Mr Spock

Hi Paul, welcome to SGL 

Outstanding images. Especially from travel kit! 

Those dark skies though... jealous much.

I have no clue what you said but welcome anyway 

Incredible optics. But the price... 

I suspect if I win the Euromillions €20k is just a flea bite and I'll be able to let you know how it performs 

A lovely M42. I like the processing - very delicate 👍

For some of us, it's just Wednesday 

AP voodoo - even the experts find it confusing... 

Nice clean curve.

Nice looking images. It's good to see someone imaging clusters. They do get overlooked despite being interesting (to me anyway).

It would be interesting to produce a light curve for it. Do we know what its magnitude range is?

Nice set of images. I like to see the double cluster included. Great bit of the sky.

The difference in sunrise and sunset times often confuses people. Already the nights are getting lighter but the mornings are still getting darker...

The Earth rotates at the same speed but moves along its orbit at varying speeds due to eccentricity. This causes a bit of lag as the earth moves along its orbit (this time of year) quicker than it rotates. Our clocks are too accurate to cope with this.

1 hour ago, alacant said:

A 200mm diameter f6 telescope collects more light than an 80mm f6 telescope, so the former is faster.

No, that's wrong. A scope working at f2 is fast, a scope working at f10 is slow for example. Speed has nothing to do with aperture or light collection, it is the focal ratio.

It will be expanding and therefore going infra-red. Is anyone measuring that?

Just a little over the top  but it does show the different surface materials really well.

Very nice. It's a wonderful region to look at.

Hi, welcome to SGL 

I use a Revelation Quartz Dielectric 2 inch Diagonal and can't see any difference between that and more expensive ones. 

Hi Maniek, welcome to SGL 

1 minute ago, WanderingEye said:

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly are pinched optics, by that I mean what has to wrong with the scope to have this happen, as I find it intriguing... 

It's when the optics are held too tight in the cell and become distorted. 

The 80-200 f2.8 is one of the sharpest zooms ever made. Modern lenses can't come close. However, it wasn't meant for astro and many Nikon lenses suffer from coma - it's not a design priority.

The diffraction spikes are due to the 9 bladed diaphragm. You are better off making a manual stop for the front of the lens so you can use it wide open.

Hi Andreas, welcome to SGL 

Wonderful close ups.

10 hours ago, steppenwolf said:

Thank you Michael, I certainly won't hold back from having another go - but what I really need is a longer focal length. Hmmmm, here we go again, must resist.........

You need around 4000mm. A 4x powermate is less then £300... 

That's pretty good. You should do some more.