joy to use. The only issue is not mount related, but my eyes, when using the DSC Nexus I need readers to see the screen, when I look at the sky I need my distance glasses…..such a royal pain in the rear end. So would using a link to my phone or tablet help? Or would I have the same issues? One to find out I suppose. And I have been out in the dark too

Don't be so sure @JeremyS 🤣.... I joke of course @paulastro would miss him.