cootuk

https://www.facebook.com/ScienceWeekUK#!/photo.php?fbid=10150732227393816&set=a.10150308828008816.345777.105818068815&type=1&theater To celebrate National Science & Engineering Week, we have 5 telescopes to give away this week. This is your last chance to win one of these amazing prizes, all you need to do is answer the following 10 questions and send them in to our team. It's a small Skywatcher newtonian on alt/az mount. Might be good as a present for someone if you win.

The Challenges — and Dangers — of Amateur Astronomy in Afghanistan Looks like glowing lights attract all sorts...

This does work, but you need to keep the phone in night mode or put a red filter over the screen incase you accidentally go to a whitelight menu. I bought a tube cradle off ScopeNSkies bargain zone. I then bought a phone holder that had a suction pad. I drilled the suction pad and bolted it onto the cradle. You can now angle the phone holder to align with the scope.To stop the phone falling out, it was also strapped in with a couple of elastic bands. Just make sure the phone isn't near anything magnetic and it does work well enough. Much easier on a refractor, though you could rotate the barrel mount on a newt.

Swe-Check - The Fuse Warehouse F5AL250V Fast blow, 5A, glass, 250v I see these are for sale on Ebay too if you can't get to a shop.

This looks like a decent spec, though I believe an extra 1GB of memory would help a lot for an extra tenner. Hannspree appear to be a netherlands company, and this is a clone of the MSI Wind with a decent webcam. (We were looking at one as CCL have them at 170GBP) - but cheaper here depending on postage.

I have one of the cheaper Seben type zooms. There's a fair bit of kidney beaning if your eye isn't just in the right place. At both far ends 8mm and 24mm the visual is soft, so I tend to keep 10-20mm, though a barlow works well with this to cover a wide range. Not bad for under 50 quid. The Hyperions are about 100-120 secondhand and would be a good buy for keeps.

The people I pity are those who don't have a decent view from their house/flat, so even when you get a good night they can't just whip out the scope but have to think about packing things and travelling. I find myself walking down the street looking at the panorama of various houses for sale and thinking,well, that wouldn't be any good. Serendipity has it that I have good views to west, south, and east. The best thing about clouds is that when you do have a really good clear night, it can be truly awesome. The Orion's Back thread shows just how much pleasure some constellations can give when you see them unexpectedly.

How long are mirrors expected to keep their optical qualities? I think Orion Optics (who also supply primary mirrors and secondaries) say their standard mirrors should be good for about 10 years, and the hilux coated ones for 25 years. From sone comments on here, even off axis chips can be tolerated as only a small central part of the secondary should be in the beam? From what I can see of my secondary, it is effectivley held on by some sort of silicon sealant - there has to be some movement to allow for adjustment, with a few stickout blocks on the secondary holder to get the rough angle for attaching. At what point would people send their mirrors off for resilvering? As for 1/4 or 1/10 wave, then is the seeing in the UK, apart from dark sites, good enough to show a difference?

It has to have the long nose to get ot the screwthread inside the cam as the cam housing is quite bulbous. If you already have the shortnose one then you could cut the screwthread off the camlens and glue it to the adapter. Don't know how lng that would last though.

I find refractors are more friendly when there's more than one viewer as you can just loosen the diagonal to rotate the eyepiece rather than tube rotate a newt. A classic F15 is also a pleasure to use. The larger newt is there purely for aperture.

With the eq7 mount coming up there might be quite a few eq5 coming onto the secondhand market?

I thought current thinking was that you need air to blow over the mirror face to disrupt the small mirror/air interface. That is easiest achieved by blowing air from the mirror end.

The thing that gets a newbie about eq mounts is the way you have to swing them round and tube rotate. I'm becoming more of a dob fan for beginners...or mak for portability. Make sure you budget 20quid for a book like Turn Left at Orion just so you have a few targets to look at.

I see a new ebay user is wrecking the auctions for these by bidding a massively high amount and mopping up a few buy-it-nows too. (but let's not get into a fair price argument)