Rusted

I don't have a lens ring, pin tool. So I used a small pair of screw adjusting, workshop dividers bridged between the holes. The Maier replacement ITF is well worth having judging by my secondhand PST's ITF. Though you must expect a bit of import duty and then VAT on top of literally everything. US retail price + postal charges + import duty + customs clearance charges x VAT at 20%[?] It is just possible "they" will rush through a trade agreement to get the economic world turning again, post 19. Though I wouldn't bet on it. Get your order in while you still can and be grateful when it arrives. Remember to maintain your social distancing from the postman.

Amazing!

Thanks Mark. The seeing went off and then came back again in the late afternoon. Quite pleased with the last few. The rare moments became the norm until the partial tree eclipse. ImPPG saved a lot of very iffy stills out of AS!2. I've never had much luck with ImPPG until recently. Perhaps it is becoming tamer with familiarity? I like the way it remembers the processing settings.

Thanks Mark, The only one worth a proper look IMO is at about 10 o'clock. [NE] It has change constantly as I captured videos at frequent intervals all day. The fleeting detail on the monitor has been exquisite. If only I could capture all those special moments and render them as images. Or even animations.

Later prom developments: 14:15 no Barlow. 14:28 2x WO Barlow.

Indeed Pete. I try to get it over with as quickly as possible. I'm relying on frequent practice to avoid climbing another steep learning curve. It shows in my results. As my seeing improves the surface ends up looking like the branches of trees visible under fluffy canopies. Presumably the branches are a magnetic phenomenon?

Thanks Geoff. I've ben playing with the image in the hope of more. But not yet. The seeing went off after that. Shame, because it was a fast changing prom. We've had several days of sunshine but with a chilly wind until today. Presently 51F at13:00. Expecting plunging temperatures after Sunday!

Hi, Really difficult to tease this small one out of the noise and glare. Fitted a 2x WO Barlow for more scale in 640x480. A touch of ImPPG and PhotoFiltre7 did the rest

If you were to place a carefully shaped block under the base it would save you a lot of problems. It would look like an original part as a matching extension of the MkIV's base flange [just thicker.] You could use laminated plywood until you feel the need to replace it with a lump of alloy. Unfortunately the MkIV balances on the wrong side of the PA altitude pivot bolts. The north side! So you have to think in terms of applying tension on the south side. Sadly there is no room nor useful anchor point on yours. Or apply compression [lift] on the north side. Compression is fiddly because of the lack of space. A vertical stud [screwed rod or all thread] somewhere under the worm housing would do it. Though you'd need a nut and a spanner [or wrench] because of all the weight falling on the lifting stud. I tried moving the balance point south with massive weights on the PA shaft. Not successfully! I'd suggest you remove both shafts and the Dec assembly while you play with adjustment ideas. It will avoid struggling and trapped fingers! Peter Drew must have come up with something clever for the MkIV's altitude adjustment by now.

Doc, Good job! I think you are going to hate yourself unless you intend to use your MkIV somewhere further south. Your polar altitude is way too low for Nottingham at 53N. Your lovely disks will get in the way if you try to increase the angle. I had to chain drill into a solid lump of steel for my mounting flange to take a big bite out of it to reach 55N. Your "get out clause" [in perfect hindsight] is to add a thick lump of metal to lift the MkIV base. Enough to allow the MkIV polar casting to clear your top disk. I used a turnbuckle to adjust polar altitude: Yachting stuff is pretty in stainless steel if you can find a small one. An exhaust clamp went around the PA casting for my top attachment point. Nice tripod BTW!

It was sunny all day here but with the telescope being buffeted by freezing 20 mph SE winds. About 16:00 I began to see some real detail popping out. So then I ruined it with my processing.

Lovely lot of detail!

Nicely captured filament!

Excellent! Very even brightness!

Thanks Geoff. The noise is from the sky conditions. I am using far more gain than usual in SharpCap. Normally Gain is set to Nil. 0. The prom at 4 o'clock is superb! Just like a flame. I just can't get a decent shot of it in this wind! Best I can do with cropping:

Wow! Excellent detail!

Thanks Pete. As the sun moves across the sky I should get progressively more shelter from the wind. Hopefully the sun will climb out of the misty stuff too. I wonder if anybody has ever loaded their telescope with weights to keep it still in the wind? Increase the moment until it exceeds the applied wind forces.

Milky sky, thin cloud and a nasty, cold, SE wind. I'm getting a misty kind of "background noise" on my prom images. Best so far: 40% of 2000 frames 640x480, SharpCap, AS!2, PhotoFiltre7, cropped and then enlarged. 160mm D-ERF, iStar 150/10 H-a, Beloptik KG3, Baader 35nm H-a, PST etalon, Lunt B1200S2 BF, ASI174MM.

Great start! Well done! As others have already said: Bung a captured video through AS!3 and you may be very surprised what you get! ImPPG is rather hard work for most beginners. I'm still struggling not to completely overcook the sharpening. Another tip: Don't have the Sharpen box ticked in AS!3. If you have the Sharpen box ticked ImPPG opens as an overblown mess! Ask me how I know this.

Thanks to all those who responded. It was a very small feature and low contrast. For H-a I was using my 6" f/10 iStar with PST mods. I didn't check for visibility in white light due to the cloud. Let's be very careful out there! 😷

Hi Mark, Thanks, I just noticed Gong Ha is well out of date. Could they have ceased work because of the virus? It has become very cloudy here now. So I can't have another look for the moment. Not far from the center of the disk [E-W] and bit north of the sun's equator but it was very small.

Good luck. I've spent the morning watching clouds. It seems to have cleared now I have stopped for lunch.

I just spotted [er-um-er] a small dark spot well onto the disk. The longer image is cropped from a larger one showing the limb to identify the spot's position.

Should've gone to SpecSavers? I needed glasses for decades to drive and see the sky. I couldn't read a clock on the office wall without my specs. There were only soft blobs up in the sky. After retirement my eyes relaxed to perfect, distance vision. Sheer luck, but it certainly stopped the moon being a "close double."

Can you explain what you meant by the above? Your post suggests that Dudley, as the vendor, suggested that you would NOT enjoy his products. Or did you mean, perhaps, that you should have bought a MkIV and didn't?