Sunshine

Welcome!

CPC1100

8” LX200

C8

C6

C4.5

150 SW Mak

Orion Eon 115

Starmasted 10” dob

Lunt 60TT

Coronado PST

TSA102

Astroscan

12” lightbridge

i know there are others going back 30 years but my memory fails me.

3 hours ago, timwetherell said:

Would have been fun! As it happens, I did once build a replacement for a historic telescope, the Oddie refractor that was destroyed in the Canberra bushfires back in 2005. The new one was a 9" f15 and whilst not a copy of the original, very much in that late 19th century style

Beautiful specimen! As for those rivets, you can say it is literally built like a tank.

This is a beautiful image, I aspire to achieve this when I’m ready for imaging this summer.

42 minutes ago, Paz said:

I got out for the first time in a while for a short look at the moon, through cloud, obviously. This was with the Stella Mira 125mm, 15mm SLVs, Binoviewers, a 2.6x gpc and T2 prism diagonal.

Whoa! this would be classified as a yard cannon!

Welcome!

On 14/03/2024 at 02:34, DirkSteele said:

Sometimes you want a really wide field of view. Sadly, the clouds only occasionally thinned out last night and the wind was pretty biting. Balance was a bit of an issue as well….

 

Still it was nice to take the baby out. Not seen starlight in quite a long time.

Which is the telescope side? 

12 hours ago, JeremyS said:

You worked in a telescope shop??? Sounds like a dream job. 

Yes I did, and I grew to despise the owner as he never cared a bit about people’s needs, he only ever cared about up selling and would make people feel cheap if they couldn’t afford the SCT or dob. We came to a loggerhead and I quit after two years. We had the 16” LX200 on display when it first released and the 7” meade frac right next to it, it made for an impressive showroom display.

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

Yes, the numerous times where I have seen reflector telescopes pointing at the ground still causes me to draw a sigh 😔. I can sort of understand why this happens though, due to the laymans assumption of what a telescope looks like.

That is one thing, and understandable, but when I worked in a telescope shop in my early twenties I recall the Discovery Channel Canada Walking into my store amd asking for an impressive looking telescope as a background prop for their daily science show. At the time we had a few Meade Starfinder EQ’s on the showroom floor and they really liked them, I sold them the 10” if I recall. A week later while watching the program  i noticed the front was pointing at the ground, right at the ground, the scope was between amd behind both hosts, it looked awful! this was a science program. You can bet I was on the phone the next day calling their offices, they didn’t see what the big deal was.

On 10/03/2024 at 08:35, badhex said:

they resort to using a telescope due to sensor interference.

Were the next words out of the spotters mouth…”captain! I have a visual on the craft, it seems to have it’s shields on, there’s a glowing blue and red halo aroud it” 😂

2 hours ago, JeremyS said:

You said a beautiful scope…..i was expecting at least an FS 128 or TSA 102!

How about now? 

18 minutes ago, tomato said:

You beat me to it Michael. I was about to ask where is the pinion for that rather impressive circular rack? Looks like a product of AI design software, got the flavour but no engineering principles evident.

Agreed, i didn’t think it was functional, i was also trying to figure out what made contact with those huge teeth on that half moon gear. Very pretty, though.

3 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Not imaging as such, as in making nice pictures. I carry out photometry on cataclysmic variable stars. So yes, it involves taking lots of images of the stars and extracting photometry from them. I collaborate with amateur and professional astronomers around the world in this endeavour.

Amazing!

While I was out observing last night my wife opened the back door and said excitedly “Eddie come look at this telescope on tv!” it turns out she started a new show on Netflix called Queen Charlotte, the costumes are stunning i should mention, but the telescope is beautiful. In the story the King of England is passionate about astronomy and he has a gorgeous observatory, the telescope is HUGE! and sits onna tripod and not a pier 😂 a massive wood tripod.

https://mangostone.org/the-kings-telescope

35 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Unexpected clear skies

Interesting, I had no idea you imaged.

Sublime images!

This is simply beautiful!

Never enough cluster images on forums, this one is wonderful.

Wonderful image!

Beautiful image!

😅 Don’t get too excited, my first DSO happens to be a hand held image with my iphone 11. As horrendous as it is, I actually found myself quite stoked, I really didn’t expect anything when I gave it a go but I see color! and I see myself wanting imaging equipment now, what have I done?  the unthinkable. 

Telescope- Celestron Starsense dob

Camera- not the right one

flats- 0

darks- not dark enough

whites- maybe

Stacks?- 1

exposure- 3 seconds 

7 minutes ago, Stu said:

Looks like a nice day for it! Hope you get some takers, and that they don’t just think you are quackers…..

So far there are far more geese than people where I parked my scope, and they don’t seem to give a quack about solar flares 🥲

Well, not the crowd I had expected.

Stunning!

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Is this yours? I’m surprised, I didn’t think you owned anything other than Tak’s.