Captain Scarlet

“I damn well paid for them so I’m going to use them!” is their attitude. Such a shame. If you take that approach with extra fog lights on your boy-racer car the police stop you if it’s not actually foggy. A pity there’s no similar enforcement here. M

I have an M2, not the “c”. It came with a rather tall pillar which is what I “grab” when I want to take it out. It’s very good once the tripod head is levelled and the fore-and-aft balance of the scope is set. You can set the friction knobs to very light and the thing is as smooth as you like., responding to fingertip touch.

One of my favourite asterisms. I've added the Oyster Nebula to my observing list... M

Better on here than on Amazon I guess!

I really like it. As with any such alt-az, it’s very sensitive to the tripod head being level. If it is level, and the scope balanced, on light friction settings it just needs the lightest touch to move it to a new position and it stays there. Did you fit the guide handle or was that part of it?

Weds is looking good for me clouds-wise so thanks for this! M

Yes I had intended to inflict the double-double on them too, but it was at almost exactly the same altitude as Albireo and the back end of my newt would've struck the tripod. I need the AZ-EQ6 extension pillar: I've been meaning to get one for ages now. When I first saw them, the only (so far) objects that I myself have said, on my own, out loud, WOW! have been M13, M57 and the double-double.

Persuade her to lend you the money. You pay her back £300 pcm for 12 months. She makes a profit. You get your scope. Win-win. ☺️ M

Last Sunday my neighbours asked when was the best time to look at Mars? Which I interpreted as them having read about Mars' current close proximity, knowing I have telescope(s), and requesting a good look. Naturally I obliged, and suggested Tuesday evening, school night notwithstanding, as it was forecast clear. It was also due to be Moonless and clear, so I after finishing work I set up 2 scopes, my 12" on the big AZ-EQ6 and my little 6" Intes on the Stellarvue M2. I drew up a short list of other targets that might interest them aside from the Red Planet. They turned up, and we quickly turned to Mars. As I had expected, and although they didn't admit it, I suspect they were somewhat underwhelmed by the view. In my experience, it was a good view, seeing was quite good. Dark regions were easily on show, but I think they were expecting D Peach or Hubble. Oh well. This was exactly why I had other targets in mind. I directed them, naked eye to begin with, to the Andromeda Galaxy, then we turned to binoculars. They were more impressed by that. Next, and from their point of view this was the absolute star of the evening, was M13, the Great Hercules Cluster. They'd never heard of Globular Clusters, and I'd deliberately not told them what we were about to see. First, like M31, we just about were able to make it out naked eye, as a "something" brighter patch maybe not a star, 2/3rds the way between the two stars on the right of the keystone. Then we brought binoculars to bear, and they definitely saw it was not a star, but a circular graduated haze, more or less bracketed between a couple of brighter stars. Finally I let them look through the 12". They were absolutely blown away. It was so gratifying. Uranus came next, an obvious bluish disc. They liked that, too. Albireo, aka The Jewel of the Sky, was too high, I know from experience my 12" newt would've suffered "mount-strike", so I chose instead Almach which is better in two respects: its colours are deeper, and it's a true binary unlike Albireo. They loved the colours, and I never tire of Almach. Finally I put in my Panoptic 35 giving me 43x and 1.6 FoV, and we headed to The Pleiades. We first of all tried to discern as many stars as we could naked eye. Then through the eyepiece, they loved the field of super-bright stars and inky background, such fine jewels. So it was an unexpected neighbour-demanded observing session which I almost certainly would not have done without the prompting. It was interesting that Mars was the initial motivation but disappointed them, and that M13 was the real, er, star of the show: I always suspected it should be, as it's so unexpected. And we saw lots of meteors too, mostly funnily enough coming from the South West, not sure what xxx-ids they were. Cheers, Magnus

You can safely remove them, they are for a finder bracket, allowing the finder to be “above” the dovetail whichever side of a mount you set the scope.

I also very recently got around to comparing what I was supposed to be seeing (sky safari pro) with what I was actually looking at and was gratified to notice those moons too! Only a couple of weeks ago. So I can feel your joy! M

Fair enough re all those other types of targets. Regarding European really dark sites, there are not many easily accessible. I’ve based myself partly in extreme SW Ireland which is one of those places, and a big dob is on the wish list. I have a 12” but hanker for twice that. M

The trouble with very large aperture scopes is that the minimum magnification for a standard exit pupil gets too high, unless you go ridiculously fast. For example, 1000mm aperture f/3 with an exit pupil of 7mm implies minimum youthful magnification of 143x, and even higher if you’re older! That completely rules out extended nebulous objects which is what the large apertures are primarily aimed at. M

A few months ago I posted a big piece called "reverse engineering a skymax 180". Part of my purpose was to establish exactly what focal length the scope was operating at. I initially assumed one important parameter by making the assumption it was 2700mm with the supplied accessories (51mm visual back and 2" diagonal). What prompted me down that route was a similar experience to yours: it seemed to be giving me more magnification and less FoV that I was expecting. Over the next day or so I am about to update my post, having done the extra work to exactly pin down its focal lengths, and it turns out that with the supplied accessories my 2017 Skymax 180's focal length is actually 2883mm +/- 16mm. This explains the reduced FoV and increased mag. Cheers, Magnus

I often wonder how accurate the centre spots are, especially as they're often such a key part of collimation. For a big newtonian primary it must be quite difficult to establish precisely where it is (the true optical centre, not the centre of the "slab"). For a small secondary, as long as you're prepared to remove it, it should be fairly easy to find on a hobby-sized lathe.

Fascinating. My favourite part was "There is no surviving portrait of Robert Hooke, since it is thought to have been burned by his rival, Sir Isaac Newton"

I have a canon 24-70 2.8 L lens whose autofocus has stopped working. The front filter ring has a dent in it, though I have no idea how it happened, I have certainly never dropped it. I suspect the two problems though are not unrelated. thanks for the recommendation, I may get in touch with them... M

rather than type out a thousand words, I’ll attach a link to my own journey starting from the exact place you’ve started: http://www.slidingseat.net/stars/stars.html#startingout hopefully the site works ok on your browser, seems to like a computer rather than phone though... the he short answer though as alluded to by @Skipper Billy is dark skies, tracking if you can, and stacked multiple exposures. 3x45s worked for me cheers, Magnus

Nice. I had a very nice view of Uranus tonight with my own 12" newt, a startlingly obvious disc, but it didn't occur to me to look for moons. Last night I did look quite hard for Martian Moons but couldn't see anything despite looking up where they were supposed to be. Neptune's and Uranus' moons are next on my list now. Our Moon is getting less obtrusive over the next fortnight so with luck I'll get more clear nights. M

Yes it has been fixed for iOS, I regularly run Skysafari pro and the synscan apps together on one iphone to control my az-eq6-plus-wifi adapter, which i believe is the same protocol as the az-gti setup

Yes I've had that exact experience too. With my Skymax 127 I looked up to see how long I had before Saturn went behind the big Magnolia, and found it'd been behind it for a good few minutes!

As per @Andy0306 's suggestion, I've ordered a pair of these https://www.theheatcompany.com/en-gb/gloves/merino-liner?number=33022 . I'm also going to steal a pair of my wife's thin woolly mittens.

I've been commuting to work by bike since the late 1980s and it took me years to solve the what-gloves-for-70minutes-when-it's-cold-and-raining problem. My only truly miserable rides were that scenario. It turns out there is no such thing as a cycling glove that's waterproof. But eventually, only quite recently, I found a pair that is completely impervious to water even for a whole 20 mile cold wet ride, but they're not cycling gloves! They were Montane trekking gloves, layered pertex, and have made such a difference!

not too cold by temperature measure alone, but where I am there's no place with protection from a stiff cold NE wind: at 2-3 degrees with that wind I've been forced to abandon observing sessions fairly regularly due to numb fingers. Once I even had to contemplate leaving my whole rig outside overnight as I barely had the dexterity to undo the saddle-knobs to get my 12" off the mount.

Christ!!!! I think the Heat 3 Special Force should just about suffice 😳