The Sailor

I have four of those lights around my garden, I sorted it by building an observatory, nice and dark inside :)

Jim

Well done Ray, do watch it going over but only once I tried to get it with a handheld OTA, unworkable :(, maybe one day I will get round to just using the camera :). Thanks for showing.

Jim

Lovely one Isabelle, good to know you have got all working now. Yes you are right, there are times when the photograph does not do what you see justice :). I have to a degree given up on the photographic side because due to the summer nights, I could just about see any clusters the other night, it seemed as though the sun had not set :( . What I will do on those type of nights will be to concentrate on guiding and ensuring I am getting it right for good photos. Again well done and hope all will be well for you :).

Jim

Yes, England.

Jim

Ha ha, yes Islobelle I have to agree with that, we are at natures mercy. I must say though that the last few weeks have been wonderful, not for astronomy but for the garden and nature has shown how colourful it can be. Sitting outside in the evening waiting for darkness, the smell of the flowers and the songbirds singing make life wonderful.

Jim

Well done Isabelle, always a daunting task on the first foray. Had the same with my SCT, took over the kitchen, OTA on the cooker and me the other end leaning on the ironboard!!! Did make the mistake of asking my better half to help, disaster, so wore out the tiles walking back and forwrd for a couple of hours :D.

Still, your all done now and can get out there and hopefully better seeing :).

Jim

Well done neurostar, nice to get out for the first time and enjoy it. Don't worry about not knowing if you have the right object in your eyepiece, you will soon realise and learn where the main objects are. Regarding being on your own, see what clubs/societies are in your area, make contact and go on from there. After awhile you will soon realise that when you are with people you talk about the equipment you have and what you seen but when you are actually star gazing you tend to be on your own lost in the eyepiece oblivious to your sourroundings :).

Jim

Hello Theo, wall to wall cloud here so no solar watching today :(. I see there are five sunspot regions at the moment, 1224 looks nice and wide.

Jim

Well done Isabelle, nice... Have to say I am with you on this one, my eyesight is not the best now, wear contact lenses as a norm but still have to put specs on for reading an suchlike so when I am at the eyepiece they rest on my forehead. Since I am now using the refractor with a 2" eyepiece I can now see the "smudge" and they jump out at me, no colour but certainly some specks within :). But have to be honest with you, if I did not have the GoTo I would find it hard to find anything without starhopping, many is a time I have taken a wrong turn and had to backtrack but that is skywatching :).

Jim

Well done Colin, you have done the first one, next will be easier :)

Jim

Ray, I agree with you 100%, the time and effort of setting up is offset by the amount of targets at your fingertips. Having my own observatory is a blessing in that I walk in switch on and although I do a 3 star alignment no matter what I am ready to go in minutes to travel the skies knowing that what I want to see will be in my EP. The "club" I belong to are the opposite, they are people who arrive on a bicycle with a 1000 candlepower torch and love to shine it all over the place pointing out the constellations, and a club night is all about lectures on long gone peoples and blackholes!! I have been asked not to bring my GoTo gear to their nights out, probably makes them look bad :D. Anyway enough of this, you gear looks great, quite a big GoTo :D.

Jim

I have had the same problem with my refractor and the only way round it was to put a diagnol on to get the focus on the camera. With the SCT it is no problem, straight on, focus and shoot.

Jim

Ha ha, yes Isabelle you are so right. It looks like, with the wind and clouds at the moment, reorganising will be all I can do, oh and spend money :D.

Jim

Isabelle, I used to look at the night sky and think the same, insignificance, but now, well I just enjoy it knowing I can't do much about it :). Life is like that, it throws these things at you and make you think.

Jim

Ohhh revisits? Nooooo, am retired from that now, just gardening for me :), travelled most of the world, seen many places and met some wonderful people, happy memories :).

Jim

Nice one Isabelle, only ever made it to the outside myself, had far too many things to see to do a stopover, good you had a nice time :).

Jim

Good to see you back safe and well :)

Jim

Did wonder :D

Jim

Rich, As I read this you are saying that you Polar aligned at the bottom of the garden and them moved the telescope to the top of the garden. If that is so then you are not aligned, each time you move the mount it has to be realigned so if you aligned at the bottom of the garden that is where you will have to do your stargazing from. Once you have Polar aligned you will have to align at least three other stars to give a good fix, once that is achieved and you have everything correct you should be able to send your mount to any star you wish.

Jim

Jim

Opps, sorry Rich, that should read Meade LPI and it is attached to SW Startravel 80 on top of the SW Evostar 80. I have thought of using a finder as a guider but have discounted that at the moment. Have to say I do look at my complete system all the time and change it to see if I can get the best from it and only this week I done a complete change with how I operate. I might have to do a schematic of all this to ensure I know where it all is and what it does :).

Jim

Have to say I am suprised at the quality, much better than previous years, but... still some bad ones. As for Deadwood, did laugh but they were good... for once :).

As it's raining I am watching this fortified with a bottle of wine, well at SWMBO insistance, just to shut me up :D

Jim

Neil, this is a focusing problem rather than the camera settings. A question, when you focus with the camera can you go either side of the focus? Reason I ask, if I use my Canon with a diagonal I cannot focus but if I go straight without the diagonal I can get focus okay, just a thought. Another, do you have "Liveview" with your camera or is it just through the viewfinder?

Jim

Looking at the moon last night I would not have used a filter, actually very rare l do :) . I have to say that my OTA is only 80mm and the sharpness I seen took me aback hence my returning to it now and again. No photos taken last night but I understand where you are comming from with the camera. Neil, if you get a chance tonight maybe try it without the filter and see what happens :).

Jim

Neil, I did not like to say anything regarding that but yes I was showing it to my better half and did mention it was not as clear. Are you getting a sharp image through the eyepiece, if so, when you change over to your cam/camera, what are you seeing on your screen?

Jim

Nice one, did look at it a few times last night, really beautiful.

Jim