JOC

Well this was worth getting the scope out for. We viewed at around x100 with the Morpheus 12.5mm in the 200P - beautiful clear view SW at about 1730. To the naked eye I could only see one point of light. Initially I eyeballed the location with my x50 birding bins and that magically provided two points of light one clearly larger than the other. I checked the encroaching cloud situation and decided to grab out the scope which sits fairly cool in the unheated porch. And dumped it about 5m from the back door. Then after remembering how to set it up and some initial fiddling to find them with my 32mm omni plossl and optical finder I heaved them into frame and x100 seemed about spot on. Very pretty and all the household except my 83 yr old father came out to look. NB. At the time we looked we also had 5 of Jupiter's moons in view all strung out in a straight line, one to one side and 4 to the other. That somewhat added to the effect 🙂

FWIW I tried a laser collimator and in the finish discovered it was quicker and easier and to do the actual collimation with a standard visual collimator. I just use the laser for the satsifaction of seeing it come back central, but a manual one is far easier to use and you gain an insight into what you are actually looking at and moving.

My word, what a failure - I've heard of this telescope - is that the one that was being/had been used by the SETI project? A long time ago I used to have their program running on a computer to search for spikes.

There is a relevant thread here that might be of interest

Sometimes I've noted the ability of the sky to be quite clear where there is something of interest - like Mars, but for the rest of the sky to seem empty due to the presence of clouds/fog elsewhere which are sufficiently similar to the colour of the night sky that you don't even realise they are there. Then just as you get something in focus and think you are onto something those same clouds do the dirty on you whilst you are concentrating on your goal and slide it out of sight or obstruct your view. There aren't many times outside that you get those perfect conditions that are needed for unobstructed viewing.

I have a very similar set-up. Based on my own experience, You would probably be able to take some fairly satisfying shots of the moon by attaching the Rebel via a suitable T-ring to the Eyepiece holder - I find with a little care that it is possible to use the zoom function on the camera to find the focus. With this as the moon is so bright you should be able to take lots of short exposures and even stack them with some free software (my avatar is such a shot), with a suitable home-made filter using authentic baader solar film over the whole end of the telescope (checked for holes prior to use) and removing the optical finder and replacing with a shadow finder you can also take a satisfying shot of the sun in the same way. For taking things like constellations, larger portions of the sky and even the centres of things like the Orion nebula you will find that the camera fitted with just it's own lens and on a tripod and with an automatic shutter release to take away vibration (these are inexpensive picked up second hand on ebay or similar places) you can still produce interesting shots. You can get away with just a few seconds exposure which, again if lots of shots are stacked, can produce star packed images of the sky. For this a small Bahtinov mask can be used to help get focus on the end of the camera lens, but you can also use the zoom function again and a bit of trial and error with whatever lens gets you the portion of the sky you are after - it isn't quite a far out as the camera lens will go, you have to back it off just a tad. You will never get the sort of images that the guys with the proper imaging equipment manage and the advice that you will get on this thread will likely come from some of those folks as well as from, lets use what we have peeps like me, but I find that I can take shots to satisfy my yen to have a 'dabble' and be quite amazed at the results - the 'star field' shots with just my camera are quite amazing when you consider that they are just taken with what I had. Below are some of my shots - only 'snaps' not 'images' like the specialists take, but they satisfy me and do show what you could take with your equipment and you could do much do better than me esp. if you worked at it - mine are just just one off experiments. This is mercury transiting the sun, auriga, the moon and the sun

Oxford fabric chimnea cover used here on a 200P - check out the well known auction site for loads of shapes, materials and prices - also check out patio furniture covers - no need to pay the earth and some are very good quality materials.

That's a steady hand, at 1/60th the detail in the moon is wonderful - great shot IMO

I've spotted Mars in the late evening a couple of times this week and that looked spectacular to the naked eye too!

I've got the 200P flextube goto. There isn't much that is that is overly technical about setting them up. Any goto system works in a similar way. The 200P is undoubtedly improved by the WiFi gizmo that you can get for it which attaches to a mobile phone app. FWIW if I bought again I'd get the same scope.

What I always find astonishing about pictures of telescopes like that is it all boils down a fairly standard off-the-shelf EP that anyone can own jammed in the EP holder!

I wonder if the OP has seen this thread? If not it might be worth them looking through at least page one an looking at the pictures and explanations.

FWIW if you haven't already found it check out this thread, esp. the pictures on the first page and the explanations it has some great information in it:

I wear glasses, I use Morpheus, I don't find any issues fwiw.

Check out chimnea covers and patio furniture covers (Esp. for stacks of chairs) on places like Amazon and ebay. Various grades and materials - fabric and plastic based - Oxford fabric is fairly durable for patio things I've found. I find a chimnea cover goes over my Dob a treat.

Deionised water IS different from distilled, but I cannot imagine either damaging optical equipment. DI water is often used for steam irons and topping up lead acid batteries and I imagine would be useful on optical equip. or for mixing with IPA https://www.amazon.co.uk/CarPlan-DIW250-De-Ionised-Water/dp/B00FRIH094/ref=sr_1_5?adgrpid=54722411738&dchild=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI19Ounpjf6wIVTOd3Ch2w_wUaEAAYASAAEgJk0vD_BwE&hvadid=259088749393&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9045038&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9815806837557291122&hvtargid=kwd-306094015612&hydadcr=28150_1724812&keywords=water+for+irons&qid=1599761568&sr=8-5&tag=googhydr-21

I don't have anything that really needs cleaning, but I must admit to an inbuilt resistance to waste cash on over-priced supremely marketted materials that can be purchased for a fraction of the price by buying generic equivalents (lots of medications come under that hat). Thus, I would not buy the Baader Wonder fluid on principle as I believe that generic diluted in purified water, isopropyl alcohol would probably serve in exactly the same manner. However, just a point about the content of SDS sheets. An SDS sheet is only OBLIGATED to list any chemical ingredients in a product which are themselves classed as 'hazardous' under EU definitions. Thus, although it is probably the case that the missing %age content on the Baader wonder fluid IS pure water (that's what I tend to imagine it is myself), it doens't HAVE to be water - it could be any other ingredient not in itself deamed 'hazardous', so it might be an inert non-haz. natural additive, or something like sodium thiosulphate. So just because there is missing percentage on an SDS sheet it need not be just water.

Oh, well it was just an idea to do a search and see what I could find. I don't use kit like that so I wouldn't have appreciated the difference.

It's a long time ago (but that doesn't stop stolen gear from being recovered), but I searched in SGL threads for the word 'stolen' and came up with an EQ6 - and a white one here mentioned in the third posting on the thread: is it a possibility?

Is there any danger with all these satellites that we will planet-lock ourselves with spacecraft being unable to find a route through the space junk?

FWIW I wear specs and never use any of the provided eyecups on any of my EP's I just hover above them at appropriate height to see things nicely. The only thing I've ever had which I need to use eye cups on, strangely is my new (2nd hand) bins that I got from SGL they are Nikon prostaff P511 10x50 and just will not become useable unless I've wound out the eye cups.

I have the collapsible tube version, but the base size is still the same, it take about as much floor space as a dining chair and I store mine behind the door in the corner of the porch.

Well what does that make an optician?

Another suggestion is to fit a big knob on the existing focusser - the knobs come off fairly easily with a grub screw. I have a tame metal worker with a lathe and he made me this from a billet of aluminium: