david_taurus83

It looks identical to my WO GT71. Rings, screws and grooves on the body are the same!

Should help with back garden imaging. Need to travel otherwise.

Good idea, thanks. I have a spare vixen dovetail so I could use that. Will have a play tonight indoors.

I thought the same or perhaps some observers may like to note the weather conditions in their notes. Anyway, it was bought primarily for compactness, weight, "windproof" imaging and nice round stars. The flattener and camera all screw onto the drawtube so it's a nice solid connection. The rack and pinion focuser is nice and smooth and focus doesn't appear to shift when the lock screw is tightened. I persevered last night and done some observing on Jupiter. It is a long way off from the light gathering abilities of the 200p, so I will still keep that for observing sessions. The WO gives crystal clear views and no sign of CA on Jupiter. I need to figure out how to balance it though as it's focuser heavy. Overall I'm well impressed with the build quality. Just need dark, moonless clear skies to go with it!!

They are indeed thermometers. They are for telling you the temperature lol

Postie brought me a nice box of tricks today:

I have the exact same one. Does it's job perfectly.

Hello and welcome. What exactly did you see then with those eyepiece's? Are you sure you were in focus? Have a look below at what you can expect to actually see through a telescope.

Postie hasn't been to see me. I'm still waiting?

USB supply is only 5v? Normal 12v dew strips at that length are the same price?

From past experience, from my younger car modifying days (think Nissan Skyline) I realised that GRP bumpers and body panels were of constant rubbish quality as no matter how good the original mould is, the fibreglass never retains its intended shape. Close, but never exact. I'd steer clear of fibreglass domes all day long. As bad as I am as a wood worker, id give a timber obsy a go if I could.

I've just got a Synscan Wifi adapter. Setting up last night was a breeze. Soooo much easier to use than the handset. No more walking around with the mount as it slews so the cable doesn't wrap around! Also purchased Sky Safari Pro on my Galaxy S7 and it worked seamlessly. Cracking little gadget.

You might be better off using Carte du Ciel as it works better. I have tried and failed to get StellariumScope working, mainly getting it to sync to the telescopes true pointing position. With CdC, I can either press sync or PlateSolve in APT and hit sync and it just works. I still use Stellarium *separately* to see what's available at the time.

I keep getting told that! I have an older blue 200P with the steel plate covering the bottom. I have drilled small holes in the plate to allow access to the locking screws and grub screws for collimation and covered the seams with black tape. But I take your point about light leak. Might need to look closely at the focuser as it doesn't hug the OTA, it sits flat. And I haven't covered the camera view finder either!

Interesting. Would it be worthwhile, if taking darks still attached to the telescope, to cover the scope cap with foil?

Hi. I fitted one of these to my EQ5 mount. Very easy. Probably only took me an hour or so whilst watching a you tube clip. If you search for "EQ5 Synscan upgrade" in Youtube then the top result should be by Luka Botic. I watched that a couple of times and tbh once you get started its pretty obvious of what to do. The only difference I found on my mount compared to the Vixen mount on the video was I faced the grub screws of the brass cogs into the mount but that's probably the slight design difference. You just need to make sure the flat faces (sides) of the cogs don't rub against each other and that only the teeth are in good contact with each other . The Goto function is superb. Polar alignment needs to be very accurate though. There is a polar align feature on the handset which is good but takes a little time to do adjustments. I eventually bought a Polemaster and after using that my Goto accuracy was bang on. Feels slightly ironic posting this as I've just sold my upgrade kit as I've bought an AZ EQ6!

Here's my setup in its most frequent observing spot. Been like this for 7 weeks now with a maybe an hour or 2 outside in between. ?

I bought a 600D off Juan with the Baader filter purely because I use the camera also during the daytime when out with the kids. Works great under daylight, not so great under artificial (nighttime) light as you start to get the red hue in your images. Also, works great on the telescope. Juan himself advised me, if it's only to be used for Astrophotography then the Baader filter is not worth the extra expense, in his opinion. ?

Got my modded Canon 600D on Thursday and couldnt wait to have a go. First ever AP picture. 6 30s shots and 5 darks stacked. Processed on Startools demo version so cant save. Had to screenshot so low quality pic attached. Not too bad I dont thing since the pictures were took about 5 metres from a streetlight. Was surprised how much the software can clean it up. RAW picture from the camera and then cleaned up.

The snow finally melted enough to let the postman in our road. Also a shiny new heavy duty steel tripod to mount it all. As has been said previously, It's been cloudy since!!