Rusted

Thanks. It is becoming the norm for rain when there's anything to see on the disk. I'm presently doing my Sorcerer's Apprentice impression carrying buckets of water down the ladder from my leaky dome.

Some good points made and precisely why I won't burn the plastic at the focus of one. Why does the Sale of Goods Act not apply? As in: "Not of merchantable quality..." Or has consumer law been diluted to cope with the massive influx of cheap, Chinese imports?

I own a 7" f/12. I know my place.

That's very generous of you! Form an orderly queue people. I was here first!

Heads up chaps! I just caught the last gasp of the sun and there's a vast disturbed area just came around the corner! It do be proper humongous! Here be dragons, I tell thee! Sorry about all the technical terms.

You teaser! And not even a 'snap?'

Hi, Incredibly complex spot through teasing cloud and incredibly mushy seeing conditions.

11 o' clock high. NE. Wind and cloud stopped play.

Absolutely amazing! How does Ewan do it? Which parts of Hastings are higher than Mauna Loa? NSO/GONG: Site - Mauna Loa

Really? I tried to use the TS GPCs with my TS binoviewer but they were undersized for 1.25" Presumably to allow them to be inserted deeper and more easily into assorted eyepiece sockets. As such it was impossible to safely support the binoviewers in the standard PST. So I drilled, tapped and added further thumbscrews to the PST socket without enjoying much greater success. Having soon modified my PST I had no further need of the PST body and its inadequate eyepiece socket. The TS star diagonals have compression bands and are thus quite capable of supporting a binoviewer.

Experiment to your heart's content. Failure is the quickest route to personal progress. Ask me how I know? There are as many opinions on what works as there are imagers. Endless practice is 90% of learning any new skill. The child prodigy rarely became sensationally good at anything after only a week of practice. Particularly in sky diving. Remember that there are no rules set in stone. But: Go easy on the sharpening in processing. I'd considerably reduce your percentage of stacked frames. Try 25%, or any other lower figure, just to see how it works for you. Generally speaking: The more frames you try to capture the greater the risk of movement and the tracking being off. Thermal agitation, clouds, wind on the telescope and even the sun itself all combine to cause sleepless nights. It greatly depends on the speed of your camera. The longer your capture takes the greater the risk of movement. The more frames you stack the more diluted your results are likely to be from poor to average frames. After trying everything in the way of different numbers I have settled on 75 stacked from 500 frames in AS!3. Followed by the gentlest massage in ImPPG. I quite often just Open in ImPPG and then Save the image using the default settings.

Nice! Lots of detail. It was just like being there.

Trying to hang a binoviewer off a standard PST eyepiece receptacle might lead to an expletive laden outburst. [Or words to that effect.] 😱 Let's be safe out there.

I use a steel rule as a screwdriver. Or any other piece of metal stiff enough for the job which can bridge between the slots. A coin would be too curved and might scratch the filter glass.

But if you want two refractors side by side you get this. I use a 4x3, yachting, block and tackle, attached to the zenith board, to lift the 7". The 7" is presently "resting" while I concentrate on H-alpha close-ups. Do not underestimate the difficulty of supporting so much weight and moment.

My 6" f/10 for H-a looks like this in my 10' dome.

Thanks Stu. With respect, I don't think you'll need a conventional focuser because the PST etalon is in a fixed position. A helical focuser will provide the necessary focusing beyond the etalon. I am assuming you are doing a PST mod?

6" f/8 mounted beside my 7" f/12. Currently using a dinky, little, 6" f/10 for Solar H-a.

Some do tinker. Others, like you, are productive and create beautiful engineering solutions. I just cobble and bumble and produce workable bodges from scrap.

Here are views of the PST ITF holding plate with new Maier filter in place. Only the glass filter is supplied. You have to re-use the housing.

My doctor warned me off to stay of the bortal at my age. Though I think the damage was already done. BTW: Nice repair! I read somewhere that Dulux matt black emulsion is good for dome interiors. I painted my bedroom with matt black emulsion when I was teenager. But that was before I went on the bortal.

I used to store an Aero Ektar 7" F2.5 lens in the bedroom until I discovered the real reason for my having two heads! Radiation from the glass? 😱 No, it was genetic. Mind you, they do say that two heads are better than one. Particularly if both are no longer working properly.

Good to know, but that filter is even worse than mine was! I used a pair of [screw adjusting] engineering dividers to unscrew the top plate. Screw adjusting means a perfect fit for maximum torque. It would be silly to invest heavily in new tools just for that job but cheaper tools are readily available these days.

It's getting worse! Not better.

I meant not ticking the sharpening box in AS!3.