Marvin Jenkins

Good work there and thank you especially for the final photo. I was out last night too with fantastic views and your picture is the perfect reference shot so I can look up all the craters and features in the warmth of the office later today. Marv

Just got inside and looked it all up. The farthest of the two moons of Jupiter was background star (45 Cap) at mag 5.95 so very close. Venus turned out to have a phase of 42.2%. I have observed the phase before but I am no expert. Perhaps the amazing brightness fooled me. Saturn was crisp and easily showing Titan but I didn't have the mag tonight for the Cassini Division sadly. Marvin

Grabbed the 130 newt and decided to seize the moment. Observing right now and Jupiter is a fantastic sight just a short distance above the moon. Three moons one side, two the other, but farthest one out I suspect to be a background star of equal magnitude. Before Venus dipped too low to the horizon I was amazed to see a perfect phase perhaps 60%? Our moon is really showing off and the A15 landing site nearly poked my eye out. To anyone else out there, enjoy the view. I am onto Saturn now as the fog is building. Marvin

It just gets worse! Re built the mower engine using metric tools on Imperial fixings. Had to give the head bolts my best guess as to torque by watching a guy on YouTube do it till he grunted!!! In American! I have a torque wrench (just realised we call them torque wrench, not torque spanner) but all the info for the motor is foot/pounds. This is what I have, a confusing mix which if used on anything other than a mower could cause untold harm on a large scale. Seems the head and associated fittings are Imperial but the torque settings are metric. I feel very uncomfortable and have decided to never fly again, never drive anywhere and stop cutting the grass. Marv

What is that you posted? Is the circle around the target the circle on the opposite page? Seems soo obvious now. I think that is a penny drop moment. Marv

String trimmer? Always called a Strimmer as far back as I can remember, but my American friends call it a “Weed wacker”. Marv

Ooooh I could really do with the soup. Wintery cold today and cream of tomato my favorite. Nice EP by the way. Marv

Sorry I don’t have any experience of that setup, but just the fact of the lower cost and simple design and ease of use of the newt at the beginning stage of your path just seems to shout Dob. I started with a newt on an eq mount and wished I had started with a Dob and larger aperture for the same cost. Marv

Ride on mower head gasket has blown on my Briggs and Stratton 18.5hp Intek engine. Pulled the head off today to prep for the arrival of the gasket kit only to find the whole engine is Imperial from front to back. American engine I hear yall cry, but it sold in a Cub Cadet here in France where all the tools are metric. Not only that all the nuts and bolts are metric and one of the exhaust torx bolts needs replacing! The valve rocker clearances are obviously fractions of an inch but all of our feeler gauges are again metric. Don’t get me started on the new torque wrench I bought for the job, I don’t even want to look. It got me thinking that it must mean the whole business of motoculture here on the continent must be completely at one with Imperial, and have complete sets of Imperial tools and imported nuts bolts etc. The idea that a French mechanic has ever said “pass me the 9/16ths spanner Jean-Claude” makes me laugh. Marvin

Hello and welcome. Dob for me every time. First time out keep it simple. Marvin

I was having a conversation with a friend about the cost of a Stair (or is it Stare) of wood and he replied that he need to order two cord of wood! Still scratching my head. Marv

It is a thing of minimalist beauty. I feel it would be waiting for me , not the other way round. Marv

What a great question. I asked the same thing to a lesser degree having an EQ5. I don’t think there is much of a difference in how I approached AP at my start. Some others might say no. But I will say you are limited to 60second subs. To go past the minute barrier it would seem you need to guide. On the other hand there are plenty of examples of images stacked from many sub minute images. I will wholeheartedly agree with you that travelling to really dark dark skies will make a huge difference. Marv

No messing. If you want the best views you have to take up power lifting and hoist the whole thing above your head. Power lifting screams and grunts will keep foxes and other animals away. I use this very same method to keep wild boar at ankle distance and it has proved most effective. Only one leg lost so far. Seriously move the OTA after the mount, the mount will then be waiting for the OTA. You are right though, the tripod has knocked chunks out of my door frames. Marv

I want to start this by saying that I am not the kind of guy to knock gear on forums without a load of background. That way the kit I am talking about remains in memberships collective. A trip to my large main town (country folk feel fear at this once a year diversion) the lights are sooo bright and the shops are sooo big. Strange customs like contactless card pay, I only got my card four years ago so great to use it. Whilst looking in a shop dedicated to the perfect kitchen/ dining room for the perfect present to display nuts for consumption at a group gathering that never happens. I looked across the street and saw a familiar site in an unfamiliar setting, a telescope. Not just one but a bunch of scopes. In the front window of a spectacle sales emporium were telescopes on tripods. I was I immediately thrown off balance and drunkenly wandered in. I was not drunk but more than one scope and I get wobbly. Then I saw the Vixen badge on an OTA and that OTA on a Vixen mount. I have seen so many threads on here about Vixen stuff and thought it was all high end and I was disappointed. A 130 Vixen newt on a Porta II mount. The price was 690 euro but that is the choice of the high street shop. The real eye opener was the base level frac on a photo tripod for 350 euro. It was a Bresser and it was soo plastic. I have a very high regard for both of these manufacturers and have intent on buying some of there products in the future like the Bresser Messier 10 DOB. Do these brands let themselves down at the entry level which is arguably really important. Marv

Early birthday present. A huge amount of pre prepared slides for use on my microscope. Already falling into the worm hole of the micro world. Managed to get my scope phone holder to attach so pictures will be posted in the microscope section.

I can only imagine how good. And it seems to get rarer everywhere. Marv

Five nights in Northumberland. Sounds like a title to a film. Not a great film by the sounds of it.

Your comment about doing the double double got me fired up , thank you. I thought there is no way I can split that pair again and realized I was observing Beta Lyrae!!!!! Not Epsilon🤣 I am out again tonight, more exclamation marks, this weather is about to change for the worst. The double double is the only thing on the menu of my five inch newt and my eq2 re named “bobble head”. Easy split of the initial double (right one this time) but up to 100x and there is so much turbulence. I have stuck at it for what feels like an age and suddenly two pairs for two seconds, not even really separate from each other. More like a slight over lap. literally danced a stupid jig disco combo across the garden. Time to grow up and calm down or my wife might wonder what I am up to out there.🤩

Just come in from a clear sky with an amazing milky way and realised I am typing this with my red light head torch still on! At first the idea was to do something different and look at some double stars, which I never normally do (there is a thread on here somewhere about that). I decided to use my original kit, five inch Orion newt on an EQ2😩 the OTA is fine, the tripod is fine the bit in between is like jelly but I gave it a go. Polaris needed some magnification 80x ish and the second component was very faint. I made things easier and observed Mizar in Ursa Major. Now I don’t know if this happens to you but I seem to be bombarded by WhatsApp messages when I am observing? I have my phone for the apps but how do people know I am looking at the night sky, right now? Jupiter was calling over my right shoulder and it would be rude not to. Two moons in pairs close together either side of the giant and the odd glimpse of the GRS. M31 and M110…. Or M32 which is the galaxy companion far off to one side of the Great Andromeda Spiral? Down a bit to Triangulum and I was amazed how easy M33 was to find, nearly poked my eye out through the spotter scope. Just to get back on track with the doubles I moved over to Lyra. No double double splitting obviously but a great star hop and the PN Ring Nebula. I really should use my beginners kit more often. Marvin

I think I understand it, just taken aback by what is being captured. Definitely not in the realm of being able to do EEVA but right now I am happy to to do visual Astro. I am happy to see there is another dimension that astro is pushing into, and that is definitely the EEVA dimension. I will one day day be part of this so already a convert. Next clear night I will see what I can do in a limited way. Marv

This whole thread is mind blowing. I can’t quite believe how deep space this is going. Just when I start getting my head around Barnard objects and all the others, this happens😱 Marv

A friend of mine has just bought a house with furniture and found this in a cupboard! Any information would be much appreciated.

It was interesting week as up till now I had never used a frac just newts so that was a pleasant surprise. Not a surprise is the quality of the plastic eye pieces that come with the Star quest. An immediate purchase of super plossls were made after using my eps. Our wives even braved the night and looked at the moon for ten minutes. The only thing missing was the double session but one night we managed that with Drambuie!😂

Two weeks ago one of my closest friends came over from the UK for the first time since Cov kicked off. He has had really tough year with bowl cancer and multiple operations but is in remission thank thank the stars, so we did. One week visit and every night perfectly clear and the first night pretty much new moon! When does that ever happen. Now Sam has a small refractor SW 500 mm fl at home but hasn’t used it due to the circumstances, so he brought it here and we put it on my EQ5. First thing that made Sam swear was the shear number of stars and clear as bell Milky Way. For the most part it was a teaching week, from setting up the kit, how to observe and using tools like phone apps and Stellarium to plan sessions. I won’t list it all but a whole bunch of the usual Messier’s some deep sky stuff including NGC 7331 at 53 million light years away. Sam said it just looked like a smudge! Typical. Last few nights were occupied by Lunar observing but the highlights were observing Jupiter and moons plus Saturn every night in a row. I think we had two Jupiter transits, Io and Ganymede. For Sam the stand out was Saturn with three moons showing. To tell you the truth I found the whole educating role quite daunting, but it was one of the most rewarding things I have done. Marvin