Iris

You can query the SIMBAD database SIMBAD Astronomical Database and select either the basic or identifier link - enter the HIP identifier in the field (include the letters HIP) and it will give you a page detailing the object - including several different identifiers if known i.e HIP, SAO etc.. Thats how I have done it in the past in an ad-hoc way. I dont know of a method or plugin to allow this directly from Stellarium.. of course I havent checked to see if there is an SAO catalog available for stellarium which might be a better bet long term...

Most probably chinese lanterns Joanie - it seems that they are becoming an increasingly frequent phenomenon.

mblbn

You can try using a compact digital camera through the eyepiece Ben, although I dont know how good a quality of image you can achieve with that technique through an ETX60. I had an ETX 80 and tried gamely to take some images using that method - though without great success. That having been said I was holding the camera to the eyepiece and using normal shutter release. I recently got myself an adapter like Adaptors - Skywatcher Universal Camera Adapter but I have not had any attempts to use it so far - my ETX 80 broke as did the 125 replacement but that is whole other story. There is always the option of attaching a DSLR to the rear cell port using the appropriate adapters though I'm not sure if the ETX 60 will like the extra weight at the back. I would stress, however, that I am a newcomer to practical astronomy myself so don't rely solely on my comments. As an aside you posted your question as a blog entry - I don't think that quite so many people read the blogs as the forum proper. It might be an idea to ask your question again in, say, the imaging part of the forum. Hope that helps a little. [edit] Good advice that not to rely solely on my advice :-) - I think another (possibly better?) place for the question might be the section "Beginner's Help and Advice".

Well what can I say? As Richard Wilson might have it "I don't believe it!" The weather once again had conspired against me to delay delivery of the nice new ETX 125 that I had ordered to replace the broken ETX 80 that I wrote about last time. But the big cardboard box duly arrived on Friday. Excitedly I unpacked the goods and wasted no time getting the scope set up - even if clear skies were not forecast for a while it wasn't going to deter me from aligning the finder and just seeing how things fitted together. Once it got dark there were plenty of distant street lights to focus on :) The first thing I noticed was how much better built the 125 felt than the 80 - the bearings seemed much smoother, the alt lock as much better and the noise! Well there was almost none at all - excepting for slewing at max power - the 80 sounded like an electric drill even while tracking. So far so good. Saturday was the big day - the clouds cleared later in the evening and I wasted no time in setting up outside. I was well chuffed - the GOTO was a snap to set up as always and put the target in the FOV first time every time. M35 through M38 which had been all too faint the week before jumped out of the sky in crystal sharp relief. With the ETX80 I could only get a glimpse of a smudge of M81 with averted vision and M82, well I am not sure if I saw a glimmer of that at all through the gloom - but on Saturday they were both there well defined and easily seen - no hedging here! One after one the sights on my impropmtu tour tumbled; M103; the double cluster; M31; 32 and 110. M45 resplendent; Mars a crisp sharp disk - was that a hint of darker colour? And M42 - oh fabulous the finest view I have had of that baby without a doubt, with the nebula learly defined for once and the trapezium standing out right from the off. I went to bed very satisfied and impressed with the optics of my new toy eager for the next clear night to linger a bit longer on a few selected targets. Sunday was a nice sunny day and as tea time approached with the crescent moon in the SW and Jupiter just putting in a word in the pale blue sky, I decided to take a peek through the spare room window before they disappeared from view and the clouds swept in. The seeing wasn't great and the double glazed window didn't help of course. Neither target stood much magnification - with even my new 18mm Baader ortho too much. After tea I returned for a last glimpse of the big gas giant before it slipped out of view in the deepening murk. By now the 26mm EP was too much and I swapped it for a 40 - the focus was ever so slightly soft so I tweaked the spindle to return it to the pin sharp view I had come to expect from this little instrument. Something was wrong! The spindle which until now had seemed a firm, smooth Rolls-Royce had become insipid - much like the rattling old trabant I had come to expect from the ETX 80 discarded days earlier. :eek: I stood there like a stunned mullet - deja-vu - almost the exact same thing all over again - talk about groundhog day. No matter how many turns I made on the spindle the focus wouldn't budge. I had a second dead scope! I simply cannot believe it (well of course I can) two different models of scope from different suppliers failing in pretty much the exact same fashion just days apart. It is squatting here now on the end of my desk tormenting me - my 5" paperweight. It is a shame really because if it were reliable I would be very pleased with it - it looks the part; It is insanely portable; The Optics seem very good; In fact the only things I dont like about it are the flimsy finder which is just asking to get knocked off and the end cap which takes longer to put back on than it does to set everything up in the first place. Well those and the fact that it doesnt bally well work! If I exchanged it for a straight replacement I would be forever on tenterhooks waiting for the focusing spindle to fall out again so after a chat with the vendor this afternoon it is being consigned to the returns warehouse and replaced with another make and model once I finally decide which one. One thing I am certain of the replacement will not be a Meade - twice bitten, thrice shy I say. To a point it is my own fault, I had read plenty of horror stories about the build quality on the ETXs to question the wisdom of the choice if I am honest - but on the other side I had only seen good reports on the optical quality - and any manufacturer can have the odd bad batch no? Well we learn from our mistakes. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have a scope that will last longer than 36 hours of use! :icon_confused: As they say - watch this space...

I got the little Meade ETX 80 in November sometime and had been using it on and off on a grab and go basis since then. One such occasion presented itself a couple of weeks ago now on Wed 6th. The night time temperatures of -11 or so were keeping me generally at bay and this one was no different - except that for once the sky was crystal clear and the seeing was rather steady. Being the chicken that I am I decided to pop the scope on a window ledge and have a scout around for some of the Mmms in Auriga - 36, 37, 38 etc and had a nice hour or so peering into the gloom to make them out - but my feet, being feet, were beginning to feel the cold air falling in throught the open window and I decided that enough was enough. But as I was moving the scope back to its home I spotted orion through the window in the spare room - never one to miss an opportunity I put down on the table facing the window and lined her up. The best night of seeing since I got the little scope was matched by the, then, best view I have ever had of M42 and environs - pin sharp, crystal clear and really memorable. I had been poking about with the 9.7 EP but decided that I wanted a wider view witht he 26mm to tease out the nebulosity so I swapped the eypeices around and re-focussed the scope - well thats what I thought I was trying to do. But instead of the customary 3 or 4 turns of the focusing spindle I was turning and turning to no avail - it was more like I had engaged the barlow than just swappe dthe EPS - oh oh - I had THAT feeling - you know - the one you get when you just feel something is wrong. I popped the 9.7 EP back in the holder and hey presto - despite having turned the focus spindle forward by like 30 ot so turns the image was still tack sharp and just as I had seen it before - now that isnt right! THAT feeling was being replaced by the sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach as it dawns on you that everything is going the shape of the pear - I tried winding the focus spindle backwards a turn or two and lo the image slipped out of focus accompanied by a tightening of the spindle and rapidly followed by a light scraping sound and the tell tale rattle of a small but inevitably vital part rolling around inside the scope. Well that was that - I would have to call the supplier in the morning and arrange for the scope to be returned :( Later on I had a bright idea - I unscrewed the rear cell port cover and shined a light in to the gloom and spying the focus spindle turned it to see what I could see. It was clear that the whole spindle assembly had somehow become detached (See pics - sorry about the focus). Now on the ETX 80 the focussing knob exits the back of the tube at 90 degrees - just like the eyepiece. Also the 80 achieves focus by moving the objective cell - a spindle or connecting rod penetrates the rear of the OTA and is connected with the focusing knob that you turn by means of a pair of mitre gears. One gear is attached to the focusing knob at its upper end and a cubic aluminium housing at the bottom end. The other mitre gear has a shaft which is held in a hole drilled through the aluminium cube and both appear to be skewered by the spindle/connecting rod coming down from the objective cell. Now I say all of this with a degree of certainty but have to caution you that it is partly assumption based on what I saw through the rear cell port. Anyway back to the subject the connecting rod would appear to skewer the bottom mitre gear (the one parallel with the OTA) and is secured by a nyloc locking nut behind the aluminium housing. It seems that was this locking nut that had come off. All I could see of that was a shiny circular metallic obect stuck up the tube but the flip mirror was obscuring my view and at the time I thought it was a washer or circlip. As I was turning the focusing knob to get pictures at different angles the 'bottom' mitre gear fell out (see third pic). Anyway that was all I could see up the tube and I decided to call it a night and phone the supplier in the morning. But of course nothing is usually so simple. The heavy snow had fallen and the supplier was snowed out of the office, but I did correspond with them by e-mail and they offered to replace the scope without hesitation as soon as the weather allowed them back to work. I telephoned on the following Monday but alas there was no more stock of the 80. I had already decided to take the opportunity to upgrade to the ETX 125 - given that I had realised by then the limitations of the 80 and was quite sure that the scope wasnt just going to become an ornament or conversation piece. Alas that too was out of stock. So, impatient as ever and not wanting to wait for 3 - 4 weeks I accepted a refund and elected to shop around for a 125 from another suplier. I managed to source a 125 that day and the forlorn little 80 was collected the following morning by the courier and I sat back expectantly awaiting the new toy...

The twelve days of Christmas was what came to mind on Saturday night (19th - 20th) as, encouraged by the clear, crisp but cold weather I suited up to try out the new MRF I talked about last time... 3 pairs of socks, 2 wooly ha-ats, and a hot flask of teaeee.... (OK maybe not X-Factor material)... along with gloves, 2 undershirts, a shirt, a fleece and a windproof jacket :-) - all of which were needed in the -8 deg C refigerator that passed for my garden... The Michelin man cometh!..... and out I wen't though I wasnt planning to be 'gone some time'! With a little trepidation I powered up the ETX and the Finder - hoping the batteries in the scope would still have enough juice in them given the temperature (the LCD on the AutoStar handset doesn't like scrolling at 8 below!) and levelled the tube - Expectantly I selected me old chum Mizar as my first alignment target and punched the GOTO - a few seconds of whirring and squeaking and the slewing stopped. As per normal the thing was pointing a tad off. So I spied through the finder and slewed that little red dot onto the star - a quick peek in the Eyepiece - eek! :eek: ROFL - I had forgotten to insert the eyepiece! :D Don't laugh yet - it gets better.... Eyepiece dutifully inserted and then expectation rising a peek - um not at all clear (now the transparency to the NE wasnt fabulous last night) - but - yup you've guessed it - I had left the objective cap on :icon_clown: - talk about getting carried away with excitement LOL. So that was easily fixed at least and to my pleasant surpise there pretty much as hoped (and expected) was the delightful Mizar happy with that I confirmed the target and selected Rigel for No 2. More whirring and the red dot was... somewhat off but I have become used to that at this stage - but a few presses of the direction keys on the Autostar and the dot plumb on top of Rigel and all was well - Alignment complete without fuss! So far so good and I could get used to this. After a few moments of gazing at Rigel and its friends I decided it was time to play with the GOTO so a quick alignment check on Betelgeuse (it was off by a little on the Red Dot but not too much) and we were off. First up a very nice clear shot of M42 - the best yet I would think with the stars crisp and the milky white clearly discernible withouth any need to resort to aversion. Next up a view of the environs of the Rosette Nebula - the central cluster of stars being clear as crystal and close to the centre of the FOV A quick spy at Sirius before swinging north - I tracked to M81 - but didn't see a thing - now the transparency wasn't great in that direction and there was a fair bit of LP backwash from the snow - so I have no knowing if it was the conditions or my scope doesn't have the legs for it - though I rather think it should. Undeterred I realised that M31 ought to be viewable from my back yard position so I commanded GOTO there - and very satisfying it was too - slightly off centre but much clearer and more recognisable than last time - no shaky binos to spoil the view. Next to a veiw of the environs of Cassiopea - this time just using the finder to star hop around and a glimpse of M103 followed by a GOTO the Double Cluste (NGC 869) which was very nice and sharp although this high overhead stuff was becoming quite literally a pain in the neck! - not least as I had the tripod down a bit low. Time for a cup of that tea... As I was pacing around the side of the house slurping the warmth I noticed Mars was nice and high and looking good - time to move the scope methinks... Just a few moments to take a peek at Deneb, Castor and Pollux before decamping to the front garden. I didn't bother with aligning the GOTO after the move, deciding instead to use the finder and hop around. Last night gave me my best view of Mars to date with a crisp, if small, disc and clear colour - even with the 9.7 I was able to resolve a reasonable focus though there was still chromatic aberration. Then a few minutes cruising the belt of Orion and a peer around Alnitak and the horsehead area (not that I saw that of course); As usual, I wasn't dissapointed with the sisters of M45 though - which were in sparkling form - crystal clear and not sparkling at all lol - I spent a while on these before the cloud began to drift in from the North - I raced it over to Taurus just managing to keep ahead of its advance for a short poke around Aldebaran before retreating back to Orion for a final scout around there. I had time for a last look at Mars before settling for a longer view of Sirius as I finished off another cup of hot tea as it transited the FOV. With the cloud advancing from the N&W now beginning to obscure Orion and the Eastern fringes menacing Mars, the objective dewing up and ice forming on the forks I decided to call it a night around 00:40 or so. All in all not a bad couple of hours looking about and I am royally chuffed with the new finder - well worth the time and effort to get it stuck to the scope - I know it is going to save me a bunch of frustration - it really is like night and day having it versus trying to sight without. Fortunately my Michelin man outfit did the business too, with only the fingers of my hand feeling the cold where I had briefly taken off my glove to focus on Mars at the higher mag of the 9.7 EP.

Point! Shoot! Pointing the tube thingy is easy - but getting it to point at something that you actually want to view is, well another matter entirely. I hadn't realised just how akward it would be to aim even my little scope and have spent plenty much time flailing around the sky trying to get the target of my attention into the FOV. This is not helped by being unfamiliar with what one actually sees in that little circle of darkeness - you line it up with what you think will be a familiar sight and then peer into the eyepiece only to be confuddled by something quite different! I realise now that my first attempt at alignment for the GOTO was a huge and possibly uncharacteristic stroke of dumb luck - even with the 5 minutes (quite literally) or so it took me to finaly get a bead on my second target (Rigel) which I eventually captured with the help of my neighbour's roof guttering! On a more recent attempt I was out earlier in the evening before Orion was up sufficiently and elected to try Capella as No 2 - eventually giving up after being unable to be be sure that I had it in the FOV - the unfamiliarity I mentioned before - I just wasn't sufficiently familiar with that patch of sky as seen through the scope and although I am sure I actually did identify Capella it was much less bright to me than with the naked eye and so I did not believe it was the right star - so basically my patence was exhausted and I decided just to roughly wave the tube around by hand. As it happens I had just joined up with the Central Scotland Observing Group (nice bunch) and given that it was a nice night headed out to meet them at one of their dark haunts - alas we didnt get much actual observing done but that is another story! So fed up with the futility of sighting along the top, the sides and underneath the tube, and not a little impatient I decided to get one of those red dot finder thingies - rationalising that It would help no end in banishing the fruitless waving around of the scope. My first thought was to get a Telrad, but while reading some reviews I noted a comment about its size - accompanied by a nice illustrative photo - thank goodness I did before flashing the plastic. Checking the dimesnions I quickly realised that it might actually be a tad bulky for my baby ETX. On checking the dimensions (which were not easy to track down I might add - note to telrad) I realised that the Telrad would almost certainly foul the objective sleeve on my tube preventing proper operation of the focus - scratch the telrad. Anyways after some further jiggery pokery I settled on a Revelation MRF and sat back to wait delivery of the toy. The MRF was suitable for attachement to scopes 6" up as I recall so I ordered from a different source a 'universal' mounting plate suitable for scopes of 80mm up (which proved to be quite prescient as it happens). After a few days the post dropped through the door and excitedly I ripped open the parcel to get at the shiny inside - and there it was in all its dark milled glory a lovely looking HUD for a scope - not too big and light enough not to unbalance my little baby when mounted over the pivot but, - why does there always have to be a but?, there was something odd about the stem for attaching it to the scope... The dovetail on the top of the stem mated well enough with the MRF but there seemed no way of attaching the stem itself to the scope - the base of the stem being a hollow prism with a tab projecting down from one end (see pic). And there were no mounting holes that I could use to attach it to the flat plate adapter I had ordered either - harrumph. I suppose I could buy some double sided sticky foam and banjo the stem directly to the scope - but there wasn't enough surface area on the bottom to be confident it would stay fixed - even if I filled the darn thing with epoxy or some such, and anyway the base of the stem was too flat for the curvature of the scope (and would still have been even if the scope was bigger) plus there was no way I was going to drill any holes in the side of my precious either! What to do? Well the adapter plate duly arrived the following day which at least looked like it would fit to the tube happily with the swanky foam adhesive strips provided! And the flat top would permit the base of the stem a flat surface to be stuck too if nothing else. However all was not lost a quick e-mail and phone call to Ted at Telescope house revealed that all of their stock was also missing the base that should sit between the MRF stem and the OTA so a base plate was soon winging its way to me. Phew - I really thought I might have ended up with a right old mess going on there. So a couple of days later the shoe duly arrived and anxiously I put all the parts together for the first time - the stem mated to the MRF, the shoe screwed happily to the adapter plate and the stem securely fitted to the shoe - relief all round. Now all I had to do was stick it to the scope and get it aligned. Alas I had decorating to do! Anyway a couple of days ago, painting dutifully finished, I finally got the time to attach the MRF and try to align it with the scope - sensibly I thought, I decided to try and hold it in place and roughly align it before pulling the strips off the foam patches and bonding it irrevocably to the ETX. It turned out to be a little trickier than I anticipated not least cos the Alt clutch on the scope didn't grip well enough to prevent some movement while I was turning the allen screws to adjust the position fo the red dot - sheesh! Anyway after one aborted attempt, thinking I had it and finally committing to sticking the thing to the tube I found that I could not get the dot on the target telphone pole within the travel available on the screws. I resorted to prising the adapter off the tube and sticking it on in another location closer to the centre line. With bated breath I tried again to align the dot and still it seemed I couldn't get enough travel on the grub screws! Fortunatley after a few more minutes of fiddling I managed to get the spot on the spot as it were - I had been too timid with the allen key and found that there was still some room to tighten up the grubs further - relief. A bit more adjustement for progressively more distant targets finally picking a radio tower about 3 miles distant and I reckoned that it was about as finely adjusted as I was going to get it - all I had to do now was wait for some darkness and a few twinkly things to test it out on. Later on in the evening I spotted a few breaks in the clouds and a clear run at U-Maj, so I hurriedly assembled the telescope on its tripod - fitted an EP powered it and the MRF up and expectantly slewed to aim at Mizar/Alcor. The moment of truth had arrived: and there they were in all their finery - pretty much slap bang in the middle of the FOV or at least as near as makes no difference! Result! A couple of other aims and checks later and I was really chuffed - now I am confident that I can pop the scope on my target of choice with minimal fuss - whether to align the GOTO or for star-hopping/manual-looking! and can't wait for some clear skies to play with it again - of course those will be aeons away I am sure - well at least I can play with stellarium to get more familiar with some of my favoured targets. I learned from another place how to add telrad reticules to a custom scope in stellarium but also more useful from my perspective how to change the FOV to use a circular mask simulating a scope and - even better - discovered the settings to reverse the FOV so that I can get a reasonable fascimile of a real scope - now I have no excuse not to familiarise myself with the views I should actually expect through the eyepiece which will doubtless come in handy for identifying targets more accurately. All in all a good outcome, even with the tribulations! Gawd knows what I am going to find to write about next time! :-)

You know how it is, flushed with new scope enthusiasm - you jump out at any opportunity to set up and have a skoot around the sky. So it was with me in the first few days after the brown box arrived - not that I have lost the bug yet of course. I was being assiduous in handling the little baby but as is the way with things still fumbling about occasionally dropping stuff or picking things up and ever so slightly getting my big paw prints everywhere. Well I had been reading as it happens - about cleaning the optics that is - and without variation the advice was the same - don't - you won't need to for ages if ever it seems. And the little bits of dust on the objective dont make any difference to the image you see... yada yada yada Now this was, I considered, sage advice that I had every intention of following... And, by the way, if you ever do have to clean the optics - do it gently with a camel haired brush and air to get the dust off - don't scrub the darned thing with cillit bang or some such. Of course I would never consider ignoring such advice, but... One night perhaps delivery day + say 3 or 4 as I was dutifully returning the cap after allowing the dew, such that it was, to evaporate I did notice an unexpected quantity of fibres and dust polluting my precious objective lens. The cheek of it! Not wanting to have the pristine instrument clarty within mere hours of opening the box I resolved to very gingerly and with due regard to all the sage advice - puff off the offending detritus. Naturally I am a sufficiently experienced astronomer after a couple of days to know not to blow on the darn thing so of course I didn't you'll be pleased to know! No instead, thinking quickly I remembered having some Powerclean air in a can - you know the sort of thing you use for clearing the loose crud from your computer keyboard - so carefully with the end of the tube a respectable distance from the end of my beloved ETX I pressed the button and skoosh the dust was begone! Apart, that is, for a few stubborn bits which I soon dispatched with the powerclean. But then to my chagrin I realised as the last skoosh of the compressed air left the can that a lovely fan shaped oval of freezing propellant spread itself over the edge of the lens - erk! :eek: It'll evaporate I said to myself dont panic its just the cold... Somehow the likelyhood of it evaporating seemed to dwindle after a few minutes and I was left staring at the residue clinging to the once perfect optical surface. Oh well, like the dust it probably wont have any noticable effect on the optical performance of the telescope - it will just annoy me every time I remove or replace the endcap. :cool: And it did - annoy me, immensely moreover I got to thinking - I had no idea of the nature of the propellant in the can - it might not effect the image but what if it erodes the optical coating on the objective over time and then subtly effects the performance. Nope I couldnt stand it - I had to do the very thing that the advice counsels against - the lens would have to be cleaned. I had read about this in the manual of course - a gentle swab with plain soft facial tissues and a solution of 3 parts distilled water to 1 part isopropyl alchohol. But I had also read some of the posts here and it seems that both distilled water and IPA are tricky to get hold of here in old blighty. So off I trundled to the local chemist shop manual in hand in case I had to convince them I wasnt a terrorist trying to buy up a supply of nasty chemicals for nefarious purposes. And blank! The first chemist couldnt help - didn't have IPA or distilled water - the latter being so dangerous it has to be ordered specially or some such and anyway it was 'sterile' water however that was produced. Well not an auspicious start - I really did expect to rollup to the pharmacy counter and walk away with the goods after perhaps no more than a cursory explanation of what I wanted the stuff for. The second one was even worse, the spotty young attendant seeming completley flummoxed by the concept of someone wanting to purchase anything other than pain-killers, smelly toiletries or ladies hygene products. The third chemists seemed more useful - at least they seemed to understand the request and even asked what I wanted the IPA for - but they had changed their wholesale suppliers recently and after dutifully interrogating the computer announced they could not source the IPA for me. Unfortunately they drew a blank at the water too - the 'puter offering up only 'purified' water whatever that was. Dissapointed at drawing such an unexpected blank I retreated to try and get the goods online - I had already noticed that Maplins supply the IPA for cleaning electronic stuff but I think it was a rather low purity and in any event apparently only available in 1L amounts. Undeterred a day or two later, the worry over what that propellant was or was not doing to my precious optical coatings undiminished I whipped out google and to my surprise quickly sourced both distilled water and IPA! The former from Amazon of all places - more specifically a seller on the Amazon marketplace - a purveyor of supplies for the model railway enthusiast - it seems that Hornby sell, at inflated prices I am certain, distilled water for use in their 'Live Steam' locomotives. The IPA I sourced at a cleaning products company in N Ireland - result :headbang:. A couple of clicks and my paypal accound significantly lighter I sat back to await the means to assuage my guilt at having defaced the scope. So this morning the posty brought the IPA, the water having arrived on Sunday (oddly enough - again the post) and pulling out a trusty measuring cylinder I poured a finger of water and added a few drops of the hard stuff - a quick swill around the cylinder and presto I was ready to do that what you ought not with a brand new scope! The cleaning itself was rather uneventful as it happens - though if I am honest I was surprised that even with the volatile IPA the evaporating solution still looked like it was going to leave marks, however a gentle dab with a tissue and they vanished I am happy to report. Now I am the happy owner of a once again pristine instrument! And the moral of the story? People are dummer than you think! Well ok THAT'S not the moral - the moral is don't use a can of powerclean to remove dust from your lens! and if you absolutely must then don't, but if you are like me and choose to do so anyway, then keep the damn can far enought away from the lens to stop propellant from staining the glass! I think 6 inches ought to do it. Oh and buy a camel hair brush for the stubborn dust I you have to remove it :) - I know what my next purchase is going to be! For those who do need to clean the glassware etc and can't find a supply of distilled water or Isopropyl Alchohol in the UK then details below. So there we are, another rubycon crossed, another lesson learned and no real harm done (I hope! - time will tell). Next - I might tell about my newbie experiences with my new MR finder - if the shoe arrives so I can attach it to the telescope that is... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Distilled Water: Hornby Live Steam - World Wide Shopping Mall - www.worldwideshoppingmall.co.uk (although I ordered through amazon.co.uk) available in 1L containers. Isopropyl Alchohol: Mistral Pure Chemicals - Home Page - available in 250ml up to 25L - but it aint cheap!

So there I was, day two, waiting for the dark to come so I could try out the AutoStar and GOTO somewhere... I know what you are thinking - I wait until dark and then fumble around trying to set up the mount and learn by error and error how frustrating it can be. Nope I'm much too impatient for that - I decided to set up the doohickey in the spare room and have a play with it there instead! That all went quite well as it happens. Set up the mount then plugged in the AutoStar controller then the moment of truth - threw the switch and... some lights on the handset and a nice beep. After faffing around setting the location and date etc - it does help here to read the manual first I noticed - I was about to try slewing the scope around with the buttons when it started doins things of its own accord! Eek what button did I press? How do I stop it? "Slewing..." accompanied by the whineing of an 18V electic hammer drill - what a racket - did I break something? After a couple of minutes of trying to stop it I just let it Easy Align (remember to avoid that next time) and eventually it announces "Alignment Successful" or some such anodyne phrase. So I thought thank Jupiter for that, but I dont want it slewing around the sky arbitrarily nilly while I try to get to grips with the manual slewing controls - so I just turned the darn thing off and on again - this time taking care not to trigger an Easy Alignment. By this time me old mucker Jupiter was peeking on the Southern sky so I thought to myself eh up.. After a few moments of fiddling around I discovered that 0.5 deg slewing speed makes quite a difference to the sound of the drill that is hidden in the mount and to my pleasant surprise the hand box made control of the pointing much better than I had anticipated and hugely better than trying to twist and point by hand - especially without any kind of finder. Anyway after a few minutes of jigging around I was confident that I was ready to try aligning the scope and test the GOTO. I did notice that when the thing went off earlier on an Easy Align spree that I had not a clue as to where half of the target stars it was choosing were in the sky - and since I had to confirm the target I was less than confident that it would live up to its Easy name.. Anyhoo I thought that, discretion being the better part of valour, a manual Two Star alignment was best (how easily the technicalities trip off the tongue) - so all I had to do was wait until I could get a clear view of my target stars (Alcor and Rigel) and I would be all set, and this would probably be a good time to read the manual to see how this alignment was to be performed otherwise I might have a shortened night out. Well time flying, as it is wont to do when one is enjoying ones self, my chosen targets became visible from my elected location so out I went scope in hand, nicely wrapped up against the cold and hoping the clouds would stay away long enough to get something done. After the first bit of fumbling trying to get the tube more or less level and pointing sort of northish I pushed the relevant buttons on the controller, stood back and held my breath as I punched the Enter key to track onto Alcor... Jeeze any second now the neighbours are goinf to be out with halogen flashlights demanding to know why I was using an electric drill at 11:30 at night! What a racket! I kept telling myself that it probably wasnt as bad as I thought and that no one save me would hear it - then - it stopped - ooo I thought followed more or less instantly by ohoh - I don't know where it is pointing but it sure aint Alcor! OK not to panic - I have read about this in the manual - just need to centre Alcor in the scope and press enter and it will correct. But what is that new noise? A bleeping, squealy sort of siezed motor kind of sound and importantly why is the scope not moving when I push the manual slew button! Eek - did I break it? Ah I thought to myself knowingly - nope you have just overtightened the clutches on the mount and choked the drill - so let's start again. Off with the power, off with the locks and just tighten them enough to hold the tube but still allow the manual slew to work. Well that seemed ok - the scope slewed quite happily, if noisily, around the cosmos. So back to alignment - home position, choose Alcor hit enter and slew, slew, quick, quick, slew... And erm she stops short of the target again, but this time, this time I was ready springing into action with the manual slew to centre on the target (if I could find the darn thing) and - nothing the thing wouldnt slew then the strangled cat sounds like seized motors again. Frustrated I powered it off, maybe I over did it on the clutch ajustment - does it need to be more loose still? Is there something wrong, will I have to return the scope - 101 questions on the same theme flooded my mind awash in a sea of alarm and disappointment. After a few moments of pacing around the tripod clearing my mind I though to myself No I am not going to give up so easily - Ill have another go. It's funny really how you get a flash of knowledge or inspiration semi-conciously - there I was having set the tube level and pointing more or less north when it struck me firmly between the eyes, I had even seen it, without quite realising when using the controller to test the slew after ajusting the clutch locks. Talk about feeling a clutz! The beeping seizey noise (which was not terribly loud btw) was the flipping drive attempting to track the sidereal motion after settling on Alcor and the reason I couldnt slew to centre it manually was because it was set to adjust at 1x sideral rate a speed that to the untrained eye (mine) was synonymous with "static"! So this time I resolved to just ignore the seizy noise and concentrate on getting Alcor where I wanted it - at the centre of the FOV (how quickly you pick up the jargon ). So off I went sure enough right on cue the scope stopped somewhat short of the spot and started up its noise - ignoring it like a petulant child I set the slew speed to 0.5 deg/sec and waved the tube around until the tell tale pair of Alcor and Mizar swam into view - a quick re-focusing (I still can't get over how many twisty turns are needed for that) and I was ready to nudge Alcor into the sweet spot - once I had remembered the old left right swapping perversion of telescopes that is and then pow - pressed was the Enter button and the controller obediently waited for me to select my second alignment star! Without any fuss I scrolled to Rigel and hit the button - the scope dutifully drilled its way south and pointed nowhere near Rigel, but after some flailing around the region and with a little help from my neighbour's drainpipe I managed, eventually, to centre it and thankfully pressed the button - "Alignment Successful" the controller winked at me and the scope continued on its beeping way. Phew - that was a bit of a marathon but now the moment of truth - would it actually GOTO anywhere that I would recognise? I was about to find out. Expectantly I scrolled to Aldebaran and without further ado commanded the scope to GOTO! Drill, drill, drill, pause - drill, drill and stop.... Peering through the eyepiece I saw it - it was there! truly that orange yellow star - could it be I thought still unwilling to place my trust in the machine but a moment or two later and a skoot around nearby and I was happy. Ill be blowed the drill put the target almost slap bang in the centre of the FOV! Result. Right then - lets try Capella; And The Pleiades, and M42 oooh almost all target right in the middle of the scope and happily stayed there too so the traking is working fine (for visual obs at least) - hurrah - I was not a little impressed :) But boy what a noise that drill makes even when slow tracking - hope the neighbours dont find out! To be honest it isnt quite so bad about 10 - 15 feet from the thing but still... (It seems that ETX's have something of a reputation for that so I will be content with it at that). And then as an anticlimax the cloud started rolling in from the SW and flush with conquering Two Star Alignment and getting a little parky I recluctantly packed up and moved everything indoors afater about an hour of faffing and a little bit of GOTO observing. Half an hour later, warmed up and watching late night TV I glanced out the window to see that it was crystal clear again - but by then it was too late - I couldnt face dragging all the gear out again - it would have to wait for another day... So the chief lesson of the night seems to be patience and persistence pay off - not only in getting to grips with the technology but especially in dealing with the weather. (I am still waiting 'for another day' for the skies to clear! Thus ends the tale of the newbie disturbing the peace at midnight with an electric drill... :iamwithstupid:

I was watching the lunchtime news when it came - Jupiter, complete with accessory moons had arrived - although I didn't quite appreciate it at the time... I finally did it on Tuesday night - clicked on that little winking button labelled "Checkout Now"; The confirmation flew into my Inbox with a satifying 'plink' and it was now too late to recall the cash so I slowly succumbed to guilty post-purchase pleasure. Wednesday was rather uneventful as it happens; That was until the other 'plink' in my Inbox - "... your order has shipped... next day delivery..." - did I detect a light thrill at that news? So there I was, Thursday lunchtime, sitting watching the news only to be roused by the raucus ringing of the doorbell. Springing to action I flung the door open and there it was: a rather non-descript brown box - a bit unimpressive for a gas giant if you ask me. Excitedly I scrawled my moniker on the Postie's docket and whisked the carton upstairs, where it sat - unopened - well I still had some coffee to finish and "Murder She Wrote" was on! Finally I could stand it no longer; It was still sitting there, squat and unimpressive on the floor, the writing on the outside of the carton the only hint of the world to be found within - "Meade Instruments Corporation, Oak Canyon....." Without further ado the tape was carefully sliced open and the box up-ended to disgorge its contents. No time was wasted on the naming of parts in the headlong rush to "have a go" despite it being 3pm and still light out. Dispensing with the tripod the mounting was hastily placed upon the window ledge and the scope pointed outwards. Gingerly, at first, the objective cover was removed and placed respectfully on the side and then an eyepiece was affixed - 26mm to begin with - I placed my eye to the cup and... fuzz, greyish fuzz and such a number of turns of the focusser to sharpen the image! But there it was - the telephone pole at the bottom of the garden in all its autumn glory! But it wasn't enough - more - I wanted more; So the barlow was flipped into action - eek where did the image go it's all fuzz again! After a few minutes of turning, some trial and error and the image swam into focus once more - I could get used to this I thought, but the telephone pole is so near - I need something farther away, much farther. So I hoisted the tube up to the horizon to a pale smudge on the hills; When is a smudge not a smudge? - When it resolves to a house in the 9.7mm eyepiece - more fumbling with the focus knob then to the MAX . Once more the grey fug descended and the marathon twisting began - flipping barlow! But I had learned some more about those mysterious people on the distant hill - their curtains were a colour of gold and they drove a red Audi! At least that was what I thought I saw when the vibration in the tube died away! Then bump - the image almost vanished out the the view - just a little further left to get them back in view - no not that left the other one (I wonder if I will ever get used to that left to right thing!). That would do it for the afternoon - the eypieces were carefully returned to their containers and the scope respectfully re-capped and parked on the side for some coming darkness. I learned that the tube doesn't half shake! and how many turns does it take to focus? - Plenty! But I thought that I could get the hang of this astronomy lark and settled down to the naming of parts. So a few hours sped by and I thought to myself that I really ought to get the tripod out and practice mounting the scope on it etc and just get a feel for it all to avoid fumbling around in the dark - the AutoStar and fancy computermebob could wait for another time.. Anyway as I was rooting around the in the spare room for something unrelated I happened to glance out of the window and thought to myself eye eye - it looks quite dark out there - and what is that sparkly shiny thing above the rooftops? Oooh something to look at through the telescope! Quickly before the shiny thing vanished the mounting was plonked on the tripod and knurls turned tight, the 26mm inserted and the barlow flipped out of the way - all present and correct and ready to aim. What a guddle! I had no idea that something seemingly so simple as pointing a tube at a star could be such a pain :rolleyes: but not to be disheartened I tried and tried again and eventualy the dark circle gave way to a large sparkly thing - the object of my attention - if a little blurred! Steadily, holding my breath so as not to scare it off, I turned the knurl and slowly at first the obect resolved from a blob to a surprisingly small disk like shape - and there straddling it were 4 bright and sharp points of light, three to one side and one to the other. I had never seen Jupiter before, with my own eyes that is, other than as a bright 'star' in the sky - not that I am going to admit anything girly like having a tear in my eye or anything like that, but nevertheless it was a little wow moment - and rather a nice first light too I think. For a little while I mucked around with the various eypieces and the barlow and twisted the focus knurl for all I was worth - though the seeing wasnt great for the highest power so no smudges of cloud bands for me! Maybe next time. Later, much later... Feeling a little flushed from my dalliance with Jupiter I waited for the sky to darken and to see if the night would remain clear to get a 'proper' look around. Lo and behold the sky did remain clear so around 11:30 I donned my coat and careful not to drop or bash anything plonked the tripod down on the front step for a butchers at Orion. Not a small amount of the following hour or so was spend flailing around the sky trying to home in on something aimed at! But with a little determination I was rewarded with some nice views of the very faint glow of the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades and a few other bits and bobs. And to finish off the evening a view of Mars climbing the heavens - though much smaller than expected, but then I discovered reading the forum that it is quite far away at the moment :) - In fairness the atmospheric quality restricted my views of Mars to fairly low magnification and there was a bit of chromatic aberration there too but nevertheless for a first look in small scope I think it was plenty nice. So rather satisfied after maybe 90 minutes of pointing, and slewing and yes turning that pesky focussing knurl I called it a night and headed indoors - but reflcted that I had held Jupier and its moons in the palm of my hand, swept from one side of the galaxy to the other and looked far back in time - and all of this from that little brown box! The funny thing about it though was that it didn't seem to be larger on the inside than the outside... but who says Dr Who has a monopoly on Tardises eh? ;)