Greymouser

Thanks for that.

Mmmm, the padding doesn't look that thick in that image, is it of a decent thickness or not? Perhaps I am being too picky for a backpack which will cost just 9.99 Euro!

Edit: Doh! Of course the sides are 12.5mm thick, you said...

I know it is a bit cheeky, but could you upload a quick photo of the interior please? Though at that price it is hard not to be tempted to go for it...

Got a parcel from FLO today. ( Of course, it's rained most of the day since! ) A Lunt Herschel Wedge; Polarising filter and some wonderfluid.

Now all I need is to improvise a half decent finder, as it seems simple enough and I dislike spending money on something I should be able to make myself.

Oh and of course some decent sunny weather, even though FLO keep wishing clouds on me!

18 minutes ago, cletrac1922 said:

First of all, welcome to Land Down Under

Well, firstly, much as I would indeed like to be living in the land down under, I am in fact in the UK, in Cheshire! 😜

Thank you for the welcome, but I am not new the hobby, ( or this forum, ) just the solar branch, as it were. I started over 40 years ago with a little Greenkat 50mm refractor, which I got an awful lot of use out of, including the solar in eyepiece filter that came with it. It is memories of that which has prompted me to get the Lunt wedge.

I now have several scopes, including that very first one. ( I find it hard to throw optics away. ) I have a 150P; a 102 ST; a C9.25; a Bresser spotting scope and a C5. The 150P needs to go, as soon as I can persuade myself of the need. I intend to use the wedge on the 102ST for now, until I upgrade to a better ED refractor, maybe. I did consider a Baader solar filter for the C5, but was persuaded by others here, that the wedge is much better.

I am looking to venture into this section of the hobby again, having good memories of watching the sunspots with my 50mm Greenkat many years ago, along with the little eyepiece filter that came with the setup. Not at all safe, obviously, but I knew no better, I was very young. I am now about to buy a Lunt Herschel / Solar Wedge, so am going to do it much safer, but I realize that I know little about it to be honest and looked for a decent guide. I could not find one, but did discover this guide on how to make a DIY solar finder:  https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/advice/how-to-build-a-simple-solar-finder/

I have seen at least one such idea here on this forum. Thing is I do not know enough other things, or how to best go about this new, to me, observing branch. Can anyone please offer me some pointers on how to proceed please? Perhaps tell me about which direction to go in, regarding solar next? It can be very expensive, it seems and I would prefer to avoid too many mistakes. Any recommended reading matter too. I am quite surprised to so no such guide here already. ( Assuming I have not missed it! )

Thanks in anticipation.  

Just got a new mouse mat, which whilst decent indeed, my use of my GoPro as my camera needs to improve...

It is in fact the normal shape so, slight distortion there, sorry about that. For £ 5.99 off Amazon, not bad though...

23 hours ago, johninderby said:

It’s a brilliant little bit of kit. Shame about the name.

Could you put up a link for the pouch please? Also what dimensions is it?

Ta.

It is that sort of image vernmid, that makes me want to dip my toes in the imaging part of the hobby. My wallet keeps saying: NOOOOO!

I too have had similar problems with the sky portal app, for me with my Evolution mount, it is just not well thought out imo. Geoff Lister sums it up really well. It is just not an improvement to my mind over a hand controller and is little more than a gimmick. Luckily for me the Evolution mount came with the optional hand controller too and it has without any doubt vastly improved my enjoyment of using my Evolution mount. There is just no comparison. I would suggest you contact whomever sold you the scope/mount, and ask them which hand controller will work with it. You will not regret it.

However that said I use the Sky portal app on an Android tablet and just yesterday there was an update to a newer version, ( I presume it was a little later with Apple, ) which they allege means you can tilt the tablet to move the mount, instead of trying to find non tactile buttons on screen. If true it would perhaps be a huge improvement. I may try it out at some time, but as Geoff says, that is not the only problem with the app, so I think I will stick to the hand controller. That is as soon as I can motivate myself to observe at all again. 

This worry over the app is what is putting me off a little bit, when I  am considering getting the Skywatcher version, with a AZ GTI mount. All gimmick. less function? 

Edit: Incidentally I have read of several Astro Fi users say they have bought a hand controller for it, but they do not mention which controller... I have heard the same of the AZ GTI.

EDIT 2: Oops I just noticed the old date of OP of this thread, sorry about that mods...

I received my second order from this wonderful company on Friday. Again very well packaged and quickly delivered by DPD, the best courier too imo. I do like the sticker: " May contain clouds ", brought a grin to my face that did, does every time I see it as it is now on the box that contains my OTA. In fact I would say FLO are missing a trick there, I would pay good money for this kind of humorous sticker, they should produce  and sell more varieties! ?

All contact with the company has been very prompt and very good. Not so much with the second order which was very straight forward, but the first required some back and forth e mails, between me and the firm. I would say that other suppliers could learn a thing or two from this company, not mentioning names or anything... If there is a choice I will be using this company in the future, before any other, because of that excellent customer service. 

Thank you FLO, keep up the good work. ?

My shopping list gets bigger and bigger... ?

12 hours ago, Owmuchonomy said:

I went to a Baader Click-Lock and 2” EPS for my 9.25” SCT which gave better results. Using a .63 reducer you just end up with terrible vignetting. I now have a 2” Moonlite in orange anodised finish ???.

Could you tell me which click lock you went to exactly. In fact could you break down to a real easy level, ( for someone quite stupid, like myself, ) exactly what you did please. 

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Probably the widest format you could obtain would be with a 32mm TV Plossl

I was under the impression that they were only a 50 degree FOV, is my assumption wrong?

9 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Unless the design of the scope has been altered I think you can acheive the same FOV without the reducer as with it if you have a 2 inch visual back. The field is limited by the baffle tube in both cases so it can be reached with a widefield 2 inch EP at F10.

Olly

You are not the first to suggest this and I had in fact been considering that, but for two reasons, it could be a possibility. The cost would be considerable, to put it mildly and any field flattening correction would then be lost, unless you can then buy another correcter for the two inch visual back? I wish I could afford it though, especially the top of the range eyepieces! ??

1 hour ago, cloudsweeper said:

but I might as well just have used longer FLs without the reducer!

I will check again, without the full moon! It wouldn't surprise me though...?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reducersflatteners/celestron-f63-focal-reducer.html

Well I have now used the scope with the focal reducer in place. ?

Whilst it is billed as mainly to improve imaging, it certainly seems to improve visually too. I will have to experiment further, because I first used the scope on a moonless night at F10, last night with the focal reducer in place, F6.3, there was a full moon, which made things a littler more interesting!  Certainly the view of M31 was wider and seemed sharper, but that may have been my imagination. I am sure I saw more detail, which is surprising considering the full moon, I suppose it may have been just me, if I am being negative, but it did seem better.

It really does make a two scopes for one in my opinion alone, not least because it makes it easier for lower magnifications. The 40mm eyepiece at F10 gives a Magnification of 58.75, at F6.3 it is 37, I think, even though they advise not to use an eyepiece longer than 35mm at 6.3! Never mind, with several eyepieces it seems to have improved things.

Considering the thing cost £99, it seems to be a good buy, especially when you consider that I spent £2349 on my scope. Even more so considering the future benefits when I dip my toes into imaging... As well as it also gives a flatter field.

I can heartily recommend it for those with a similar scope, even if like me it is only for visual versatility. ?

My first impressions of the Nexstar 9.25 Evolution can be found here: 

Thank you and interesting. ?

It would be visual, initially. I did look at the option of a Skytee II and the Uni28, ( seeing it mentioned by you I think...) Telescope House sell it with a metal tripod too. FLO claim a load of 10 KG, TH one of 15KG, I presume slightly different mounts? Even though they look very similar from the pics. 

Considering the light pollution at home, I need portability though I think.  If you consider the ED150 to be not really worth considering as portable, what would consider a good scope for portability?  Sorry if it is a stupid question, but I just do not know enough, but do know Dobs are not as good as some say, more " moveable ". ?

Thank you for your reply.

Can I ask bot you and John about what you would advise as the minimum mount for this telescope? FLO are selling it with an EQ6-R, which I suspect will not be remotely portable? ?

Can I ask you just how good the case it come supplied with is? I don't think you mentioned it, other than it arrived undamaged. It is just that I have come across some flight cases that were not too good to be honest, which is not good when transporting scopes etc.

Thanks.?