Stu1smartcookie

3 hours ago, Ratlet said:

Is that a Sky T mount they're on?  Need to have a look at one.

Yea indeed … I have had three of these mounts , so I must like them . As you can see from the photo I have a modified Starsense unit occupying the top clamp . I can indeed put both scopes on the mount but prefer just the one . The frac is for deep sky and the cassegrain for the planets and the moon . I can recommend the mount . 

A couple of scopes … the first is a 6” Stellalyra CC from FLO … ideal for A bit  of Lunar and planetary . The second was a scope that “went on holiday “ from me to @Alan White and has now returned … welcome home , big red ! 

You will love the Starsense , I used the unit on my skytee mount last night and it worked faultlessly. . Congratulations on your purchase . 

I own the bresser Mak and it’s a very nice scope , but , being a Mak the corrector plate is a dew  magnet so get a dew shield , also the c6 will suffer from dew  as well . Although I kept the Mak I actually bought a stellalyra 6”classical cassegrain which I intend to use for planetary and Luna viewing . .. the advantage being , NO corrector plate  and so the scope is less likely to be affected by dew . 
 

1 hour ago, John said:

If my setup / take down times were more than a few minutes I doubt that I'd still be doing this hobby 🙄

i suppose the worst conditions apart from the obvious blankets of clouds are spells of showery weather . Panic stricken quick teardowns of equipment that took 30 minutes to set up ! Only for the rain to last 3 or 4 minutes . Almost makes one start to cry ! 

46 minutes ago, Mike Q said:

Its weird here.  The clouds roll in come November and stay with us pretty much all winter.  January and February can have clear nights and when they are its awesome, but since cold and I dont get along i am not out much.  So far it seems to me that our best month for observing is August.  When it cools off after dark the skies clear up.  Basically we get 3 months of good skies, 3 months of maybe skies and 6 months of crap lol

We say in the UK we have three months of winter and 9 months of bad weather 😂,which is a little unfair as we had a fantastic summer last year ... this year is more normal , cloud , wind , a bit of rain here and there . We take what we are given of course . But the good news is , the skies will slowly start to darken as from yesterday . 

On 18/06/2023 at 14:18, Mike Q said:

Sometimes I wonder why I decided to get into this hobby lol 

I think a lot of us can echo your sentiments , Mike . So many variables have to "line up " .. if its clear then the sky doens't get truly dark at this time of year  or its partly cloudy or rainy or too much wind . 

TBH unless its luna or planetary i tend to steer clear of setting up , in the height of summer . 

12 hours ago, Nik271 said:

The 3 days old Moon looks great tonight, just high enough to be still above the treeline for me at 10pm. The elusive Vallis Snellius is showing rather well as a sequence of indentations in a straight line going between the craters Snellius and Stevinus. 

Great Pic Nik , saw the moon last night and really wanted to view it through my scope , alas , living on a new development which isnt finished i refuse to put my scopes out the front of the house because its like the Sahara out there, so , no moon for me at least until i can view it from the back garden . 

Why not start with a Star Tracker ? Ioptron SkyGuider Pro or the Star Adventurer 2i ... these are both  in the region of £350 and if you already have a tripod you will be good to go . Its debatable which of the two trackers are best , personally i would lean towards the ioptron as it has a built in powercell . 

14 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

Nothing wrong with the arguments, disagreeing but its the deriding of this new sensation that can really make one wonder where some fellow astronomers come from !  I don't know what they think they are doing, gaining out of it ? Maybe change some minds ?

The "purists " ( not all of them) who are mainly into astrophotography scoff at the whole EAA idea . Maybe it twas ever thus , i can imagine when scopes started to be mass produced , "purists" dismissing them as "toys" . I do find an undercurrent of aloofness which tends to infiltrate the hobby . (personal opinion) . Strange really , after all , we are all in this hobby together , whatever equipment we use , whatever standard we are at ( i for one  still class myself as a beginner ) . Indeed this forum encourages newcomers to the hobby to ask a question without being derided and ridiculed  even if the question be a basic one . Surely we owe the same courtesy to a new product that brings another fascinating avenue to the many people who will be put off buying the larger variants due to cost . As the hobby evolves so does the equipment albeit at differing levels and quality .

18 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

My new AzGti mount and extension pillar arrived today very speedy delivery again @FLO.

A quick test in daylight, tested with a quick North level alignment which I always find the best, yes I know it's daylight but it was correct in goto to Venus and the moon and seems good. Maybe a little stiffness in RA but I'm going to leave as is for now and not tinker with it until its had a proper first test. It'll only be used in az mode as I said for visual, then lunar and planetary imaging so all good. Updated the firmware to 3.40 left hand as when I updated to 3.36 RA dual mode the ST80 didn't sit right with the vixen clamp knob obstructed.

Going to figure out a way of making it a dual setup for my ST80 and SM90 (4.64kg with all attached cameras). By fixing a dovetail clamp to the counterweight bar, seen this on a thread before. 

Another happy az gti unit in my family now. During the update of firmware via my imaging set ups eq dir cable the two mounts got along quite nicely. 

Lee 

 

Nice , Simple set up , Lee . The az-Gti in alt az mode just as it was designed to be . You never know , it might catch on

As a Dwarf Labs scope owner i am totally in favour regarding the See-Stars . If , like the Dwarf it manages to bring more people into the hobby than its a win for me . 

I can only speak for the guys producing the Dwarf , but they are upgrading their product "on the fly" although the updates seem to have slowed a little . 

The one thing missing is a complete database of objects to slew to . And that has to be updated to use the location of the user . 

Hopefully the See-Stars will incorporate this . 

On 19/06/2023 at 02:49, Jim L said:

Almost stepped on this handsome fellow at an observing site. He was buzzing away but I never heard him because I had earbuds in listening to a podcast. Fortunately we parted friends.

I will NEVER worry  about clouds again 😂, after seeing this i am more than happy that we don't encounter such creatures (generally) in the UK 

4 minutes ago, Grump Martian said:

A brand new 30 mm Explore Scientific 82° eyepiece. Looking forward to holiday late night star gazing in Swanage in July.

Very nice , Martin

Looks great Steve 

On 10/06/2023 at 19:15, Bloodline said:

Has any one got anymore thoughts on the actual Dx 5 scope itself?

A 5" sct is a nice starter scope , it will show you quite a lot .. i had an omni 127 ... i really liked the scope ... the DX5 will be good on planets and the moon 

On 10/06/2023 at 14:32, Bloodline said:

Starsense again finds the target but would need to be manually moved but doesn’t track, no alignment needed

Not true ! you need to align the starsense with an initial 2-3 minute alignment and after that the sky need to be dark enough for it to "see" stars , not just one or two . The app will actually "tell " you that . 

Having said that , i love the starsense and use it on manual mounts whether it be placed on my scopes or the mount itself . 

It will only work properly when the sky is clear . That may seem obvious, but it does lose position sometimes ,if there are a few clouds about . its nothing major as it usually recovers . 

The other good thing about the starsense is that once aligned you can move the mount anywhere and it will find its position WITHOUT it needing to be re-aligned , thats a brilliant feature . 

GOTO's are brilliant but they also add so many variables that can fail at anytime . I have neighbours with small kids who , at this time of the year have their windows open at night . They dont want to hear whirring and screetching noises as the goto motors spring into action . 

So , my choice is a combination of the two ... i have a mount that accepts tracking motors but i use the starsense to find the targets first . 

One thing you might want to consider is that the starsense DX5 will also accept ather light weight scopes ie small fracs . So its quite versatile although the tripod is quite flimsy . 

19 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

I think us in the west have had the best of it and not many cloudy days. You can bet that'll change now at least its not any astro darkness so no scope time until way August for me

Yes , its certainly been good weather in the west ... changing now as you wrote , i agree regarding observing in the summer . Its ok for luna and trying to find venus during the daytime , and of course a bit of solar , but , bring on the autumn .

5 hours ago, bosun21 said:

How are you getting along with your Dwarf Stu?

Hi Ian , only just seen your message.. I love the dwarf .. it's such a breeze to operate , mind you the iPhone app isn't up to much, whereas the Android app is fine. 

On 04/06/2023 at 14:14, AstroNebulee said:

Taken on Friday night whilst hunting those elusive noctilucent clouds. (no I didn't see any) 

Venus setting in the west whilst I was sitting in a beautiful Cornish field, watching the moths flit about and all the wildlife sounds. 

Composite of one short and one slightly longer exposure. Taken with Canon 600D and Samyang 14mm f2.8 blended in photoshop. 

Lee

Great Photo Lee ... simple , and yet it portrays the beauty of our hobby ... of course over here in cambridgeshire its recently been blowing a gale and thick cloud ( although its better now ) so its lovely to see such a relaxing scene .

17 minutes ago, Dave scutt said:

Just had a nice delivery, 

Welcome to the Dwarf league , Dave .

The little tripod is soooo much better than i was expecting it to be . 

I had a similar thing with my 152mm starwave ... ( a scope that i sold and will buy back soon ) .. i think there is a way of tightening the focuser although i wasnt brave enough to try. But it is unerving although it never caused any real problems 

1 hour ago, Roy Foreman said:

1 hour ago, Roy Foreman said:

In west Somerset it has been clear each night for about two weeks or more

 

Envious , as in the east we have had cold winds and grey clouds with the occasional clear hour or two 

On 01/06/2023 at 11:49, Geoff Barnes said:

I won't have a view of this, but for those who do it should make a pretty sight over the next two days.... 

Thanks for the Heads up Geoff ... due to the lighter evenings this will be a bit challenging as a lot of the Beehive will be a bit faint , but its certainly worth a go

For information ... Most of us living on the East side of the country have seen very little apart from thick cloud !! zzz 

I still enjoy reading the reports of others with more luck than us , though .