Steve Clay

If you were to sell the lot what would you be looking for?

I have seen the AZ goto mounts on astro buy and sell and they seem to go quickly. I'm looking at the AZ GTI wifi because it can easily be manually (pushed/ Pull) slewed and as I understand it the one you have can't.

I would be interested in the scope but not the mount if you consider splitting?

Hi Is this 127 OTA still available?

Hi, I'm looking at using skeye pro to assist with push to on an alt-az mount. As I understand it the phone/ tablet needs the following: Accelerometer, Magnetometer and useful to have gyroscope and GPS chip I've looked on the net to see what devices have these things but not really easy to ascertain. There are apps that you can put on the device that will interrogate these sensors and report what you have, great if you already have the device but i'm currently an i-phone user which is not compatible with the app anyway. So my question is what devices are actually being used by SGL members with good success. it looks like a great app but to get full use you need these sensors in the phone/ tablet. So whats working well? Cheers Steve

Bump

S W or Bresser 10 inch Dob ? Whats your thoughts

Hi, looking for a good condition SW 250 Dobsonian either solid of flex. Go-to on a flex would be nice but not essential. or Bresser Messier 10" Dobsonian Collection, I can travel: Cornwall, Devon and M5 corridor between Exeter and Bridgwater. Whats out there? Cheers Steve

Hi Philip re the Dob, initially discounted but firmly in the mix after seeing and touching.

I attended the Cornwall Astro Society meeting last night and I must say that the welcome that I received was brilliant. Much like the people who respond here on SGL no question was treated as being a bit dim and people only too willing to help. So thank you for that. There were a few scopes set up and I had the opportunity to look through all of them albeit briefly. Prior to attending the meet I had done a bit of work on Stellarium (which I am now getting the hang of quite nicely) to get an idea as to what would potentially be visible during the time span of the observing session roughly 2030-2330 hrs. I did have some pre-conceived ideas about what might be good/ not make the potential future purchase shortlist. This was largely based on portability and potential ease of use, also I've run some some ocular view scenarios/ simulations in Stellarium with the characteristics of of some scopes, 10, 20 and 30 mm eyepieces and I must say that on the planets they were pretty much OK for what I actually saw through he real kit. The stellarium views of DSO's was nothing like what was actually seen which were smudges of light. Still fascinating all the same when you the distances involved. Scopes and my thoughts: I had original thought that my choice would be between a SW frac, SW 150P or 127 MAK all on alt-az with possibly go-to on the MAK.... Unfortunately neither of the latter 2 of these OTA's was there to view.. What was available: I didn't particularly like the view through a strartravel 120 and found it difficult to focus that might possibly be my eyesight though. It was on an EQ5 mount and the owner was practising the tracking functions on Mars so it might have been the object too. the whole package was quite bulky and I think definitely not for me. 8 inch SCT fully auto (think it was a Meade) it took the guy about 45 mins to set it up from the boot of his car. View of Mars and Saturn was fantastic. Caught a glimpse of Neptune too which was a small prick of blue ish light but fascinating. Quite expensive for a starter and I did not get to see how a DSO looked through it but was told that it would struggle under the evenings conditions. I can't actually comment on DSO's SW 200P DOB. I'd discounted DOBS pretty much from the start as being too big, heavy and cumbersome to move about. However, the 200P was none of these things. Easily portable around the site, not really heavy and pretty simple to use. looked at a double star and Andromeda. The finder sight was really awful being a straight thing and with the scope at anything more than 30 deg from horizontal was for me totally unusable. This has now become a serious contender if found 2nd hand at a reasonable price so that I have funds to address the finder and better eyepieces. Now for the total shocker. One of the guy's had a SW 300p open tube DOB go-to. I would of never have given this a second thought but it was brilliant, couldn't fault it, but with one tiny exception the £1300 price tag and it was a smidgen too big but not by much. Considering that you will need some eyepieces, black tube cover and power tank places it above my budget and would not pass the test from SWMBO. So what now. I still really want to look through the 127 Mak but i'm really drawn to go-to and the open tube DOB idea which is something that has totally come from left field. The search now begins for something between the 200p and the 300p dobs, and the open tube 250 with go-to seems to be right where I think I want to be. For any other beginner who is thinking about scopes then really try and get to an event where you can see some stuff in the flesh, it's really worth the effort. Once again a huge thank you to the members of CAS and to you guys here on SGL for the advice. I'd welcome any comments on my ramblings above especially the conclusions I have drawn be they right, wrong or ill judged. Cheers Steve

Hi, is the scope still for sale/ if so do you have the original boxes so that it could be shipped to Cornwall?

Hi all Im interested in this mount too. A couple of questions: would a cheap android tablet do all that is needed therefore not needing both a phone and i-pad? Could a cheap laptop be connected to the mounts ethernet port to do everything, thereby saving power as no wifi needed? Im asking because my i-pad is on its last legs and my i-phone is a bit old and has no memory. Lastly with a SW 127 MAK how much payload remains for dew protection etc? thanks

Now that looks good.

Can anybody recommend a good capable manual Alt-Az mount then for the SW explorer 150p? Thanks

What do you mount on yours. The one I posted is not the SW AZ5 as the payloads are different.