lee g

Thanks for your suggestion I actually ordered one yesterday

When I say sealed tube I meant that in a loose sense. I mean air must have entered the tube whilst I attached the diagonal thus letting in some cold ambient air. So when I dried the corrector plate using the hair dryer I may have also heated the air behind it inside the tube which in turn caused the primary mirror to dew over

So after reading all these helpful replies I think I’ve figured out what went wrong. just before the primary mirror fogged up I had used a hairdryer to clear the corrector plate and I probably inadvertently warmed the inside of the tube up thus resulting in warmer air inside. Does this sound feasible in your opinions.

So my sct lives outside in a well ventilated shed. Last night I set up 2 hours before sunset when I went out to observe i turned on my dew strip heater on the secondary mirror, but within half an hour for the first time ever the primary mirror had fogged over. This ended the session there and then. How is this possible since the mirror sits in a sealed tube and how can I prevent it in the future.

Noooo just as I thought I had it all figured out 😂

After careful consideration I think I’ll be saving my pennies for now until a reasonably priced used ES24mm 82 degree becomes available after reading the replies to this post I don’t feel that an ES24mm 68 degree could bring enough to the table to justify its price nevertheless it’s been interesting reading and goes to show it’s never as straightforward as first thought

I totally agree even though my 30mm is the least used I wouldn’t be without it.

It really is a treat to look through though it is probably the least used mostly because of it size. when I first bought the ES 82s I purchased the 30mm, 18mm, 11mm and 8.8mm as well as a 1.25” Barlow.

Wow when you put it like that it hardly seems worth it . Scopes I would use it with would be an 8”sct and a 120mm f5 refractor The 30mm 82 degree is a bit heavy for the f5 refractor

I already own Explore Scientific 30mm and 18mm 82 degrees and always fancied filling the gap with a 24mm 82 degree but due to the high price I am now considering a 24mm 68 degree ep. Do you all feel this is a worthwhile purchase or should I make do?

I use my iPad Air with an asi air as it allows me to stack images using the asi app

Thanks for all your replies it seems then that ventilation is the way to go at least to begin with as it’s not an observatory as such. More of an external storage room for the scopes which doubles as a room to do EAA, keeping warm isn’t really an issue for me so maybe I can do without insulating it maybe I’ll just line it with plywood put some vents in and hopefully this will stop mildew/fungus growing on the optics.

I have a 5ft x 8ft wooden shed on concrete which I use to store my scopes. I also sit inside to do eaa and so it doubles as an observatory as well. Though when doing so the scopes sit outside. Last winter it got terribly damp inside resulting in mildew. What would your suggestions be to stop this whilst also protecting the scopes from the elements? I was thinking either ventilation and/or a dehumidifier but was unsure what to line the walls and roof with ie ply wood or some kind of insulation. I was also thinking of interlocking rubber tiles for the floor.

I’m about to try my hand at EAA i currently use a cpc800 which is alt-az I’ll be using it with a ZWO ASI224MC USB 3.0 CMOS Colour Camera, an Asiair plus and an f6.3 focal reducer. considering the alt-az setup what kind of results can I expect using live stacking.

Yes this whole issue doesn’t seem very clear to me. As bosun21 states “If it’s meaningless” ie because the Asiair + does all the processing then why state it. my worry is that the tablet would require more RAM when using the live stacking feature therefore having to constantly update the image as well as possibly running another app such as SkySafari pro. it would be helpful to hear from users who have experience in using their Asiair + for eaa ie live stacking.

My wife has bought me an ASIAIR plus for Xmas this will be powering a ZWO ASI224MC camera on my CPC800. this will be used mainly for eaa so obviously live stacking. My issue is my current iPad mini 4 has only got 3GB RAM and not the required 4GB do you think this would have a noticeable affect on the performance of this setup? I’m mostly worried about live stacking.

Finally after a lot of thought and waiting I’ve joined the club.. I want this mostly for EAA (live stacking) and maybe some planetary imaging. only thing is I have to wait for crimbo now as it’s a prezzie from my wife

I have to agree with the previous posts about it not being very good. Although I think maybe my discontent is due to my expectations that it should still in some way resemble the show I grew up with. Still I really do struggle with it. maybe ditch the professionals and bring in a number of passionate amateurs to present it and keep the pros for guest appearances

Point taken about the telrad I didn’t even think of that to be honest.. thanks 🙏

I use my Herschel wedge with my skywatcher st120 and this gives great views. all in all a very affordable solar setup

I recently tried my hand for the first time live stacking at the eyepiece using a ZWO ASI224 Color Camera in my 8” sct after a few hours tinkering I eventually got what I considered acceptable results my question is do I now use any filters ie as you would for visual like uhc o111 ect, at the moment I’ve just been leaving in the ir cut filter. These are my results so far they have however been slightly enhanced on my iPhone. I felt they met my expectations but please feel free to point out any flaws. just to add I’m observing under bortle 5 skies im trying to keep it as close to live viewing as I possibly can so the live view is more important than these slightly edited images.

Hi do you use a solar continuum filter with the Hercules wedge.

That’s what I was hoping you would suggest mainly due to the price difference between the 1.25 and 2” filters. Thanks for sharing your knowledge

I have a diagonal which is either 1.25” or 2” and my ep’s are the explore scientific 82°some are 2” some are 1.25 so I was wondering which size solar continuum filter I would need

So I’ve ordered a skywatcher st 120 and plan to get a solar film filter as well as a solar continuum filter. Would it be better to use 1.25 or 2” ep so I know what size filter to get.