Captain Scarlet

Thanks. No primary collimating holes for my 603. I would also assume @Sunshine’s analysis, but I vaguely recall reading that on some Russian scopes the adjusting screws are the tiny ones and the locking ones the big ones, but I can’t find where I read that!

I recently acquired an Intes M603 Rumak Mak Cass. I used it a couple of days ago to luckily catch Mercury as a half-disc. However, it does appear to need collimating, it has an SCT-style collimatable secondary, being a Rumak. As you can see from the attached pic, there are three pairs of screw-heads plus a central one. Before I resort to trial-and-error, does anyone have experience of these and if so, can tell me what screw does what? @dweller25 perhaps ... I believe you have the M703? Cheers, Magnus

No filter, apart from a tree, but reasonably high magnification, 250x. As it got lower it got mushier and mushier, more atmosphere and more twigs I guess. The half disc was discernible early on, when twilight was still reasonably bright. I guess the fact it was against a bluish sky acted as a filter in its own right. My advice for say tomorrow would be to start as soon as the sun goes down... M

My understandings are: - “fast” or “slow” comes from daylight photography, and I always interpreted it as bigger aperture => “faster” shutter speed and vice versa. Never meant to be anything more than a colloquialism. - f-number is a useful ratio that in most cases can act as a simplified 2-D substitute for the “solid angle” ingredient of Étendue, which is actually solid angle x an area (either pixel area or optical aperture), and which also is a fundamental property of an optical system. - Signal to Noise Ratio is ultimately determined by Étendue x sqrt(exposure) time (I think) of the smallest-etendue portion of the optical train. - for a given aperture and a given object magnification at the eyepiece, a “faster” scope will show exactly the same level of brightness as a slow scope. It is “aperture” that determines object brightness for a given object magnification, not f-ratio. Happy to be corrected... Magnus

Bidding on that auction site need not be stressful at all. You simply and coldly decide well before the auction ends the maximum you’d be prepared to pay, and submit that whole amount, regardless of what level it’s got to, with around 5-10 seconds to go. You either win it or you don’t: it’s simply a test of people’s maximum levels, and the beauty is if you do win, you only pay the next-best person’s amount plus a bit. No self-respecting ebayer ever actually “bids”. cheers (go for it )Magnus

Reverting to OT... I spent some time this afternoon/evening playing with my Intes 6” Mak and its new addition, the Revelation Crayford on the back. I managed to get Mercury through it, finding it at 42x then moving up to 250x, definitely a half disc but I was having to look through a tree at the bottom of my garden so its quality came and went, mostly went. Still, the first time I’ve ever managed to get a scope on that planet so very well pleased! M

I think you shouldn’t have loosened that big nut inside the housing. The little thumbscrew yes, but that loose bolt may now be allowing things to move that are not supposed to. The axes do not have bearings as such, they have bushings, which means they seem a little less smooth in their motions than if they had roller bearings. i have this mount, I really like it, though I am visual not AP. Magnus

What you describe (multicoloured twinkling) is often ascribed to Sirius. Mercury at the moment is mag -1.0, very nearly the same mag as Sirius and very low down too. So yes it could well be in my inexperienced opinion. M

Cycling home from work this evening, admiring Venus over the Thames sunset vista, I suddenly remembered Mercury should be around too (1752). And so it was, quite distinct to the naked eye, and even visible in this iPhone picture, just above and to the right of the twin cranes. My annual February fix of Mercury-with-naked-eye <tick> .

... well it duly arrived today. On unpacking, the first impression was that it's heavier than I was expecting, in a good way. Finish feels good. It felt much more Steeltrak (I have 3, including an SCT-fit) than Skywatcher (I have 3 newt ones, including an upgraded PDS one). Its coarse-focus motion is just weighty enough, and the fine-focus feels just like the Steeltraks I have, very direct and "go-to and stop". So far I am very favourably inclined towards it, well worth the £86 + pp. As soon as I've had a chnace to use it "in the field", I'll post in the Scopes Whole Setups section. Cheers, Magnus

it's due for delivery today, I'll be able to let you know before long. I suspect it's simply a badged OVL/Skywatcher one, but even if so it's still a very good deal.

Not quite what DID the postman bring, but what I expect them to bring very shortly, a Revelation 2" Crayford SCT focuser to go with my newold Intes 603 Mak 150. I thought I might bring it up here early because it seems to be offered at something of a bargain, both from Bresser UK and Telescopehouse.com . It's on sale from those sellers at £90 including postage. Which I think is quite good brand new. https://www.bresseruk.com/revelation-2-sct-crayford-1-11-dual-speed-focuser.html I've ordered it because although the Intes optics are, so far as I can tell, good, the focuser is not good, though I do plan to make a project of it and disassemble and service it in due course. I'll update as soon as it arrives and later when I've had some use of it... Cheers, Magnus

+1 for the Concenter. I got infected with the "Concenter is absolutely essential" virus by @johninderby, and have myself infected two more people.

That lens come with its own tripod foot/ring I'm pretty sure

Hopefully somebody got some joy? I was cycling home from work through some very heavy rain, which then suddenly turned into clear sky towards the end of my ride. I did get to appreciate a beautiful sliver of Moon plus Earthshine so whoever did get a scope out would’ve been in luck!

New-ish, been around 2-3 years at a guess. If you zoom in to the photo, you can see the letters EQM-35 PRO on the control box. I have one, I really like it. It's essentially an EQ3-2 (scope payload capacity 4-5kg ish) with the 10kg scope payload capacity of an EQ5. The "M" stands for modular, as you can take it apart to act as a tracker-only for mounting a ball head and DSLR for example. Cheers, Magnus

look like an EQM-35 to me...

This chart plots the altitude of Jupiter at 2300 each night as seen from London. We just have to wait 2-3 years and it'll be superb again...

This it in action. I recently dropped my 6mm eyepiece onto paving, and slightly dented the filter ring so that filters obviously now won't fit. This tool doesn't seem to have a name as such, but could be described as a filter-ring repair tool, or perhaps a re-circulariser,or a dent-pusher-outer. You insert the round halves into the dented circle, and the threaded rod pushes the two halves apart. The other side has a larger diameter pair of curves. I haven't actually done it yet, just proved that it fits. Gently, gently and little by little I guess...

This just arrived. Anyone care to guess what it is? I certainly wouldn't have known had I not had a certain need and looked it up...

I can just about see from one of the pics they’re 8x32 7.5 degrees ... nice! At £300 retail they should be very good. i secured one of my pairs on the same auction site by accidentally searching for bionculars, and found a pair that had been posted with the same spelling mistake and got them for a total bargain. look forward to reading more about how they are... cheers, Magnus

I’m in the middle of this book. As you can see from the images below, it was published in 1969, and is essentially a history of astronomy from antiquity as chronicled in literature. It’s fascinating and hugely enjoyable. If this is your kind of thing I urge you to find a copy and read it. It seems A.J. Meadows was a well known academic astronomer of his day. I wonder if anyone here knew or met him? One thing I find especially interesting is reading stuff like this that was written in a different era: the common assumptions of life and “how things are”, in this case from 1969, compared to what we take for granted today. i hadn’t realized for example that early astronomers were astrologers too ... that’s what their patrons, wealthy nobility, wanted, paid and “kept” them for, thus much of their proper research was done under that guise. This is it:

The wide shot lovely and familiar, beautiful, so recognizable! Orion, Hyades, Pleiades, Auriga, really nice! M

8" Newt sits on its SkyTee2/Berlebach tripod as a decorative piece of furniture in the front room when not being used. 'Naked' 6" Mak shares a space in the shirt section of my wardrobe. EQM-35 mount lives on its Berlebach tripod folded up next to the wardrobe behind the door of my man-cave-spare-bedroom. 4" Frac lives in its large metal case next to my other 6" Mak in its case, eyepiece case, various astro-bit carry-bags and other photo-lenses all piled up in a corner of same man-cave-spare-bedroom. This last arrangement is the only thing that GCHQ disapproves of, even though it's my man-cave.

If I'd had more fortitude it could've been 5 in a row, Monday and Tuesday were clear too! Last night I strolled outside with my 8x56 bins and got some consolation just before bed by quickly scooting through the Beehive, a failed attempt at M41 just 4 degrees S of Sirius, the Alpha Perseii Cluster, the small cluster around Meissa, the Pleiades, and Orion's belt-and-sword.