Geoff Lister

This is what I use. I use an infra-red mini zapper to take a series of stills. This avoids the mount vibration that would occur if you pressed the normal shutter release button. I then transfer the stills to my PC and use the "Registax" stacking software to generate a final image. Geoff

I have used mine for viewing the main planets (super for the Moon, Venus, Jupiter & Saturn; Uranus is a definite blue-green sphere, and Neptune looks like a wide star). The Mak design has the focal range to take almost any camera, so a modified webcam is fine for the planets out to Saturn. The aperture is fine for most of the Messier objects, given clear skies and low light pollution. My Nikon D3200 and GP-CAM work well on the Az/Alt mount with exposures of up to 15 seconds. This is an idea of the setup with the Philips SPC 900 webcam, replacing the eyepiece, feeding an adjacent laptop. The red wine is optional ?. Geoff

I liked my Skymax 127 with Synscan so much that I bought a second one to take to my holiday home in France. The 127mm Mak. is built like the proverbial brick outhouse, and neither of mine have needed any collimation adjustment. I have a 10" collapsible Dob, and there is no way that it will fit in my Mazda MX5 roadster - no problem with the Skymax setup. This is my transportable configuration With 2 sets of batteries, and a couple of eyepieces, the whole lot weighs under 11kg. Geoff

The 6SE manual indicates that even the batteries are not supplied, and everything else is "optional".

I use a short section of A4 spine binder strip glued to each of my mounts. It holds the cable very well. My various power supplies Most of the time, I tend to use the plug-top supply, at the end of a mains extension lead, with the socket and supply in an old shoe box to keep off dew. I also did some current measurements for my various mounts Geoff

As I see it, this would be equivalent to observing from the equator. I'd be interested to know if it works for you. Geoff

My magnetic-base spirit level sits nicely on the top of the OTA's main tube.

I tend to use the Synscan's "Brightest Stars" 2-star alignment. The first star requires a manual slew to a location shown on the handset, but the handset does not show any indication of mount movement whilst this is happening. I always try to start with the mount & OTA horizontal & pointing roughly North. I set the target altitude, using the mount's scale, and then, standing behind the OTA, slew in azimuth until the OTA looks as though it is pointing at the target. This usually gets the target star in the finder, and sometimes in the FOV of my 32mm Plossl. The second star is an automatic slew. I was fed up with the handset suggesting a second star, behind a fence, tree or house. So, I spent some time with Stellarium, and produced a table of 14 of the brightest stars visible from my patio, at various times in the year. I then used Stellarium with the time and date for dusk in the middle of each month of the year, and noted the direction (N, NW, W etc.) and the altitude, of 3, 4, or 5 of those stars to give me roughly 90 degrees azimuth and 30-ish degrees altitude difference, to give me good GoTo alignment. I repeated the process for 1 hour before dawn, in case I am up for an early session. Vega, Altair & Arcturus feature strongly, as a first star in my table, each for about 6 (but often different) months of the year. The "Brightest Star" alignment will also work well as a Planet + 2-star, particularly at early dusk. As long as you can see the planet with the naked eye, (Jupiter earlier in the year, and now Mars) for the manual slew, the mount will perform the other 2 slews automatically and these stars should then be visible in the finder-scope or EP. So you can complete the alignment and let the mount track, whilst you go in for tea, and wait for it to get "properly" dark. I found that the main OTA tube deflected the compass needle more than the Az & Alt motor boxes. On my 250PX, I added a little shelf on the outside of the upright, on the other side from the Alt box, and a couple of inches up from the base. I tend to North-align the mount before attaching the OTA. Geoff

These are the additions that I made to my Heritage 130P Dobsonian mount. For the altitude scale, I used a steel tape measure to work out the curved length of a 90 degree rotation, then used MS Paint to generate a graduated scale, and then adjusted the printer scaling to get the required length on my laser printer. A bit of glue and a coat of varnish gave me a scale. This is my scale, and any SGL members are very welcome to copy and paste, to save re-inventing the wheel. For azimuth, I bought a magnetic compass that had a diameter about the same as the inside of a toilet roll cardboard tube, cut the tube, and added a second layer - to give a snug fit on the compass; and with a bit of PVA wood glue, stiffened the cardboard and stuck it to the mount. With the telescope aligned on Polaris, I rotate the compass body to read North, (so removing the error between magnetic an celestial North), and then leave the compass untouched for the rest of the session. To point towards the azimuth angle of an object, I rotate the mount until the compass needle is pointing at (360 - [the desired angle]), so West reads 90, South is unchanged at 180 & East is 270 degrees. This saves producing a large printed scale to go round the base. Geoff

Your plan looks good. It will be interesting to see, with your Virtuoso mount, if button 5 has any effect at power-up. I tried some other variations of experiments, not listed above, and my button 5 had no effect at power-up. Last night's sky was very clear, with no Moon, so my 10" Dob. had priority over further Virtuoso experiments. Geoff

Mine's almost the same; identical graphics and text; except mine is page 11 instead of 9. Geoff

UPDATE - I am convinced that, as this feature is not mentioned in the Virtuoso manuals currently available on the Skywatcher web site, the software does not now support this feature. The details below show how I have come to this conclusion; but am I missing something? I have made up a simple wedge with 3 pieces of chip-board. the long bit forms a base, with 3 rubber feet, the second is a plate, angled at 38.6 degrees (my garden is 51.4 degrees N), and the third supports the wedge angle. I have added some little blocks to the wedge, to act as supports for the Virtuoso's feet, and a central hole to take a 1/4" - 20 UNC bolt and 3/8" male to 1/4" female adaptor. The base has a bubble level and holder for a round magnetic compass. Now my problem:- Steps 1 & 2:- are sorted with my wedge. Step 3:- I normally use the mount in its Az/Alt mode, so it is already set up for my location. Now this is where the problems start. Page 8 of the manual states "Aim the main tube at true North and let the altitude scale read local latitude. Power on, or restart power". When on the wedge, true North is at 90 deg. on the Alt scale, not at my local latitude of 51.4 deg., so which is correct for EQ mode? Step 4:- After holding down "5", turning ON power, and releasing "5" shortly afterwards, the mount emits its normal <beep> <beep> and double flash about every 2.5 seconds. There is no indication of a different tracking mode. EXPERIMENTS Baseline 1:- normal Az/Alt operation (tracking ON) with OTA left pointing at NCP (no tracking movement required in either axis). Plug-top mains to 12V, 2A, supply in a plug-in power meter gives a reading of 0.8 to 0.9W (reading is 0.1W when mount is turned off). Baseline 2:- normal Az/Alt operation with OTA pointing at NCP at start-up, and then Az axis rotated to point East. Alt axis moves up and Alt rotates towards South. Power input varies between 1.5 and 2.9W. Experiment 1:- Still as Az/Alt, as Baseline 2 with OTA pointing at NCP, press "5", power up, release "5", and then rotate Az axis to point East. Both axes movement and power consumption similar to Baseline 2. Conclusion:- holding "5" pressed at power-up has no effect on subsequent operation. Just as a final sanity check, fix Virtuoso mount onto NCP-aligned wedge. Experiment 2:- Set Alt scale to local latitude (51.4 deg.) with base N-S line facing North - South, press "5", power up, release "5". OTA is facing North about 38 deg. below NCP. No movement in either axis, and power remains 0.8 to 0.9W. Conclusion:- had this been the correct setting for EQ operation, I would have expected the Az axis to rotate and the OTA to describe an obvious arc centred on the NCP. Experiment 3:- Set Alt scale to 90 deg. with base N-S line facing North - South, (OTA on NCP) press "5", power up, release "5". No movement in either axis, and power remains 0.8 to 0.9W. Conclusion:- no better than Experiment 2. I can only conclude that the version of software present in my mount does NOT read the state of the "5" button at power-up, and if pressed, go into an EQ mode. However, I think I have found a solution, to get EQ tracking. At the North Pole, an Az/Alt mount and an EQ mount have the same orientation, and if I store the latitude constant at 90 deg., and then power-up with the Alt scale at 90 deg., tracking should only require movement in the Az axis. Clearly, if I do this at 51.4 deg. North, with a level mount, tracking will be useless; but if I fit it on a polar-aligned wedge, it should be OK. Experiment 4:- Virtuoso mount Az/Alt levelled (including OTA) and aligned N-S. Power-up and raise Alt to 90 deg. Press "2" & "3" simultaneously, accompanied by rapid flashing of keypad lights. Power-down. Mount is now set for Az/Alt tracking at North Pole. Fit Virtuoso mount to (roughly) polar-aligned wedge. Power-up and set Alt scale to about 45 degrees and Az towards East. Power input 1.4 to 1.8W. After several hours, Alt scale reading unchanged and Az rotated towards South. Success! As a final check, fitted OTA from Celestron Travelscope 70mm F400mm + solar filter, moved kit to garden, and after rough alignment, rotated Az/Alt (= Dec/RA) to track Sun. Conclusion:- tracking reasonable, but will need more accurate night-time test. I would be interested to know if any other members have tried this. Geoff

Probably wise, particularly as most PCs do not have a native serial port, so requiring a USB to serial converter dongle; some of which are not compatible with Skywatcher's software. Geoff

There is no such thing as a silly question on this forum. Mine came with the (latest at the time of manufacture) firmware installed. I have not touched the V3 firmware in my Skymax's handset or in the Skyliner's. I believe that the V4-standard handset was introduced because some of the components in the V3 had become obsolete, and the V4 software introduced a couple of extra bells and whistles; but no major bug fixes were required. Geoff

As far as I understand it, the handset does not need to give you the co-ordinates of the first star, it is more of a convenience. As I mentioned, above, I use it to set up the approximate altitude angle, before slewing in azimuth. It's one thing to see a star with the naked eye, but it is more challenging to get it in the field of view of the finder/eyepiece. I too wondered about the need for a different program for the southern hemisphere, but, if I fixed on Jupiter, close to my southern horizon, and travelled due South past the equator, Jupiter would be higher, but everything else would be the same. Geoff

Hello Peter, To get the best alignment an tracking, it is best to try to get the mount level. This removes azimuth errors from the altitude axis, and vice versa. The "start facing North" is not so important; a level mount will have sorted this out as soon as you have centred your first star. Do not get concerned about the differences between celestial and compass North. As you select the first star, Synscan will request that you slew to an azimuth angle and altitude angle. I usually first raise the tube to the desired altitude angle using the scale on the mount, then slew in azimuth, standing behind the tube and lining it up roughly, by eye, with the target star. This usually places the target star in the field of view of the finder scope. Pressing "enter" reduces the slew rate from a maximum "9" to a more modest "4" so that you can centre in the finder and then in the eyepiece (and as you mention in '4', try to make the last movement up and right, to eliminate backlash in the drive gears). The next "enter" locks that reading. Now, this is where the level mount scores. When you select the second star, the mount will perform an automatic slew to where it calculates the star should be. With a level mount, that calculation will be more accurate; placing the star nearer the centre of your finder. In your '1', the longitude display requires 3 digits for the degrees, on my case "002", not just "2". The latitude degrees, and both of the minutes require 2 characters each. In your '3', I think that JOC is mentioning that, to be able to use manual handling as well as motor/button movements, the clutch grip has to be light. I found that with a Barlow + binoviewer + 2 eyepieces, the altitude drive was slipping, and I had to add a compensating weight at the primary mirror end of the tube. Geoff

If you dig down deep enough, you should come to the underside of the OP's mount ⛏️ . The Virtuoso 90's Dob. mount (tracking, but not GoTo) uses the NCP as part of its start-up sequence, and reverses the initial setup and subsequent start-up sequences if in the southern hemisphere. However, Synscan uses the northern horizon, and not the NCP. This is independent of the latitude (except at the North Pole - ambient temperatures probably below operating range of mount), so even at the South Pole (again thermal constraints) there is a northern horizon for the encoder(s) zero datum settings. The GoTo and tracking calculations should then only need date, time, longitude and latitude to do the sums. With Synscan, once you have entered the longitude and latitude, the handset stores it in non-volatile memory. It also remembers the date that was last entered (USA format). It is very easy, as you keep pressing "enter" as you step through all the items that you don't need to change, to forget to change the time from the start-up default of 20:00:00. Geoff

I've got the 10" truss-tube version, with Synscan, and find the setup very easy and accurate. My UK garden is located about 51.5 degrees North of the equator. I have added a bubble level to the base, and use a small wedge, under one of the feet, to get the base level, and a hiking compass to start with the OTA facing magnetic north, and the altitude scale at zero. At the end of a session, I usually use the "PARK", Home" option in the Utilities menu, and the OTA ends up pointing roughly where I started from. I use the "Brightest Star" 2-star alignment, and have produced a table of 17 brightest stars visible from my garden, and within that table, highlighted 3, 4, or 5 of them, visible at dusk, for the middle of each month of the year, together with their rough direction and altitude, attempting to get a good pair with close to a 90 degree azimuth and 30 degree altitude separation. This gives the Synscan software the best chance of eliminating the remaining errors in my mount levelling. For the last month, or so, I have been using a manual slew to Jupiter, and then let the mount move to Arcturus (1st star), then Altair (2nd star). This gives me almost spot-on GoTo. At power-up, the Synscan software sets the mount and motor encoder stored values to zero, and this, at least in the northern hemisphere, equates to level and North. All changes from this position rely on the mount counting clockwise or anticlockwise pulses as the motor/mount turns. I cannot see a problem with this also being true if based south of the equator. Your manual latitude and longitude inputs will have informed the Synscan software that you are in the southern hemisphere, so it should be able to calculate your local Az/Alt co-ordinates of a chosen alignment target, and, once aligned, the correct GoTo and tracking drive to the motors. If you have a PC, I would suggest you download the free "Stellarium" planetarium program. I ran it for Sydney, Australia, and at dusk, a Brightest Star alignment starting with Jupiter (high-ish west), Arcturus ( lower north-west), and finally Rigil Kentaurus (higher south-west); should get good alignment. I hope that this helps. Geoff

I fitted the same Lacerta retro-fit unit to my 10" Dob. It was easy to change and makes focus much easier at higher magnifications. Geoff

The Moon is currently sitting between Mars & Saturn, and at around 80%, Magnitude -11, so should get those cones active; and the DSO enthusiasts will have probably gone home. I also like to view the planets using my binoviewer; my brain prefers similar information in both eyes, and it reduces the effects of "floaters" at the higher magnifications. Geoff

Several of my Skywatcher items were shipped directly by Optical Vision Ltd. I believe that they are the main (only?) authorised UK importer. I have not had any problems with my Skywatcher or Celestron 'scopes, so I do not have any after-sales experience. Geoff

The composite photo, below, shows how much they have in common. and a range of interchangeable mounts and OTAs Geoff

I made a small adaptor so that I can use my Virtuoso mount on my Skymax's tripod. I screwed a "Terry" clip to the side of the Virtuoso mount, to keep the adaptor handy.

Yes, mine does too. My Virtuoso mount has a female 3/8" - 16 UNC tripod thread, but most of my photographic tripods (cameras and dovetail bars) use 1/4" - 20 UNC. A quick web search indicates that the Star Adventurer wedge seems to have a 3/8" female thread on the tripod end, but I could not find thread details for the male, camera/OTA, end. Geoff

I have 3 versions of the manual, 2 PDFs downloaded about a year ago, and the paper version supplied with my 'scope. Each is different. My paper version "Instruction Manual MiniDob Mount" has the cover sheet and then internal pages labelled "1" to "16" + back sheet. One PDF, 7656KB, with front page title "Instruction Manual Skywatcher Virtuoso Multi-purpose Mount #S11750" seems to be aimed at the USA market, has an additional solar filter accessory, and a Celestron USA contact address; it has 13 pages. The other PDF, 368KB, same title as my paper version, but with different text, graphics and paragraph structure, and with front sheet, then pages labelled "1" to "10" (no back sheet). My paper copy, on page 11, has the following section entitled "Equatorial Tracking Mode for Celestial Body" 1. Attach the MiniDOB onto an elevation degree adjustable tripod according to the figure below:- (figure shows a tripod with an adjustable inclined plane) 2. Users in Northern Hemisphere aim the tripod at North (Users in Southern Hemisphere aim the tripod at South). Adjust the elevation angle and ensure it equals the local geographical latitude value. (No advice for those living on the equator). 3. Set the Latitude setting for the MiniDOB according to the 'Quick Guide' (pg 3). This is a bit confusing, as there is no 'Quick Guide' on page 3, but pages 1 & 2 have a 'Quick guide' for North and South hemispheres, respectively, and section 3 of each shows setting local latitude for N hemisphere and "0" for S hemisphere. 4. Press '5' first then 'turn on power', it should now be under the RA equatorial longitude tracking mode. I assume that, in stage 4, holding down button "5" at power-up, turns off the altitude axis tracking component. Worth a try at some point. Geoff