JOC

Happy to provide feedback when I had had them out to play. Please explain 'blackouts', do you mean the dark areas which can occur if you don't view through an EP squarely enough?

I've just unpacked this: I couldn't resist. The trouble is the 'collection' now looks like this: I kind of now feel the need to continue until it's complete ("Ouch!" says the bank balance), perhaps if I do so I'll sell off some of the other 'old friends'. Possibly, maybe.......

I like my Goto - when it works (and I have had odd problems) it shows me things I'd never find myself. I'd sooner spend time looking at something interesting than spend ages chasing something I'd probably not find - the trouble is, esp. with DSO's that unless I am certain I am in the right place I constantly doubt that I as they can be so difficult to see. The Goto gives me confidence that I should find the object where the scope has stopped and I look harder for it - at time it still takes me a long time to find what is actually under my nose - some of these things are only clear at certain magnifications (or lack of magnification depending on its size). The ring nebula is a case in point - I'd easily miss it (it's still not immediately clear with the Goto), but knowing it's an adverted gaze type object once I know I'm there I find it. Something I'd never do without the goto. TBH I think I'd have given up a long time ago without the Goto. FWIW I've got the 8" version of that truss tube SW Dob above and it's a great starter scope.

You'd never guess I wrote that ^^^ on the phone would you? If only I had the same control of my thumbs on a phone as my daughter!!!

Hete is a set to look at, you can get all sorts of wrights for gazebos https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-4-x-GAZEBO-FEET-FOOT-LEG-POLE-SANDBAG-ANCHOR-WEIGHTS-MARQUEE-STALL-SAND-BAGS/263525170695?hash=item3d5b52fe07:g:2GkAAOSwoddadsoV

If you want travel friendly counterweights I wonder if what I bought for my new gazebo would work. For about £12 you can buy 4 empty double sandbags designed to be filled and velcroed around the gazebo legs. Providing these telescope bars had an ultimate stop thing sliding off back plate, I see no reason why you couldn't take one of these purpose made sacks, fill it at your destination (sand, stones earth etc) zip it closed and just velcro it to the counterweight arm. Then empty it to come home.

It is a good job my postie is not the suspicious type ( well actually it was a courier!). I got what looked like a missile for a shoulder launcher (like you see on the TV) wrapped in loads of bubble wrap and a black bin sack. The contents of which were a nice chunky tripod that I am going to fix the baby vixen to.

I've never heard of this comet. Is it a 'naked eye' object or will it need a magnifier of some description? Also will it be easily findable?

Excellent I'm pleased it helped someone - you look like you have it on a Rebel T3/1100D as well!

Try this - of course being an ebay link it may expire with time, but it appears to be valid at the time of posting https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Universal-Camera-Hot-Shoe-to-Universal-Finder-Guider-Red-Dot-Shoe-Adapter/283165189806?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

I thought it was a Tribble with alopecia!

My postie bought this - small, but perfectly functional - now I can add the RDF I might stand an easier chance of finding in the sky what I want to point the camera at on the tripod. I knew there would be someone on ebay printing something like this for a few quid so when one was suggested in my taking pictures of Orion thread I went looking and sure enough.......

That sounds like more dedication than I might want to give it! However, I sit here in admiration of your dedication to the cause.

I hadn't thought that it might be the tube - I wonder what the main OTA tubes are made of to do that?

I wouldn't mind doing something similar to my Dob to get over some of the problems when the Goto plays up - it would also help me to pick up on which calibration stars to use as I could look up their degrees up and down and left and right on Stellarium before I send the Goto off to find them. Luckily where I am celestial North is within a degree of compass North so more often than not a shunt in the direction of compass North should do for starters. Accordingly I have produced an old compass and have tied it to the mount. However, I've been noticing that it is reticent to provide a consistent North point for me. With the Goto Dob mount is there enough electronics in the base to throw off a compass? I've been toying with the idea of adding a degree scale around the edge of the part of the base that doesn't move. The problem is how to know how to create the correct distance between the points to get 360 divisions around the diameter - I guess I need to take a measurement and divide by 30, and then find someway of printing out a set of paper printed tapes at the right size to stick together to mount around the edge. Then I was just going to mark a central pointer between the two upright legs to mark a centre point which can be twisted to 0 degrees when the compass says North. Would that work?

Well with planetarium software at any moment for any object you can find degrees right or left and degrees up and down can't you? So I would have thought if you something to show rotation on the horizontal axis and something that can show degrees up and down-ness on the vertical then surely from moment to moment you could quickly find something in the sky? Now my 200P comes with a vertical up and down degrees thing, so all I would need is something to show how much it rotated on the horizontal and surely you could find something in the sky. Isn't that what a setting circle would give?

Even if you move the telescope I imagine it would still be possible to paint a dot on the base separate to the scales suggested above so that you could align setting the telescope down with compass North and then have the setting circle adjusted in its position relative to that to give celestial North the correct number of degrees out of alignment with compass North. This should help putting the telescope base down in the right position with just a standard compass setting at a certain location, i.e. if you always set it up in the garden, but move it between uses. This would work wouldn't it? Thinking here of how I could adapt this setting circle thing to my own location/situation.

Oh, dear - the shame of it! That's how I've done a lot of it recently ?. My parents used to have some old strainers that were used for single line wires that they used to put on the end of just the top and sometimes the bottom strand of long lengths of stock fence and nail to the posts once it was all tight, but I didn't know where they were and so I bought a Draper fence tensioner like this one https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Draper-Fence-Wire-Tensioner-Strainer-Tensioning-Tool-Barbed-Fencing-57547/112824311655?epid=23021931502&hash=item1a44da5f67:g:E4IAAOSw87Ray1SS That gadget appears to work on a post by post basis (or at maybe at most two or three at a time as it doesn't have space to take up a lot of slack). The trouble is as you tension on each strand of the stock fence - top, middle and bottom it is possible to get all the tensions different and it doesn't go up uniformly and the individual posts can move., and you quickly end up with big bows in the wire. I knew there had to be an easier way and discovered videos showing people putting them up with brackets that run along the full length of the end the length of stock fence (as I described above) and pulled up with a winch or a 4x4 car (which I don't have and can't get to where I need it anyway). On the basis of my last experiment with just the bracket this does seem the way to go - hence the new kit. It's just a pity that I've already done loads of lengths with the old post by post method before finding englightenment.

Just in case anyone had been intrigued - Today I finished off the collection with the arrival of a 1.5 tonne set of 2 leg 'Brothers' engineering chains! It isn't actually all for a bicarb powered rocket bike (though I did laugh loudly at the idea!) The engineering stuff is to help me pull up all my stock fence tight so that I can then nail it onto the posts (Bro made me a fence attachment to pull against too). We had a dry run with just the puller and my son on the end of it and locked it off with rope against a tree and it def. made things easier, but I also realised that the limitation was in how much we could manually pull the fence puller and how close I could get a tree and how tight I could lock off a rope. Thus, I now have a portable set-up and it should all be strong enough - I didn't want something that was suddenly going to go twang! Thus, I now have a set-up which runs - fence puller along length of stock fence. The Brothers on each end (effectively top and bottom of the puller). A free swinging link running along the length of the chain to keep the tension centred, then connecting to the winch and the land anchor behind the winch to provide the portable solid surface to pull against. So it will be bash in all the posts and run out the stock fence. Cut it to the approx. right length then attach the 'engineering solution'. Heave with the winch and stand the fence up along the posts - then put in the staples and it should work without pulling out any of the individual posts because you won't have to tension specifically against any of them, which is what currently happens. In theory (once the posts are up) it even becomes a one person job. Or at least that's the cunning plan Baldrick! If anyone doubts that it sounds workable or there is anything else to consider please let me know. I know lots of you are engineering types as you build all sorts of astro things like observatories. I can't design and build a electronic observatory, but I reckon I might have found an easier solution to putting up stock fence. I developed the idea from some youtube videos and it's kind of a cross over between them.

It's been an interesting day in the post today - no astro stuff unfortunately, but such an interesting collection of items I feel the need to share regardless - if you read my other postings elsewhere on the forum you might be able to guess the projects these are for: A 2 tonne manual winch 10 litres of Vingar 12 x 5mm D Rings A bicycle maintenance stand 10Kg Bicarbonate of soda Oh, and my bro's made me a land anchor!

It's just a thought, but is there any difference in the programming of goto units sold into the southern hemisphere and could you have got hold of a Northern hemisphere one? I don't know if two different models exist, but someone here might. Mind you I tried mine last night. Whilst it got close it wasn't close enough to put objects straight into a low mag EP and that was with the wifi dongle being used.

Phew! At least someone suffers from my same issue - it isn't just me! Callibration = alignment = the star set-up - 2 star, 1 star, brightest star etc. In fact have a play with brightest star I find that's pretty useful. Celestial North - I haven't the foggiest whether that's also called true north, but it's the direction you would be in if you pointed at the Pole star and laid the telescope vertically down to the horizontal position Leading zeros - on the Lat and Long settings - if you are say 4" 3' 1 you might need to enter 004" 03' 01 As you are somewhere interesting you will need to experiment or read the manual or ask someone else which direction you need to start of facing in, North or South, but although it's buried in the text my instructions do say start by facing North. You already seem to understand this as you note that you are starting celestial south. If it's not working do you have a way of fathoming celestial North to experiment with? I am talking about the arrow keys on the hand controller, apparently the encoders are clever enough to take a manual push, but I think it seems to have a bit more finesse to use the arrows to finish and then you can do the final click that you describe. In fact I have since discovered, if I remember to use them, that the movement arrows are really handy for keeping objects central if I am not using the full tracking options. Another thing that I've noticed is if I am giving it a manual shunt it is all too easy to push and move the whole mount on the ground and not just the rotating part - this obviously throws off any alignment that you are doing. Recently I've tried doing all the calibration movement with the arrow keys even thought let it move by itself tries my patience - I haven't fathomed how to change the speed. My most recent acquisition is the WiFi Dongle controller for the mount which uses a mobile phone connection and this makes controlling the telescope much easier than the handset IMO, but you do need a WiFi link or MiFi dongle to hook it up to.

Ooops, I hadn't noticed this bit^^^^ the OP is in Australia - I don't know then if it starts facing North or South, but if things are exactly 180 degrees out of true maybe start facing the other way?????? the other stuff I wrote is probably all OK though.

I have the same set-up as you (except for an 8" scope). You won't do better than sysnscan init 2 - it's usually what I suggest to folks. Do not forget the leading zeros, correct East or West and to do the date in the 'American' format as shown on the app. Buried deep in the instruction book on a Skywatcher Dob. it does say about starting facing North and in the horizontal position. My Dob has a scale on the side so I can do the horizontal bit. To sort out Celestial North which is what you need I attempt to find the pole star using the mobile phone version of Stellarium and the plough (big dipper), then I drop the scope straight down to the horizontal and turn on the computer. Despite doing this I am familiar with what you describe. What I have found is the driven goto mount is very balance sensitive. It is well worth doing the calibration just as the scope was sold to you. No dew shields/heaters, no heavy EP's, no additional finder scopes, even down to using the 25mm and 10mm that the scope was sent to you with - this is worth bearing in mind as you 'drive' to targets - don't do it with heavy EP's installed and on level ground. I also find it seems to help to use the arrow keys on the box to make the final adjustments to get the star central and to finish with a movement upwards - daft as it sounds. When it works it is fabulous, but I continue to find it the most frustrating thing when it doesn't and even after two years ownership I still have as many bad nights as good, though it has to be said I am an infrequent user of the system so 2 years is not so many uses. HTH

Celestron themselves state a maximum useful magnification on this page https://www.celestron.com/products/nexstar-8se-computerized-telescope they guess at around 480x and that will be under perfect conditions, no thermals, no gunge in the atmosphere, no light pollution. It looks like an F10 scope, my F6 is also 8" it will make a bit of a difference, but I can't get a better view of jupiter at more than about 150x magnification, i.e. with about an 8mm in the EP, if I move to 240x - with a really decent 5mm it actually struggles to make the view better if conditions aren't good. Your computer generated images above suggest magnifications of x677 and x1693 - My scope is a different design to yours, and I am only a novice, but I think if you believe you will get the 'Hubble' type images of Jupiter suggested by your pictures above, with a x5 Barlow then I think you will be incredibly disappointed, no matter what you have paid for it. I'd suggest viewing it at about 200x (10mm) on a good night and spending a long time at the EP for the best views. FWIW I think SGL often quote a rough rule of thumb for maximum possible usable mag. under optimum conditions and that is 2x apperture. Your apperture is 203mm, so that would make the max. usable mag, about 406x - which isn't far from Celestron's own estimate of 480x. To get 480x with a 2032mm scope, would mean nothing more powerful than 4mm formed with or without a x5 Barlow, i.e a 4mm EP without a x5 Barlow or a 20mm and a x5 Barlow, but unless you live somewhere with exceptional viewing conditions, I reckon 480x is still around twice what might be usable, based on what I know I can see. If you haven't already done so check out the first page of this thread and even if you don't read it, scroll down and look at the pictures at the bottom You might wish to rejig your expectations.