ScouseSpaceCadet

That's a nice and simple kit. I started with a similar set up and wish I'd kept my SW 130PS newt.. 🙄 Buying a 1.75" steel tripod did make the whole set up feel more secure and reduced vibes. You can use the EQ5 tripod with a thread adapter.

The etiquette guide: https://www.astrocamp.awesomeastronomy.com/information/etiquette-guide. Well behaved dogs are allowed. 😀

I've owned three AZGTIs and they were all wince inducingly noisy when using goto. As Zermelo described, neighbours in close proximity with windows open is always a concern. In comparison my much sturdier Celestron AVX is nowhere near as loud.

There's also a Facebook group... https://m.facebook.com/groups/441975262512618/ More than two nights in the OEX Coyote 3 leaves me knackered. The bending and crawling around is a bit much now, so I pushed the boat out and bought a Vango Grande XL camp bed and another tent to fit the bed in! 😆 The Vango Carron 400 was heavily discounted at £138 by one shop on Ebay. Easy to pitch solo, spacious for one and 6ft tall. Bliss! A quick test pitch in 30° heat on the front lawn to check it out... Laurence there are 16 pitches remaining so come along if you can. 👍

The sky's a bit milky here, but is *supposed* to clear for a few hours. I've just popped out accompanied by Astro Cat, removed the scope and counter weight then polar aligned. A five minute job. I'll nip out about 10.30pm, do a two star align and connect the laptop. Have fun. 😀

The sun is setting and tonight Saturn and Jupiter are the targets... Put out to cool are a Skywatcher Skymax 127, a 9x50 RACI finder, GSO 2.5X ED barlow and Opticstar PX35C planetary camera. Perched on a Celestron AVX goto eq mount. Cheap as chips imaging shenanigans with 'er indoors' laptop. 🤫

Coming from a city famous for spawning accomplished writers, poets, song writers and politicians who all have managed to simultaneously celebrate, juggle and mangle the English language, I don't really care about the intricasies of grammar. The message is more important. In a conversational context, binoculars, binocular, a pair of binoculars, binocs and binos are all the same thing to the receiver of the words whether or not they happen to wince at their 'incorrect' use.

As said elsewhere, learn the names of half a dozen or so brighter stars then use Sky Safari or Stellarium to pick another. A two star alignment should be enough for visual. You will get better with practice.

Being on a very average salary, the stress does not come from how much I've spent, rather how much I'd like to spend but daren't! Though good luck to you if you can afford to splash out. 👍

Who knows what they will do with the junk... However I'm delighted a British astronaut will be in the hot seat... Shaun the Sheep! "We're very happy he's been selected for the mission and we understand, although it might be a small step for a human, it's a giant leap for lambkind." Dr. David Parker at ESA. Good luck Shaun! 👍

Haha thanks for the heads up. The chances of seeing aurora in Liverpool are very slim indeed although not impossible, so during a red alert it's always worth a look and hope for a memorable moment. Unfortunately we are experiencing much needed cloud and rain so it's highly unlikely I'll be running barefoot into the garden again for a bit. 😄 Good luck everyone else!

The primary targets in my light polluted urban garden are doubles using the 102ED version. I've owned the scope about twenty months and it consider it a bargain (£495 at the time)... During this period I've also owned a 102mm Mak and have a 127 Mak. On doubles, the little maksutovs are out performed in every way by the refractor.

Yes. The book is basically loads of linked essays grouped into chapters. Being Tyson he wanders through theoretical astrophysics, to the potentialities of alien life, science education, religion and everything in between.

To be honest I'm not much of a tinker. Kit stays away until I need to use it or something new arrives... During weather downtime there's plenty of other stuff to do, however my favourite toilet reading is an astro related book. I've just finished Death by Black Hole by Neil de Grasse Tyson and started On The Moon by Patrick Moore.

As far as I'm aware the only benefit is 2" diagonals allow you to use 2" eyepieces... Personally I got rid of my 2" diagonal and eps to keep things simple while also keeping weight down . The less faff in the dark the better. If you're happy with your current set up, then you're not missing out. Unless of course you want to ring out every last nth degree of widefield observation from your kit... Although I'm happy with the field a 24mm 65° eyepiece provides with an f7 refractor.

My shield is two mop handles, a tarp and gaffer tape. It slides into two plumbing pipe rings attached to the fence, with the ends of the mop handles balanced on nails. And ask the council to fit a shield to the lamp.

You may be lucky and the handset time zone settings have flunked. This happened to me with AVX when gotos were going off one night and changing the time/date made no difference. Resetting the handset to factory default, reloading the latest firmware & adding in my local time/date settings etc, sorted it. Although if the mount is fine every time with the TAL, you're probably just pushing the mount a bit too far..?

Paul, the stated max payload is 9kg so if you're going over that by 10% and only having persistent problems with the 5" then one can assume that's where the issue lies. Most experienced advice we receive is keep to 2/3rds the max loading weight for best performance (and reduced wear)? Although experience with other mounts and poor goto performance has shown that incorrect balance can have a detrimental effect too... Disregarding the weight for a moment, is the scope balanced spot on?

I've used the AZ5 three years now. The AZ5 aluminium tripod is woefully inadequate. A steel 1.75" tripod improves stability and reduces vibration. Regarding the clutches - mine are the same. Requiring them to be tight before the slo mos engage correctly each time. The stiffness is AZ is not something I've encountered, hopefully over time with use this should loosen off.

The Aurora Watch UK app sent a red alert on Sunday at midnight for potential Aurora sightings anywhere in the UK... Of course I went out in the garden barefoot and scanned the whole sky. Not a sausage (or Aurora). At least someone got to see it.

And on work nights. After midnight last night was the best of the weekend. I was out at 00:30 barefoot on the grass looking for Aurora (🙄) after a red alert... The sky was great (for here).

Casual white light today inbetween chores:

So tonight's cloud forecast being touch and go I decided to keep things simple. No fancy pants electronics, just the AZ5 mounted Skymax 127 so I can outsmart next door's trees by moving the scope to the main patio for extended Saturn observation compared to last night. Now I am sitting here kicking myself for not putting the 4" refractor and AVX out! Scintillation is almost zero and at zenith at least, transparency is as good is it gets here. I'm watching satellites whizz by naked eye and cruising around with binoculars picking out globs! Haha! I'm gonna sit here for a bit longer then move the gear and carry on with Saturn.

We have a late teens girl still at home and as I work from home, two washes a day can get done. I even use fabric conditioner! Culinary skills are not limited to Pot Noodle©. I'm also a dab hand at choosing the perfect takeaway. Dead posh like, "Will Sir be dining on Indian, Chinese or Turkish tonight?". "May I recommend a fine pale ale to complete the ensemble?" I'm really surprised noone will take me on as their dark sky butler, given those impeccable credentials. I'll just keep trying. 😉

I've owned for around three years, the Oklop Bag for Small Telescopes . Initially bought to house a Skywatcher 130PS, tripod, mount and accessories, it's now my Big Bag of Astro Stuff©. Recommended