Marvin Jenkins

Good to have you aboard. Blast away with questions, no one minds. Marv

Thought I was watching one of those Haunted programs on free tv.

Sorry Doug the 4am getup for me just didn’t happen. I watched your vid this morning and thought it very good. I will continue to follow, keep up the good work. Marv

I will be watching.👍

I am looking forward to following this thread although I am not in a position to do EAVA? Is there a norm for this yet? I do understand that the initials are different between the States and the UK and Europe. I have a tentative 100% of the M list (M68 was hit or miss) and I have read a great deal about the preliminary Herschel 400 and have just twenty due to other observations. Your work in this field will no doubt push me to get out there and try for the end goal. Nice one. Marv

Might have to sell a Tak or two. I am selling my house to down size. I think it is called adjustment, or is that recession?

You have captured the giant. Okay we can all agree that it is not going to win an APOD, but you should be rightly proud of that image. Before we had probes into space and orbiter’s that could take close ups what you have there is just about what we had from the greatest scopes on Earth for the time. You have banding and the GRS and mix of colours which look natural to me. Do you want to add any detail about how this image came about, camera, scope etc. Marv

Hello and welcome. I use an EQ5 mount on the steel tripod (not HEQ5) which is regarded as the entry point for AP. I fitted the motors and Synscan handset and this year I have been using guiding via PHD2. I use it with a 150 pds and an un modded dslr. I have had some success with clusters, galaxies and nebula but have not tried planetary. EQ5 land is an odd place to be! If you go lower then you will wish you hadn’t. If you go for EQ5 then at some point you will wish you had pushed it a bit for the H version. The EQ5 is a very capable mount and arguably the best type of set up for visual unless you prefer Dobs of course. EQ5 world is a bit like being in a very comfortable waiting room, but you know all the while that you are actually waiting for the time when you can get something better. Marv

Maximum respect.

I found a couple of floppy disks the other day and almost laughed at the quoted storage space.

Fingers crossed for you. What an amazing place. I hope you get that clear night.

Sometimes more like an hallucination. The amount of work to get to this has been mind bending. I look back occasionally (even though Liam Gallagher said don’t do that) and think a caravan in a field would have been a wiser decision.

Thank you for the compliment, it is inside my house. I live the Quercy Blanc region and all the stone in this region is white limestone, a left over from a shallow tropical evaporitic sea. My house is an old stone cow barn that I have rebuilt over ten years. Oddly this building and the couple of others around it were once a Friary. There is a castle up the road that once owned by Richard the Lion Heart and his houses stonework is much more impressive😂 Marv

I have been out with the hypodemic nurdle this afternoon and achieved focus on a telephone pole over 1km away. Even in broad daylight the image through the EP (20mm) was incredibly dull and dark. It does not help that focuser draw tube flops so there is a crescent of darkness around one side of fov. I have tightened the two little screws on the base of the focuser to the point where it is too tight to actually use the focus knobs and the flop is still there. The view is so dark I actually removed the objective cell and focuser to see if there was some kind of physical obstruction! I have checked the mirror diagonal glass was the right way round and cleaned it, no better. I looked through the finder scope and the view is so soft it is almost pointless. I also tried the 1.5x Barlow tube in daylight and it drops the light level to the eye at the EP to almost darkness. It also comes with a 3x Barlow which is madness. Does anyone out there think I have missed anything? Or is this thing absolutely rubbish and should have a coat hanging off it? By the way, the Bushnells decals glow in the dark!!!!!😂 Marv

Could you get focus with the scope in that configuration?

There are two extension tubes which would take the diagonal EP out where I think it is focusing, but both of these have lenses and are clearly marked as Barlows. I will do a day time time test and see where the focal point is on a very distant object.

Interesting, how do you like that mini giro? Funny you say about the 130 pds as my 5” Orion US is in effect a SW 130p with an awful focuser. I changed the focuser for the unit used on a 130 pds. I could have just bought a 130 pds I hear you all cry and you are all 100% right. The long and short is that I am loving the quick get out there, use the of the AZ 130 combo and under B3! where I live it is a lot of view considering I had stopped using it in favour of the 150pds. What I am trying to say is that under darker skies which I know many don’t have a five inch newt is a great telescope capable of getting you views of at least half if not more of the messier catalog. And my 5” has sat unused for well over one year. Not anymore. Marv

Mars! I must be missing something in the set up. My skies are clear so took it out to look at the moon, despite wanting to sort the mount out first. Cannot focus on anything. Through the EP I can see the crap on the back of the lense or possibly the EP. I removed the diagonal and looked up the OTA pirate style and the moon came to focus to my eye about 500mm after the focuser! What is going on? I have zero experience with fracs but not being able to focus on the moon using all the focus draw in and out says something is wrong. Any ideas anyone?

Is that for real? Not Astro but I have two Weber BBQs, one old one new of the kettle variety. The old one is so much better and says “Made in Pallantine Illinois”. The second one is crap and says “Designed and engineered in Pallantine Illinois”. The first one will cook my last meal, the second one will be in the skip a year from now. Marvin

Oh yeh that is the one, but this one has BUSHNELL written large down the ota in glow in the dark raised letters!!! There are even glow in the dark stickers on the focuser knobs just so you know where they are🤣

We have all seen plenty of posts and threads about large aperture scopes. I for one would love to be a contributor to a thread about some big truss newt, but sadly funds do not allow. However, I have a five inch newt. Actually my first scope on a horrible EQ2 mount with five minutes of wobble. Despite the mount it served me well until I had the funds for an EQ5 and 150pds and AP took over. The five inch lay sad and unused until now as I have an AZ5 for it. A friend of mine who has an ‘installation’ that would cost my earth said “five inch newt, capable instrument” At the time I thought he was trying to make me feel better after being around multi thousand pound scopes. With the AZ5 I have realised he was dead right. Looking back through my diary I had forgotten how many firsts were viewed with that mirror. For any beginners or lurkers out there, just be aware that I have come full circle and I am back at the EP of the scope that started it all for me. Not only that the views are really good. Marv

I think you deserve a medal. Over one thousand frames!!! You captured a galaxy!!!! Never ever forget that. Not only that you are using a kit lense which is far from easy. Unguided. So you don’t benefit from stronger signal. There is a lot to learn but you have started early and I am sure your future success in AP is assured. Marv

That is the snapped off bolt.

Or as my friend called it A hypodemic nurdle. 🤣