Jkulin

Hi Steve, If ever you are over my way, stop in for a coffee and you are welcome to have a play with it to see if it suits your needs. Yeah I know about the interior, it's fairly tough and once they had a seatbelt around them they didn't move around much ? Thanks for your kind words about Storm, one minute he was here with nothing visibly wrong and the next day a brain tumour and we had to say goodbye?, he was a legend, not once did he ever lift his leg against my pier, used to talk to us and tell us when he wanted something and especially told us when he didn't want to get off the settee or drop a rotten apple in the garden, raw is an understatement, so trying to keep my mind busy, AP has helped keep my mind occupied.

Owning two RC's certainly was more viable for my wallet that many of the high quality branded RC's out there, it will probably be a while before I use it as currently my targets needed a wider FOV, so I doubt it will be used until February. GSO have certainly been pushing their range for a number of years, I looked and searched on Astrobin as the quality and number of images taken with GSO RC's and it really was a considerable number, which influenced my buying decision.

Hi Graham, Just took a photo and I think my one does have the built in tilt plate: - Mine came with 2 x 1" Spacers and 1 x 2" Spacer, I reckon I should be able to achieve focus by removing the 1" Spacer and extending the focuser out by an additional 1/2" but won't know for sure when I will get some clear nights to play. Wishing you a Very Merry Clear Christmas.

Hi Graham, funny you should ask that, my mate came round to look at it this afternoon and he said was I aware that it had the built in tilt plate, which I thought was the collimation adjustments for the primary, then I remembered that the primary is fixed so accepted that it must be the built in tilt plate. When I get a chance I take some more images and post them up. It certainly is back heavy especially when I connect my camera and FW, but that should be easily resolved when I fit the 14" Losmandy rail and attached the clamp with the weights fitted to it, rather like my 8" Carbon RC: -

Thanks Bob, and a Very Happy Christmas to you as well. How are you getting on with the 120, hopefully good?

Thank-you Jeremy and the same to you and your family

I have been surprisingly impressed with my Carbon Tubed 8" F8 RC to convince me to start looking at the 10" Truss Model for deep sky. I originally wanted one of Peter Shah's 656imaging (http://656imaging.co.uk/) DK Scopes as they are a thing of beauty, but having recently bought the iOptron Mount, Moravian Camera, FW and OAG and the Chroma 3nm filters, the cupboard was almost bare. Well you can always find money when something comes up and in this instance the credit card took a partial bashing, Ian at Altair Astro sourced me one of the GSO OTA's re-badged as theirs. I have always found it a pleasure to deal with Ian, he's a small outfit that genuinely cares and I decided rather than risk the OTA getting bashed around with the Christmas couriers that I would take the 199 mile drive over to Ian's place, even though I knew that it is one of the worst drives for me, it's cross country and after Kettering is single garage way, 4 hours later I arrived at this delightful village in Aylsham, Near Norwich. When I arrived I was amazed how Ian managed to get so much stock into this little historic shop, it was crammed to the ceiling with products, Ian as always stopped everything he was doing and we finally got around to sorting the payment and the dilemma as to how we were going to get this massive box (85cmx50cmx50cm), into my 911, which I had purposely driven, as it's more economical than my other cars and through the winding lanes is a bit of fun. As a 2+2 is does have rear seats, which are OK if you are a child or as can be seen when I had my 2 boxers (Sadly Storm the bigun passed away last month and I'm still raw?) so I figured that I could put the OTA behind me and break the box down and use that for cushioning, Ian suggested that I take the OTA and all the bits that came with it and he would send the empty box to my home, I gratefully accepted Ian's suggestion, and I then pulled up outside his shop in a narrow high street, dropped the roof down and Ian very kindly lifted the new RC into the back of my car, as I am about to have major surgery on my spine and didn't want to cause more damage. Well now to the RC, technical specs are below, this is the MKII version and it is beautifully made, with rich carbon fibre construction and the attention to detail is truly awesome. Aperture (mm) 254 Aperture ratio (f/) 8 tube diameter (mm) 420 Tube weight (kg) 15,2 Tube construction Truss Tube Tube length (mm) 735 Tube material Carbon Type Reflector Coating multiple Resolving capacity 0,45 Type of build Ritchey-Chretien Focal length (mm) 2000 Limit value (mag) 13,8 Light gathering capacity 1320 Max. useful magnification 508 Reflector reflectivity 99 Secondary mirror diameter (mm) 112 Ventilation for central mirror yes Secondary mirror material Quartz Main mirror´s construction hyperbolic Primary mirror - Material Quartz Focuser Connection ( to eyepiece) 3 Type of build Monorail Gear reduction 1:10 Fine movement https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/gso-ritchey-chretien-rc-254-2000-carbon-ota/p,47237#tab_bar_1_select I had decided to go for the 10" 2000mm FL as I had an unused Astro Physics 0.67 Focal Reducer, that I could use to drop it down to 1340mm F5.3, and with my Moravian G2-8300 would give me 0.87arcsec/px rather than the 0.59arcsec/px. The focuser was the only weak spot with any of the GSO RC range of scopes, being a Crayford as well meant that I wanted to change it and rather than compromise, I went for the 3" Feathertouch R&P and added a Pegasus Motor Focuser as I am really impressed with the lads at Pegasus and Ian is the main UK stockist so I knew he would have one in stock. Ian also supplied a 14" Losmandy plate as I knew that the iOptron CEM60EC was quite critical with balancing and therefore if need be I would change the existing 10" one to the longer version and then I could slide a Losmandy clamp with extra weights on the front for balancing. Being a truss design, it came with a Shroud. There was also 3 fans behind the primary to extract air and reduce dew on the primary, supplied as well was a Kendrick style dew heater for the secondary, which fastened with a few dobs of silicone on to the rear mirror. now usually owners run the cables over the top of the vanes, but I had a better idea, that I intended to use and afterwards I saw that someone else had adopted this idea on here. I had purchased some very thin copper strip, which stuck really firmly on the side of the vanes, I soldered the leads from the dew heater at one end and secured the main feed to the other, then painted with blackboard paint and voila you can hardly see it. I then made up a Cat 5 cable to provide control and the power to the focuser, this focuser is brilliant and for under £100 is far cheaper than anything on the market and has a really tidy appearance rather than the ugly lakeside motors that I have on one of my other OTA's, no more untidy multiple cable to the motor and it kept everything so much simpler. I mounted the Pegasus UPB on the top as I figured rather than my usual trick of fitting extensions under the Losmandy and having everything concealed under there that it might cause greater top heaviness, which moved everything higher by 40mm. I tidied up all the cables, I need to tidy the power feed to the fans, but that isn't urgent and will be done waiting for the new Galaxy Season, I doubt if I will get to use it yet as there are too many nebula targets queuing up to image due to the terrible clear skies we have been having for the last 10 weeks...it might go on even further with the purchase of all this new kit...sorry ? All the best everyone and Have a Merry Christmas.

Yep just rotate the "Captains Wheel" and it will separate. Its not rocket science and really is very simple.

Thanks for sharing, what is the background thunder sounds, is that part of the Aurora?

Might be best if you save it as an .mp4 or .wmv file

This is mine now and its rock solid

Steve send @peter shah a message as he shoots widefield with a Sony and might be able to help you.

Steve, The back focus is the critical thing so 55mm from your CCD to the face plate of the Esprit field flattener, you will need that if you buy the scope. Remember to add extra for filters etc. You will need to see if any of the photographic retails make a Sony T2-Adapter, if not then you'll need to obtain a Sony>Nikon or Sony>Canon adapter and then you can use a proprietary T adapter to the Esprit, but watch your back focus as you really need to identify the CCD distances of your Sony. I had to to do similar for my Leica, with a Leica to Nikon and then a Nikon T-Adapter. Hope that helps?

Yep mine were a perfect fit, someone was selling a set of Williams ones on here, just remember to check whether the hole spacing is metric or imperial, the Williams was metric so I needed a metric spaced Losmandy bar. On the top I had a SW Guide Mount setup, but took it off as I had planned to use my Moravian OAG on all three setups, but may revert back and just use the OAG on the RC. I cannot for the life of me see why SW made such a poor setup, after all its fitted with a really good R&P focuser, quality optics but crap attachment to your mount.?

yep just nuts and bolts

Thanks Ray, Yes I removed my foot and used two willaims 101mm (i think) clamps to replace it on my Esprit 80 then used a Losmandy bar to mount my OTA, far better than to the original clamp. I just carefully unscrewed the rear and removed the nuts and bolts, then covered with tape so that it could be reversed.

I'd never had to collimate a scope before I got this and it was so easy, I coudln't believe what all the fuss was about. It could probably still do with a tweak, but I'm not that fussed.

For me collimation is so easy and no different to any other collimation as long as you take your time. I own a Howie Glatter and occasionally put it in and check and then I check on a star, here's mine that I checked in September, you just need to remember to slacken off the opposite collimation nuts before tightening on the opposite side and to do it with very tiny amounts like an 1/8th of a turn. I don't use mine for visual, just AP and I find it brilliant, mines the 8". There were as far as I can tell some inconsistencies with the quality of the GSO's some were exceptional and others not so, so make sure if you do buy one that you check it first and make sure it produces good quality stars. Hope that helps?

Indeed the faster a scope the more susceptible it is to the temperature. Only this week my mate Peter Shah sent me a curse as whilst he was chatting to me his F3.8 Newt had changed focus because the temp had changed marginally and he never checked his focus when he normally would. I set SGP to refocus every 1 degree of temperature change and it is really is surprising how much difference it makes. When you are ready the Lakeside worked out the best option for quality and price wise for autofocus and when you have used auto you will never go back to manual, it is just so accurate. When I get a new setup or change a piece of kit and have to manually focus I use a Bahtinov Mask to get it as good as I can, then let autofocus take over, amazing difference.

I think that is rather good and have a play, if you think a 1mm delrin will help then add it. Glad I can help but as I say it was down to the professor who helped me out when I was doing my calcs.

Is the reducer a flattener as well, as although I did use my 80 without a flattener whilst i was waiting for it to arrive, it was much better with one. I found F5 fast enough and didn't want the aggro of continually altering my focus.

Sorry never answered your question, I always get my knickers in a twist when working out which is male and which is female and will probably answer wrong, but I try to work on if it sticks out then its male and if something screws into it it's female, that's the best analogy I can work on lol, so to answer you question I think it's male ? With regards to accuracy it depends how critical you are, I have some tilt in my RC that is irritating me and I will fix, but I know it isn't down to my back focus causing odd shaped stars, it's just another thing that you can tick, as you know yourself when that rare night is so clear you can dance amongst the stars and then you process the images and instead of being Fred Astiare you were Noddy Holder! ?

I'm not the expert, but if I may quote from some sound advice from @RayD when I was sorting star shapes out with my Esprits: - Really sound advice from Ray that helped me immensely to get my stars in shape.

I use a IDAS P2 LP filter on the front of my FW when using LRGB and it only adds 0.7mm to the back focus, so give that a go.

Just catching up with the imaging section as have been snowed under and then this pops up, just simply amazing, I don't think I have ever seen an M31 as good or detailed as this and I have seen some pretty amazing M31's. Just superb!!!! Speechless.