heliumstar

Try it bare-bones. Without anything attached (cable in your photo) and with just internal batteries and go from there. If the same I would do a firmware update but not sure how far you want to go before returning it?

Hmm....what happens if you turn the scope/lens to point to the other side? Also, screw in both alt and az....

This is my process: 1. Level the tripod 2. Point the scope on the mount to North 3. Power on and connect 4. 1 Star Align That's it. Works every time for me and the object is within 1 degree 9 out of 10. But looks like you might have some other issues as well. Can you post a photo of your setup?

Let's give credit where credit is due. Roscosmos (not sure what the name was before) is perfecting this since 86' as well.

Received mine as well 👍

Just ordered 👍

I am slowly giving up as well. It's either cloudy or stars dancing (seeing). I went out exactly once in last 30 days. Looking into various remote telescope options but not sure what is out there to be used for EAA. Most of these remote telescopes are more proper imaging oriented...if anyone has any ideas I am all ears.

Why even metion risk? There's no risk in buying 10mm BCO since it's great on its own. If you don't mind shorter eye relief and 50 or so degrees then it's a given. I'm yet to find anything in 10mm that is better and I searched and still am - SLV, XW, Nagler(11mm), 9mm TAO, Ultrascopic 10mm - to my eyes are no better than BCO in the center. I don't search for flaws though and am not concerned about 'edges' as I only observe planets and double stars at the moment. 10mm BCO also pairs great with Baader barlow 2.25x giving 4.4mm. A set of BCOs is really a great set to have. I have it as a base line of eyepieces and then just buy, try and sell other eyepieces as I go. These stayed the longest as they are just so good, light. 18mm and 10mm + 2.25x barlow in the pocket and off I go...

Buy with confidence.

Do yourself a favour and get 32mm Plossl of some brand for a 'finder' and some 'wider' views and Baader zoom for everything else.

Twitter was brewing for days. It was leaked by earthsky.org, Ycombinator hacker news was on it....everybody wants to be the first eh....

Interesting. Can you post a photo please? I presume something similar as TAOs?

Did you cutout the eyecup on BCOs?

Looks like it. It was leaked already: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dUWrpm80WHsJ:https://earthsky.org/%3Fp%3D343883+ The above is cached page from Google. They took the original down: https://earthsky.org/space/life-on-venus-phosphine-biosignatures

Here's an idea if you insist on Tele Vue (under your £1000 budget): 24mm Panoptic 13mm Nagler 2.5x Powermate With these three you'll have a nice range of magnifications - aprox. 50x, 100x, 130x, 215x.

I had TV Nagler 13mm and Panoptic 24mm. Panoptic is ok but not suitable for my style of observing (too low mag for what I observe with my scopes) and I use simpler eyepieces as 'finders'. Nagler was good. I liked the 'wideness' of it but had kind of ring around Moon and Sun which I didn't see in other eyepieces. It was quite intrusive to be honest. On the other hand Naglers are very light in weight for what they offer so that is a big plus from me. I didn't own but looked through Delite 9mm. It was no better than Vixen SLV 9mm apart from wider of course. Not one TV amazed me like Pentax XW did for example. Pentax XW for me is the ultimate eyepiece - I never looked through anything better. It's on par with all orthos I tried as well - showing same number of stars and all that in a comfortable and wide way - if only it was not almost 400g I don't think you are mising anything by not getting anything TV. This might not be a popular opinion but it's my experience.

Very nice laptops these HPs are. My company laptop is pretty similar HP with Nvidia graphics but 17" screen. It's pretty amazing and fast, fast, fast. For myself though I'll stick with Mac Air and Thinkpads - Thinkpads, nothing better than hardware camera switch and the little red dot.

Thanks for answers guys. The scope was well 'cooled down'. It was out for more than 2hrs before I observed. Telescope-optics.net is a great resource even though I struggle with it somewhat. Thanks for the reminder that it exists.

I was completely taken aback yesterday. First a little context. I was observing Jupiter and Saturn a few days ago with C5 and all was well. Sharp view, really pleasing. Better than AA 80ED-R that I had side by side. Was happy camper so to speak. But yesterday the seeing was not so great and I had them both again side by side but this time C5 just didn't perfrom. Mushy views all over the place. Collimation is spot on so that's not an issue. The view through 80mm was not ideal but much much sharper at the same mag. There must be something going on with a telescope design here and I would like to understand science behind this. I am not imagining this. I got my lady to take a look through as well. I have to admit, I am kind of down because of this. Is SCT really usable only with decent seeing? That puts it out of commision for most clear nights. Mak for example has no such issues....

I was thinking about this and in my case it might be convenience. It might be that my brain just doesn't see any real difference because of how happy I am with handling easy to use eyepieces - light, still comfortable, quickly in and out of diagonal, etc. I am choping and then adding to my eyepiece collection all the time but these little BCOs just stick. I am drawn towards Tak Orthos though to see what the fuss is all about

I really like Pentax XW 5mm for example. The ease of view is just phenomenal. But! I like just grabbing the trio and be done with it. I am sure I would have different opinion if observing with a big manual Dob. But as a flat with a balcony dweller and mostly observing ds, planets and our moon with smallish scopes on go-to mount fov is not an issue for me. For everything else there is a camera. Just one more comment on Baader barlow. I read a bunch of reviews on this one and it's all mixed. My personal experience is that it's very good. Image doesn't degrade at all. On the other hand I programmed myself not to be fussy about the edges and to be completely honest, I am not that good at spotting anything wrong with most of eyepieces. I am mainly concerned with how many stars I can see in wide views and if airy disks are nicely presented when I observe double stars.

I have some supposedly better eyepieces. They are certainly at least 4x more expensive but I admit of using 18mm, 10mm and 2.25x Barlow BCOs exclusively lately. It seems like that no matter telescope fl these three pieces of equipment provide everything I need. 10mm barlowed gives 4.4mm and I am yet to look through any eyepiece in 4-5mm range that provides sharper and more pleasing view of airy disks when looking at double stars. To my eyes it's better than 4mm and 5mm SLVs and 5mm XW - this one is close if not the same view but is just too big - comfortable though. Not sure what is going on there to be honest.....

Got a chance to finally observe with it last night. Very happy how it behaves. Mind you I was using it without slo-mo controls and I had no issues observing Jupiter and Saturn moving the mount as the planets moved through. Used it with Gitzo tripod (systematic 4 with 4 legs). It shakes a little bit more than Ayo II but pretty much the same as Vamo at 130x magnification. Now, the thing is that Vamo is smoother and easier to move but this is down to Zero intended to be used with slo-mo. Both Vamo and Zero are easy to balance and once that's done there is no movement when changing eyepieces up to 150g. For now I'll keep both but if I were to choose one it would be Zero because of slo-mo. If you don't need slo-mo then Vamo is better indeed. Zero is smaller and easier to disassemble so better for traveling. At the end of the day both are pretty much the best you can get in this size and capacity. Testing was done with 3kg of scope at 130x. I also took a closer look at Zero and there are many holes to mount something on it. There might be encoders in the works for this?

Unfortunately no luck last night again. Next try on Friday

Unfortunately wind was playing up last night so couldn't properly test it. Looking clear today and hopefully a little calmer so wish me luck