Marvin Jenkins

I have an Orion Space Probe 130 which I have upgraded with the PDS focuser, in effect, making it a 130 pds. I also have an SW 150 pds and I find both excellent for AP and visual. I have seen all the planets and at present are 108 of 110 Messiers. I have seen transits and shadow transits of Jupiter. The Cassini division and ring shadow on Saturn plus moons and surface shading on Mars sometime back. At present I am only using a box of cheap Plossls, so with higher end ep,s the views can only get better. FYI I am bortle 4 skies. I cannot comment on imaging planets as I have been concentrating on DSO,s since starting AP as the planets are now just coming back to my latitude. Marvin

Hi Ranger Zeus, I don’t normally reply to these threads as most of them I have no immediate knowledge, this one is on the money. I started Astro three years ago knowing absolutely nothing. A year in bought an SW NEQ5 Pro SynScan V5 and SW 150 PDS with the intention of doing AP with my DSLR At first I was horrified that I had made a huge mistake. The whole world says AP starts at HEQ5. Not so! Now to clarify, really good AP results start at HEQ5. However I am getting usable 60 second subs unguided from my setup with careful polar alignment. I would however say that in my opinion the 200 PDS is a leap too far and the previous suggestion of 130 and 150 for the same cost makes lots of sense. I have imaged Nebula, Clusters, Globs and Galaxies including The Whirlpool, Leo Triplet and M81/82 with some success. Thinking about it.. would you be better off buying an HEQ5 130PDS then getting a 150 in the future? That way you are mount future proofed. It has taken me a year to learn how to take all the subs darks flats etc and it will take a lot longer to learn processing so you have plenty of time not to mention cloudy skies to look forward to. Marvin

My advice is to not rush anything. I know it is hard as I remember my first sessions and I was clearly trying to exceed M Messier’s life’s work in one night. The second thing is that your great choice of scope is one of the best for portability. If you can, move location as the moon is a fabulous waxing crescent right now early in the night. Once the moon drops below the horizon you can have a look at M13 which is always a treat. Always start with your lowest Magnification eye pieces (biggest number in mm’s) to give you the best view for locating the object. Once you find the treasure you can increase mag. Happy star gazing. Marvin

No problem, I could have done with your help on Friday night! Have you got it working with Stellarium or CDC yet? M

I use a D3100 as a beginner into AP and it is great. I am well aware that DSLRs are at the bottom of AP compared to cooled CCDs. At the start DSLRs are light weight and convenient. But if it wasn’t for the fact that I already had the Nikon before the scope I would be Canon all night long. I think there is focus software and extras for Canon for free and nothing for Nikon. Just look at how many Astro AP are using Canon. Very few ‘choose Nikon’. Marvin

If understand correctly, you are using an EQ5 mount with Synscan upgrade kit?? I have the same. If what you are trying to do, is what you describe then it will not work. You cannot start your mount and star align with the Synscan handset, then disconnect and plug in a pc/laptop. You have to operate your mount via the Synscan hand control unit or buy from FLO the dedicated cable, to connect your mount to a computer using the Ascom platform and the Eqmod driver. The cable is Lynx Astro Eqmod. Just today I have been through this ordeal something akin to the Spanish Inquisition! Don’t be put off as when it works, IT WORKS. The trial by ordeal is as follows- Order correct usb cable for your mount via FLO. Don’t be tempted by alternatives as the quality is important. Make sure the laptop you are using is Microsoft. Search by your preferred engine “Ascom” and download the Ascom platform. I don’t know the blurb but it is a common interface that allows Astro programs to talk to each other. Once you have the Ascom platform downloaded, search your preferred engine for EQMOD. Be careful, the top line is for Ascompad, you don’t want that. Next line down is what you need, Eqmod. Be aware that you click on Eqmod but the download button is still for Ascompad. THEY DONT MAKE IT EASY! Once you have downloaded EQMOD you are in the pit of hell fire. At this point you need a good YouTube tutorial on a separate tablet and some Scotch if you are eighteen or older. The biggest deal with the whole thing, after connecting your mount with the special cable and powering up the mount direct, no handset, is to find out your COM PORT number. Now I am on Windows ten, so to find this I RIGHT CLICK the Microsoft start button bottom left. A box appears with a big list. Device controller. Half way down USB, double click and it will show you the com port number your cable is assigned. Get out of there and click your start button for your list of programs. Being Windows 10 EQMOD is at the top as a newly downloaded app. Toolbox is what you want! But not yet. You have to right click on it, select ‘more’ and select administrator. That’s right, you knew that, you were telepathic or part of the design team that created this secret mythical world. Now you are in to the EQMOD program. Almost there.... you must be joking. More mind reading. Hit the driver button and ensure that in COM PORT you select the number you found earlier. Didn’t wright it down? Go back start again. Remembered COM number great. Keep following that YouTube tutorial because you cannot get a refund on the next two days of your life. M

I think most of theses diagrams are just made to con people out of what they think they are buying. I once worked for a guy, for a day that asked me how many hours I had worked? I said eight. He started in UK pounds per hour, despite being in France. Converted it to Francs despite the recent move to the Euro. Then converted to Euros. I got ripped off at every turn, hence the one day I worked for the guy. Wasn’t there a collaborative mission to one of the planets In the past that ended in failure because the US was working in their units and Europe was working in metric? Tried to land at 30,000 KLM’s an hour what ever that is in US miles. M

It’s just a telescope! Drill a hole in it!😂 old school cyclist. Back in the day some of us would drill huge amounts of excess aluminium out of very expensive cycling equipment to save a few grams. Drillium is what I think it is now called. In all seriousness, my hands would tremble at the idea of drilling a hole in something Astro high end, but they are just telescopes in the end not Holy Grails. Marvin

I powered it up separately from the mount via the power port in the base, using the same power supply for the mount, 12v max5amp but it was still dead. Had me looking for a secret on off switch, picture me throwing it in the bin only to find out a week later it needed switching on. Marv

Thank you very much. I looked on line for Skywatcher user guides but they appear to be as good on the web as they are in printed form out of the box. Thanks for the info. Marvin

I am the proud owner of a new to me NEQ6R mount. This mount has been given to me as the previous owner has said it may need a rebuild, which I am entirely happy with. Previous owner said that it was not tracking accurately enough for their needs. It has been Rowan belt modded. I have connected it to power via an AC to DC 12 v 5amp 60w supply in the house. Flick the switch and solid red power light. First thing, the V3 handset appears to be dead. I have an EQ5 with V5 handset and I swapped the handsets and the V5 powers up and works fine, so I presume the old handset has died???? Without jumping to conclusions is this reasonable? as I have noticed that the V3 has a power socket in it’s base unlike the V5. I had one night clear skies to test the mount but once outside I found the azimuth dead stop bolt was missing from the tripod head ahhhh! The mount has only ever been used on a pier I suspect. I was unable to polar align and the weather has been cloudy since. I have made a dead stop bolt so that problem solved but the second question is polar scope illumination. Because my experience is EQ5 based I have used the little plug in battery illuminator but the NEQ6R appears to have a built in illuminator. I can see it, like a little lolly pop stick when looking down the RA hole, but mine does not light up. I assume it should illuminate when the power is turned on? Is there a separate control for this I am missing, or is it just not working. I have no problem doing any work that is needed. Replacing anything that needs replacing. I will probably go down the EQMOD route and not get a replacement handset, but use a laptop instead. Any answers to the V3 handset question and polar scope illuminator question would be most welcome. Marvin

Sorry Vlaiv, spellcheck did it to me again.

Thank you Vladivostok and Martin, for the link and info. I will look into and if successful, reply to my friend in a way that suggests it was an easy thing to identify. Only joking. If I cannot find it then unofficially my friend can name it after himself.👍

Hi All. I would like to ask a question. Is there an open source on the web for identifying very distant stars? I emailed a friend a recent DSO photo of M13 in Hercules and the question came back ‘what is the name of the small very red star almost obscured by the large yellow star in the top right corner‘? All matter of fact I said I would look and try to identify it. In fact I didn’t even say try, now I am on the hook. I looked in the star charts and identified the large yellow star as TYC2588-780-1, distance to observer unknown. Stellarium and SN7 was at the info limit with no further stars in the background field. Is there any way to access further information. Any help would be most appreciated. Marvin

I will probably be proved wrong by far more knowledgeable members, but interpretation was that most popular go to mounts are primarily designed to track objects in space from Right Ascension. The movement of the stars to the naked eye rotating around the North Celestial Pole a point closest to Polaris. Now the moon does not follow this path. Neither do the planets so perhaps our modern star following mounts find the extreme easy and the obvious very hard. Marv

Love those get out there and mix it up sessions. Sometimes it’s easy to get stuck down one path. That approach of look at what is staring you in the face and try and chance a Messier at the end can be really rewarding. Great session. Marv

Don’t fret. You have a good mount and the one you paid for. It came as quite a surprise to me with my go to neq5 pro that after careful alignment it found the moon a very difficault target to find and track for longer periods. I looked up old posts and reviews and this is certainly the case for a lot of people. For DSO as long as you are careful with polar alignment it will most likely find a tiny distant galaxy far easier than the moon and most certainly track it better. Marv

Nike written across the night sky.

Just wanted to ask what are you imagining? Looks nebulous. Marv

You know it will happen!

Close Encounters. M

For an now now I have been watching Mons Pico. I could see the mountain stark and clear throwing its shadow into the terminator. Fascinating to use the length of the shadow to realize how quick the terminator is moving. More and more of the long shadow became apparent in such a short space of time. Plato had an amazing shadow cast halfway across its floor, a bit like the bat man logo. Sorry best description I could think of! Marvin

Thanks Stu, it’s one of those times you get all your wish list written out and very nearly see the lot. As you have described the blinking, I may have seen it after all and not realised what I was seeing. I looked at it for some time, then tried switching from direct to averted. Noticeable change in brightness but I put that down to flicking from direct to averted and back again. Maybe if I had held at averted I may have seen the change after all. Marvin

Tracked it! Wow. A week or so back the ISS came over and my reaction was ‘That thing is motoring’ well done. Next time I know it’s s due I am going for the mother of wed field photos. Should make one hell of a light trail. Marvin

I have just come in after observing Venus with the bins. Caught it by spiral movement at least 30 minutes before naked eye. Fantastic crescent. My question, is it in a waining phase? Appears opposite to the moon, as in the moon is more illuminated but Venus seems less? My second question is, is there an app or site that I can access that shows the phases of Venus, like the app on my phone for the the moons of Jupiter.