Fraunhoffer

Nice sketches. What paper and pencils did you use please? Im experimenting with finding different white pencils and black papers.

Super drawings.

A quick sketch between bands of hazy clouds. Seeing quite good in the gaps. Bands reasonably clear but I couldn't see any details within them. C8, 10mm uff and 2x barlow.

Some interesting rock formations that I've not noticed before at the Plato end of Sinus Imbrium.

I think the sw Newtonians come with a 1 1/4 inch adapter and also a 2 inch adapter (extension). You could try the latter.

Do the lights get turned off in the early hours?

Sounds like a bit of tinkering with the focusser might be in order there.

This is great. Love the landscape. The night sky sounds lovely there too.

I was pleased to be able to see this early this evening and grab a quick sketch before it met the roofline. Still trying to get softer grading with the white pencils on black. I think i will try and track this as it goes on clear nights. C8 cc 32mm uff.

Apologies, no offence intended. I hope a solution is found

Especially if the mount has been moved between sessions. I think it might help to look at 'show current position' after switch on before doing anything else.

There's a gap in the 5th column from the left needs something in. 😆 I couldn't see any old SR4 with the conical centre in there.

+1 on that. The dangerous scenario would be buying an expensive eyepiece and not liking it for some reason. I think they tend to be a little bit of a personal choice. Some folks like certain eyepieces, others not so much. Maybe if its not broke, dont fix it and just have some fun. If you have a local club that has star gazing evenings, maybe some kind person could let you try something.

Some of the smaller and brighter planetary nebulae. As above, plenets, clusters, double stars, coloured stars, brighter asterisms with funny names (37, inchworm, mushroom, coathanger etc). Even the moon has some really interesting geological structures). Try and shield yourself from as much stray light as possible (i hang blackout curtains on a washing line to fence off lights). Have something easy to set up and take down to take advantage of short 1-2 hour spells of clear weather. Hope that helps.

I think the bst starguider 25mm are excellent eyepieces for the money and you would have to spend quite a lot more to get a significant difference. If it was me, I would ditch both the stock 25mm plossl and 32 mm (Sounds like you don't like the 32mm anyway and you like the 40) and get the 25 bst starguider. The best eyepiece is the one you use most often.

Dark frame optics. https://www.darkframeoptics.com/

How very strange. Is this using a handcontrol or wifi and app? Are the aux encoders enabled or disabled? When the goto doesnt reach target, does it go too far, or not far enough? If you realign the encoders on target A, is the next error worse the further away target B is from A. Ie another target close by is ok, but one further away is worse. Or... The reason i am asking is (regarding az), is to test a scenario that might be the az clutch is slipping slightly at higher speeds with the aux encoders turned off. The controller would then send the correct number of pulses to the stepper motor, and if the clutch slips, the tube will not have moved far enough. Another scenario might be, the az encoder is at fault and encoders are enabled. Have you tried with and without with encoders enabled and disabled like someone above suggested? Having re read the thread it all seems a bit random, so unless we can tie down something thats more or less repeatable in a specific way its a bit hard to see whats happening. PS here is how i set mine up: Im using hand control and regulated power supply. Once in position with the base level and power connected but OFF on the switch, i shove it to view polaris. Then i manually shove to lower the tube level using the small bubble i stuck on the top. Then i switch on and enter all the set up data. I do 2 star align using 2 stars i have already preselected and know should be visible. I select stars roughly 90 deg azimuth apart as suggested in my general area of interest. This is easy for me since my best view is always SW with trees and houses elsewhere. My handcontrol rather unhelpfully suggests things on opposite sides of the sky sometimes. (Eg Arcturus and Capella) For some reason, (yours seems different), i have to manually goto the first star using shove-to or handcontrol buttons then the hand control for fine adjustment. Ending in an up and right command. Second star selected , i let the telescope goto all the way and final adjust. Then thats it ... Off we go for the night. PPS i have the aux encoders enabled on mine as i use the shove -to to get close to what im looking for and let the goto do the last bit. Also if i accidentally jolt the tube fumbling about in the dark, the scope will know where it is.

Thanks for this. Having seen it my binos yesterday 17 Oct from a hill top, i was wondering when it might appear over the rooftops and be visible from the garden with my telescope.

You could build yourself an UnRaid server if you have some reasonable old desktop tech lying around as the basis and are happy to roll sleeves up and get tinkering. It's expandable into the future. https://unraid.net/ I used to use 2x2tb usb drives (dual backup) every year (new drives on 1 Jan in the sales) until I got tired of them failing and it all started to get unweildy to find things from the past. Spinning disks will fail - it's just when.

Thanks for the comments. To summarise I have the pro additional features relevant in alt-az mode are: - 1 star alignment and 3 star alignment added (to brightest and 2 star/north-level) - camera control under utility - advanced - goto Sun under solar system, after it is enabled in settings switch and doing the a+b confirmation. Needed every time you use the app. - sync samples - retains list of last used alignment stars. I'm not sure what this does or why. I thought I had found the equivalent of daytime align' somewhere and can't find it now. :-/.

Hi. That seems to be in both versions.

I see that the sun can be listed in the 1 star alignment with the pro version too. I was a little confused when I couldn't see where 'daytime align' (as in the hand controllers) had gone. think that's helpful when looking for objects that are visible in daytime.

Ah, i hadn't noticed that thanks.

Is there any functional difference between these two for an az configured mount. Eg goto dob' or azeq6 (in az mode) with the wifi dongle (obvs) and phone. They functionally both look the same to me except the pro offers 3 star alignment that might make the goto accuracy a bit better i suppose. Sorry, i expect this has been asked before somewhere in here. Im not doing any deadly serious imaging. Mostly visual. Thanks.

+1 for the 30mm UFF in its various guises.