lenscap

But, putting on my Sherlock Holmes hat, the latitude is set at about 54 degrees, which suggests the North of England? 🔍

Current listings at FLO; 200p EQ5 Pro Goto £779 Crayford £115 Power Tank £99 Total £993 I would ask for £700 , collected, including the stock eyepieces. Normally I think 70% of current price is a bit optimistic for 8 year-old kit even in vgc, but with most dealers short of stock it's a bit of a sellers market, and the 200p EQ5 Goto combo is very popular, so it should be ok. If it doesn't move quickly on SGL you could put it on UKABS as well, where there is more traffic. Good luck!

Steve, I don't have a CGEM so I will be happy to be corrected by someone who does, but my reading is that you cannot setup the mount (with the handset) to do an unattended flip while it is tracking. You have to press enter to cause the flip. I'm not an imager but I believe that you can configure some imaging apps to make the mount do an unattended flip if you wish. If you are visual observing do you really want it to flip automatically during tracking? I can see the observer, sitting on his chair, entranced by the view of Saturn's rings, when the mount suddenly flips without warning, with obvious consequences. 😀

I've noticed that a large proportion of For Sale posts don't quote an asking price (until reminded by a Mod). There will be a lyrical description of the kit, beautiful photos, a link to the manufacturer's data sheet, and no mention of a price ! The first thing I think of when considering a sale is "How much would I get for it ?", so it can't just be absent-mindedness. What's going on ? There must be some deep, psychological reason . 😀 - deep down, they really don't want to sell the gear. - mentioning money is just sooooh vulgar. - the seller doesn't want their partner to know how much it must have cost new. 😀 So what are the real reasons ? Let's have your thoughts.

Meridian " Disable - This is the default setting, which instructs the mount to always swing around to the other side of the pier as required to view objects on the opposite side of the Meridian. However once at the desired object, the mount will continue to track past the Meridian according the RA slew limits that have been set." RA Limits " Disable Limits – This disables any pre-defined values that have been entered and allows the mount to track the maximum amount pass the Meridian (ie. -20º on both sides)" The above 2 paragraphs from the manual tell me that with these settings, it will track an object an up to 20 degrees past the meridian without flipping, which it seems to be doing. Is it flipping automatically as expected during goto's ?

Yes. A Newtonian scope flips the view horizontally & vertically. By the way, this double flip is exactly the same as a 180 degree rotation, so when using a planetarium app on a phone I just rotate the phone in my hand (with the display orientation set to "fixed") to match either eyepiece or naked-eye view. This saves a lot of "flipping" & "unflipping". Hope your skies are clear as expected.

How many degrees is "way off"? A few degrees may be due to slight errors when setting the home position. Much more than that may be Settings errors. The longitude value for your location should be negative (West). Your time zone should be zero even though we are on daylight saving at the moment.

The jewelled handle ? https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/jewelled-handle/; Sunlight shining on the Jura mountains around Sinus Iridum. The first time I saw this it made my jaw drop. I thought there was a hole in the Moon! 😀

Hi Michael, I don't know your budget but you might be shocked by the cost of sizeable pieces of fabricated Stainless Steel or Aluminium. As said, Carbon Steel will be fine. If your fabricator works for the Marine or Oil industries he can suggest a suitably robust paint job. I would keep an open mind about the cross section of the column & see what's available. An offcut of 6" Sch 40 pipe would be good, or an equivalent rectangular hollow section as suggested. I would also consider using a piece of Rolled Steel Column, (like an RSJ but with a symetrical cross section ). Or you could use 2 pieces of back to back Channel section to give the same result. These last 2 options would allow you to run cables within the column, but still accessible from outside. A column made from rolled sections can easily be disguised with timber cladding. You could even pop a bird table on top to complete the camouflage. 😀 Good luck!

As johninderby says, Synta used the Helios brand for scopes before they thought of the Skywatcher moniker. Not exactly. Those Helios dobs are F/5 while current 200p skyliners are F/6 if that matters to you. Bear in mind ENS sell used gear & that scope is around 20 years old.

Measuring the seperation of TYC 3122-2059 and -0032 on my screen and assuming a sensor width of 35.8 mm gives a seperation of 26.85mm on the sensor. From Skysafari those stars are 757" apart in Dec & 158 seconds ( = 2370 arc sec) in RA, which gives an angular seperation of 2488 arc sec. F = 26.85 x 3600 x 57.3 / 2488 = 2226 mm Probably completely wrong though. 😀

Hi Wayneman, Looks like you need something like this https://www.beltingonline.com/24-tooth-delrin-500-0-5-mod-type-b-spur-gear-ds05-24b-6496?zenid=ugjfua4bhg01ld9qg7dt354025 Try googling " 24 tooth mod 0.5 nylon plastic spur gear " and see if you come up with a stockist in your area. Good luck.

" I have to admit, Mr Einstein, that finding a target with this instrument is very challenging. The setting circles on these modern telescopes are so small, they're just ornaments really." 😀

The weather forecast was poor when I looked out of the window at about 10:15pm BST, Tuesday hoping for a chance to see a few Perseids. Instead I saw repeated, bright flashes of light. I assumed a neighbour's floodlight was on the blink, but it was lightning. For the next 40 minutes I stood outside enjoying the best display of (mostly) sheet lightning that I have ever seen in the UK. Every few seconds there were multiple flashes from random directions covering all points of the compass, illuminating some cloud layers & backlighting others. It was completely silent; no thunder so a little bit spooky, like the opening scene from some dystopian sci-fi movie. There was no wind so the storm hardly moved at all. After a while 2 banks of cloud to my SW and NW started to produce brilliant forked lightning flashes; first one, then the other, like a choreographed firework display. Still silent so they must have been many miles distant although they seemed quite close. All the forks seemed to be within clouds, I saw no ground strikes. This perfectly matched the ancient idea of angry gods hurling lightning bolts across the heavens at each other. At 11pm I heard the first rattle of thunder, and rain drove me indoors but the lightning continued for at least another hour. Amazing! But what of the meteors? Well for most of the time there was 100% cloud cover, but from 10:20 to 10:30pm there was a 15 degree hole near the zenith and at about 10;25 a beautiful yellow Perseid fireball zoomed past Vega, heading South-West, as if fleeing from the storm. Fan-Tastic!

"Mr Einstein is such a charming man. He has assured me that our wonderful new telescope is not sagging, - it is conforming to the curvature of space-time." 😀

As Louis says, remove the cover plate and you will see 3 small Allen headed locking screws paired with 3 Phillips headed collimation adjusting screws. The mirrors on these old blue-tube Skywatchers were usually mounted on tiny rubber O-rings (not the springs used on current models) so only minute adjustments are possible and they hold their collimation very well. My old 200p pre-dates your scope and I only tweak the collimation every couple of years, just to keep my hand in. 😀 The critical focus distance for an F/5 scope is very short. Just applying pressure to the focus knob without apparent movement can be the difference between perfect focus and slightly off. It is best to test the focus on a high contrast target such as the lunar terminator or, in daylight, an electricity pylon. It can be difficult to judge whether a star is in perfect focus or not.

Hi Donna , and welcome to SGL. There is some info on repairing the focuser in this Cloudy Nights thread; https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/701178-repairing-edmund-astroscan-focuser/

My neighbour's tree, which always seems to move towards my intended target at 15 degrees per hour. 😀

Hi Ionlylookup, A new, manual EQ3-2/150p lists for about £320. I bought an old 8" scope on an EQ3-2, but with a poorer tripod than the tubular one in the pic, 3 years ago for just over £100. I got a bargain! The setup you are considering may be about 15 years old. If both axes move smoothly all the way round & the mirrors are not stained, (don't worry about dust) then there is probably plenty of life left in the kit and I would offer about £120. (Old EQ3-2's & 150p's are not hard to find) At that price if you decide you don't like EQ mounts or if, perish the thought , the astronomy bug doesn't bite you 😀 you can probably move it on without loss, to a beginner on a tight budget. BTW I think the "2/3 of new price" mentioned above can be a fair asking price when selling recent gear I think it would be rather generous when buying kit of this age. Good luck!

Hi Karan, The Celestron 20mm erecting eyepiece contains a set of prisms which rotate the view to allow terrestrial observing. This produces a very narrow apparent field of view (only about 30 degrees) and a rather dim image. Replacing it with an inexpensive generic Plossl will provide a much wider apparent field (about 52 degrees) and a noticeably brighter image. A 32 mm Plossl would also be very useful since it would provide the largest field of view available with a 1.25" eyepiece; very handy for larger DSO's.

If you are looking forward to observing Mars this autumn perhaps this ESA video of crater Korolev will whet your appetite. Apparently the sheet of water-ice is up to 1.8km thick! https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2020/07/Flight_over_Korolev_Crater_on_Mars

Hi Kapil, and welcome to SGL. I would avoid the Powerseeker. It achieves it's 1000mm FL, within a fairly short optical tube, because it has a corrector lens fitted in the focuser drawtube. This "Jones-Bird" design gets poor user reviews & can be more difficult to collimate than a classical Newtonian. I am not familiar with the "Star Tracker" brand which is not marketed in Europe. It may be OK - perhaps an SGL member from the sub-continent will come in with an opinion. Of the three, I would go for the Astromaster. My first scope was a smaller version of this model, and it has decent mirrors. Regarding accessories, a moon filter can useful in reducing the glare from a full moon in a larger scope. I don't think you need one for a 130mm aperture. I think a Barlow is useful when you only have a few eyepieces. If the Astromaster doesn't come with one perhaps you could ask your dealer to include, say, a GSO 2X Barlow to clinch the sale? Whatever you decide I hope you enjoy this wonderful hobby.

I know that forecasting the weather is difficult, but you'd expect it to get the phases of the Moon right. 😀

Hi Mark, Once you have Polar Aligned the mount by setting it to your local latitude & pointed the RA axis to the North, you should not move or rotate the tripod, and you should not rotate the mount-head on the tripod. The RA axis needs to stay pointed ( at least, approximately ) at the North Celestial Pole for the tracking to work properly. You can then point the scope at any target, anywhere in the sky by rotating the scope around the RA and Dec axes by the appropriate amount. For example to point at Saturn in the SE tonight you will need to rotate the scope until the counterweight bar points approximately NE then rotate it about the Dec axis to put Saturn in your finder. Then lock the clutches, centre it in the eyepiece and switch on the tracking. EQ mounts take a bit of getting used to, but you'll get the hang of it after a while. Clear skies!

Twelve 13 minute episodes available here; https://time.com/space-nasa-scott-kelly-mission/ Thanks for the heads-up, just started watching.