Greymouser

1 hour ago, Second Time Around said:

If you want a really comfortable bed look at those in  fishing tackle shops or the fishing department of somewhere like Go-Outdoors.  They're way better than any camping bed, that anglers moved on from decades ago.

Those without a famous name are surprisingly inexpensive because of high volume.  Many also convert into chairs.  The only downsides are that they're a little heavier and bulkier.

 

Without a doubt this. I just bought one, intending to use it for watching the meteor shower etc., not successful for that but it is comfier than my real bed and very warm with the, 5 season sleeping bag. 8 legs is better than six too. 

Carp fishing bed chair, Tracker RLX 8. Expensive but very, very good.

2 hours ago, melsmore said:

La Palma for some winter sun. New moon in Jan or Feb best.

Everyone seems to quote La Palma as some sort of mecca for astronomy, which is understandable in so many ways, but there is better: St Helena.

Just 15 and a half degrees south of the equator, yet cooler than UK summers in summer and warmer the rest of the year. Pretty much non existent light pollution, virtually crime free, with very friendly people. Great wildlife; fishing; geology; history and they speak English! Allegedly much like 1950s Britain. What's not to like? Only downside, is they love Country and Western music, for some reason!

Admittedly, harder to get to and more expensive than La Palma, but none the less.  You can fly all the way now too, via South Africa. I want to visit, but doubt I will get the chance, but if I did, I doubt I would want to leave. 

http://sainthelenaisland.info/visitors.htm

http://sainthelenaisland.info/astronomy.htm

2 hours ago, carastro said:

I would if I knew how.  

It should be in the settings of your browser. On Firefox, there are three little horizontal lines top right of the screen, click on that, then down to settings, then down to privacy and security, then down again to the cookies and site data, then click clear data. Done. Too long since I used another browser, but there should be a settings option. If not there is still third party software, that will do it for you.  ( CCleaner ? ) Hope that helps. 

Can I suggest people delete their cache? It sometime helps. 

21 hours ago, DirkSteele said:

In Namibia I was walking down from the observatory and two eyes were suddenly illuminated by my headlamp. But nothing more could be seen. It then charged me and I jumped back only to realise as it got close it was a hare /bunny. Attack is the best form of defence I guess.

 

Reminds me of Monty Python...

6 hours ago, powerlord said:

Always fancied one of these. Laser cutter, engraver . Setup in conservatory for now till I get fume extraction and make a proper protection cover.

I just set up and engraved,so it needs tweaking with the setting to improve quality. It can engrave most stuff Inc metal, glass, mirror* and cut up to 6mm ply.

*eyeballs.

That looks amazing. Any chance of a review and where you got it etc.? ( Price ? ) Also, would it engrave slate? 

Why not power it from the mains? I intend to do so for my shed. I was initially going to run the cable through the ground, armour it to be safe and get an electrician to connect to the house. However, the price put me of, have you seen the price of armoured cable?! Never mind the rest. Now I intend to get an extension cable, disconnect the circuit breaker, then run it through plastic conduit above ground, to protect the wire from weather and UV, then drill a little hole in the door frame put the wire through, seal the hole with silicon, re attach the circuit breaker and plug in the socket by the back door. Job done. I hope. 

Seems to me a solar panel will not be efficient enough and it will deteriorate.

I did come across this, not sure if it helps, but it is 2.5mm, but to 3mm, but that should be doable, then an easy 3 to 6? ( With a little fiddling. )  I think, maybe. They seem to do required to, again maybe. https://uk.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/221006230387/

Probably easier to bore out a 2mm one really, even available on Amazon.

Interesting site though.

4 hours ago, Alan White said:

And not really this thread, but following the arrival of Big Red above, just got first light in White Light.

To say I am pleased is a very big understatement.
My Lunt wedge is 1.25 so too small for Big Red, but good for a very short testing and no overheating,
but it was clear it would be if left on target for a longer period.

My socks have just been blown off and I am impressed 😁
Curiosity just got more expensive as need a 2" Herschel Wedge as well now.
The detail, which is stunning in my 103 Vixens is just wow in the 152, I knew taking a dip of my toe was a dangerous thing.

So First Light within hours of purchase, that's quite an achievement in itself.



 

Yes, it is a great scope and you are a braver man than me, I just could not bring myself to try my 1.25 Lunt wedge on it. In fact I am yet to use mine in anger for one reason or another, but I have got a bag for it. I just like looking at mine though!

The fact that it will only work properly when the humidity is below 60% is worrying too, at least living in the UK! Unless I am misreading it.

For the first time, I have to say I was a a little bit disappointed with @FLO today. I had ordered a Celestron bag for my new to me scope, which arrived a day late and rather poorly packaged. It had a little bubble wrap and A bin bag for packaging! Not really good enough, but I suspect part of my disappointment, it their usually very high standards. All was safe and intact however, so I guess I can let them off this time, I just hope it doesn't happen again.

This arrived today, from FLO of course.

Just a bin bag and a little bubble wrap as packaging!
Inside:

A nice bag for my new to me AA 152mm scope, as I could not find a decent hard case for it. This seems to be very good and should fit the bill. A few more desiccant bags too!

Not a proper review, just so people have an idea about the quality of this scope. I bought it for the Starsense bits, but no review of that here. 

The claim is that the whole set up is about 4.17 KG, but I would have to say it is probably even lighter than that, an easy one hand carry altogether. The tripod and mount are not the best, but do the job OKish. The scope was surprisingly good, with only a little CA, which is not so surprising considering the Focal ratio, F11. The views of the moon were pleasing enough and it is certainly better than my first scope, not too shocking as that was only a 50mm F12! The eyepieces are basic, but again will do the job to start with, certainly I have seen worse. I was going to get more photos, but our 5 year old grandson descended to claim it!  The OTA was almost longer than him! He was made up, as I suspect would be any other young beginner. For that matter even older folk should find it interesting. 

Hope that helps someone.

Got to say, that even though they were saying everything was good, there was a lot of nerves on show, when it didn't communicate when they said it would. The relief when it did was obvious!

This whole mission represents humanity at it's best. Just a shame there is too much negative. Just what would we be capable of if we put our collective mind to it?

Quite surprised there is no thread on this yet, unless I missed it! Fascinating mission, though we will need patience.

The launch of the mission was postponed today, but there was quite a lot of coverage on BBC news. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65254502

More from ESA itself: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice

The live launch will be from here hopefully tomorrow:

NASA will be sending a mission there next year it seems, with an expected mission to send a lander possible in the future.

Not much time tonight, too much other things to do, but thought I would have a little try with the Celestron Starsense 80LT, before a certain five year old gets hold of it!.

Oh my, it needs a tidy up, up there. I will post a short review of my early thoughts on this light setup later.

2 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

We must be careful about using subjective terms as they too are open to interpretation 

So very true about so much, not just astro related.

I cannot comment on any Tak, I have never used one, probably never will. I did however have the Starfield side by side with the Bresser F 13.2, same aperture. I have always struggled judging which label to put on seeing, etc. but on that night I would have said above average and my target was mainly Lunar, with some other wandering. I felt that the Starfield was losing sharpness above 200x whatever that means. The Bresser was better, more detailed, sharper and far more pleasing. Also still great well past 300x. Of course, this could be just me. 

I also found the Bresser 102 to be better than the Bresser 127L, again side by side. Just more pleasing. 

I am still considering another Starfield, with another lightweight mount. 

Sorry for putting the cat among the pigeons, but I had the Starfield for a while and whilst it is without a doubt a great scope; compact; great build quality; absolutely no CA; sharp as a very sharp thing, I have to say my F13.2 cheap Achro, was just as sharp and could take much more magnification; also absolutely no CA. I got the Starfield to use with my AZGTi, but it was to much for it imo. I feel that a high F number beats much, if you are lucky with the draw, as it were. 

Here it is, with a mount, even cheaper than the Starfield: https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/bresser-telescope-ac-102-1350-messier-hexafoc-exos-2/p,57357

Or without a mount, which may be/ may be soon, out of production. https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p9739_Bresser-Refractor-Messier-AR-102L-1350---Optical-Tube-Assembly.html

I do believe quality varied somewhat, but doesn't it always? Mine is a great scope and is an easy fit with the SkyTee 2.

Edit: If too far off topic here mods, please remove.

10 minutes ago, John said:

Very nice !

I have recently acquired a Starwave 70ED which looks like a miniature version of your 152mm !

Mine is my 1st Starwave and I have to say that I have been well impressed by it both in terms of performance and build quality. The focuser, which looks to be the same unit that your 152 has, is really, really nice 🙂

I have an Altair 72 EDF Deluxe, which is an excellent scope, tiny but powerful. Not sure if the optics in it are better than my SW ED80 though.

19 minutes ago, Franklin said:

 it was on a matching Sabre mount, beautiful looking set up

Don't you bad man! It seems that mount may be back in stock somewhere!!!!!

Edit: I cannot remember where. No, don't tell me, I do not want to know...

Not from the postman, but went to a nice gentleman near Stoke and bought his rather lovely Starwave 152mm from him. Lovely telescope, nice to look at, ( to me, )  but his dog stole the show, a lovely border Terrier/ Jack Russel cross, who thought I needed a face wash! I need to get me a new dog!

I tried to get a shot of the lens, beautiful and a slight green tint...

Now I intend to do as @Stu1smartcookie has done and apply it to my SkyTee along with my Starsense. Maybe a lighter mount too.

I tried to resist this, even started a thread asking for help to avoid, but seeing this on ABS in as good as new condition, I couldn't resist. It Hardly looks like it has been used.

9 hours ago, Alan White said:

Does the overall height also have an issue for you?
Clearly thats as important to stowed size in many instances.

No the overall height is no issue, the important one s stowed size. As compact as possible. I have even wondered about shortening a Skywatcher tripod but doubt that would work. Maybe scratch build one...

I am looking for a compact tripod to hold the SkyTee type of mount, does such a thing exist, other than the Sightron Carbon Fiber Tripod? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/tripods/sightron-japan-carbon-fiber-tripod.html

Not so bothered about the weight, but how short it packs down too. Needs to be stable too.

Does it have to be abroad @Marc1964?

If not try this place: https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/lundyisland/

A Bortle of 2 SQM: 21.96  https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=11.70&lat=51.2049&lon=-4.6197&layers=B0FFFFFFFTFFFFFFFFFFF

Much overlooked and looks very nice and easily accessible if able-bodied.

Or alternatively, the Isle of Lewis or Harris in Scotland, with Bortle 1 skies. Isle of Skye too, if you can cope with the tourists! ( Never mind my sister in the hospital if things go wrong...