jjohnson3803

I converted a 50mm RACI, but it came with a helical focuser on it.  All I had to do was add a spacer to get enough back focus so my EPs would come to focus.  It's crazy light and small for travel (or stealthy observing 😁) and does tolerably well, especially under dark skies.

After several trips to darker sites with different scopes, I'm going to use my ST80 as my travel scope.  As mentioned, if it gets damaged or stolen, I'm not out much money and the scope with finder and a few EPs fits nicely into a plastic toolbox.

If space / weight is limited, I'll take my 50mm RACI finder that accepts different EPs, but 80mm aperture seems like a good compromise between my largest and smallest scopes.

My 72ED is small, but it's on the heavy side and my ST102 takes up a bit too much space.  Those two will be used at home or go to my club's dark site.

I've gotten a couple of announcement e-blasts from DwarfLabs, but no real info.

Subjective, but quick and easy.  Usual caveats apply.

I've been almost 100% visual except for a few (mediocre) cellphone shots.  I admire the results imagers get, but I don't think I want to bother with darks, and flats, and post-processing, and yadda-yadda.  I considered a Seestar, but I think I'll let the product / technology mature a bit more.  My brief foray into remote imaging taught me there can be frequent clouds or high wind or full moon or whatever no matter where the obsy is located.

Maybe the solution is to get a DSLR and do simple wide field shots, but in my home LP I'm not sure that would be all that great either.

Nicely done, thanks!
 

I'm not much of a sat observer, but that is one weird color.

Bands of high cloud can do that as they move through.  They might not be obvious to an observer at night unlike lower altitude, "puffy" clouds.  A good weather satellite app can show you what's in your area.

Antares "vanished" from my scope early this morning and then "came back".   But I suppose it could have been The Borg.  🤫

I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at a darker site this weekend in north central Indiana.  Along with several open clusters and a few other globs, I bagged M4 and M56 with my ST80 travel scope this morning, both of which are invisible at home. 

The main achievement though was NGC 6231, a bright, compact open cluster in Scorpius at −41° 48′.  There's no way I'm ever going to see that or Zeta Sco in the muck at home, so I was quite happy.  ☺️

I've also seen a wooden chopstick (I guess you have to drill a hole in the knob) and a slice of foam swimming pool noodle slipped over the knob.  The cable tie worked well when I had a Mak.

I downloaded some images from the Digital Sky Survey and I'd like to print them with black stars on white - I was going to make a couple homebrew finder charts just for an experiment.

Short of buying full-blown Acrobat or something, is there a (free) Windows tool that will do that?  I don't see an option in Paint, Paint 3D, Photos, etc.

Thanks!

Impressive!  Haven't gotten round to trying AS out yet on my iPhone SE, but I definitely have to give it a go.

Windy, Ventusky, and near realtime satellite images.  None of the astronomy forecasting sites / apps have been any better than 50% accurate in my experience at my location.

There's at least one thread on Cloudy Nights about putting a mount on a balcony railing:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/711634-balcony-telescope-platform/

It reduces the space required by quite a bit.

Good luck!

I've ordered several items from FLO and the shipping time to Chicago has been faster than some US vendors.

I have Orion Giant View 15x70 IF.  I like them, but they are heavy and really work best with a tripod / monopod.  I did have Celestron SkyMaster 15x70s and while I liked their light weight, they were not something I'd ever buy again.

When I take my ST80 camping, I usually take 4 or 5 EPs along.  Maybe I should try one of these SVBs just to simplify my packing list.  🤔

This might be smaller than you want, but I've been using a 50mm RACI finder with a helical focuser for a super lightweight grab-n-go.  This particular one accepts 1.25-in EPs and almost fits in my jacket pocket.

I might upgrade to a 60mm StellarVue RACI to get a little more aperture, but the little 50 has done pretty well under dark skies.  

Good luck!

Gorgeous!

I downloaded Astroshader today to try on my iPhone SE Gen 3.  Curious to see what it can do with my scopes tracking on an Az-GTi.  Of course, it's raining now...  

I've been searching for a WiFi camera for awhile and so far haven't found anything that has reasonable reviews.  I hope some new products are coming, but I'd be leery of super cheap offerings.

4 hours ago, Giles_B said:

[...] I've always thought John Locke's theory of property rights - that things become "ours" because we "mix" our labour with them - was pretty silly, but now I am actually starting to wonder if this is what is happening with astronomy data! 

I sometimes ponder the visual vs EAA vs AP vs remote scope vs remote data vs surfing Astrobin "experience" and that makes the most sense to me of anything so far.

On 09/04/2024 at 03:41, LaurenceT said:

There's already one for sale on Facebook, used only once apparently🙄

There were / are a few on Highpoint Scientific (US).  I guess some of the eclipse viewers felt the S* was a one-and-done.  There are a couple of DwarfStars and Vaonis also.

I've been looking for a reasonably capable wi-fi video cam or similar - I really don't want to have to futz with laptops, software, etc.  This could be a solution for me.

I thought about a See*, but I don't think I want one of those at this point.

I bought a short tripod with a geared center column for something else, but it wasn't suitable.  Just for an experiment, I tried it with a ballhead and legs retracted.  Probably not as comfortable as the fotopro.eu tripod above, but it definitely reduces the shakes when handholding my 10x50s and 15x70s.  The concept is definitely sound.

I need to test it out more, but this might save my 15x70s from being sold.  👍  .