DaveL59

well done! worrying tho that the lens shifted tho even what can seem like a small glancing tap can have quite an effect once momentum of the lens mass and the ASC unit are taken into account. Fingers crossed it all stays settled and gives great results, image and of course water resistance

as Stu says, worth playing with focus and exposure settings. Your image does seem a bit overexposed so tuning down the ISO or increasing shutter speed may help, perhaps try exposure bracketting to see if that returns a better shot and work from there. I struggle to set focus well enough since I don't wear my reading glasses normally when using the scope or binos. Hence when I try taking pics I find focus a little off, took me a while to twig to the fact that I'm actually setting the scope slightly off focus for the camera/phone so I'll hopefully make up a bhatinov mask at some stage to try improve things. I doubt wearing my glasses I'll get any more accuracy so that seems the best way to go really.

in the manual controls are you able to set the focus one the phone? Ideally you want this set to infinity, then its a case of aligning to the eyepiece so the image is centred and at the right distance to account for eye relief of the EP and tweaking the exposure settings to suit. Can be quite fiddly especially if the mount doesn't track the object as you then have limited time to fiddle with settings before having to recapture the target by adjusting the mount aim.

could be the sensor board has shifted a touch too if its cropping the image on one side. Defo leave it for another day tho, a break from it can help get focus on the issue with fresh mind/eyes

oh dear Gina, not a good day then Wonder if the knock has affected the focus?

so with a little more energy today, decided to take a look at what to do to modify that plate to suit a repair piece. I've 10mm and 12mm drill bits but no 11mm unfortunately as that's the size hole needed. So drilled the end hole to 10mm in classic DIY style, on a wall, foot holding the bracket and in with the drill. Then filed the 10mm hole out to fit the spindle, just under 11mm diameter. OK not a perfect round but good enough. Stripped off the arms and offered against the plate to mark the pattern I will need to reshape it to: Now if I can cut/file down to these markings it should be a reasonable top-plate for the arm, which will need to be filed down to blend it in level. Likely will need a thin shim under this as it's a little thinner than the original casting but that I can figure later - milk bottle top cut as a washer to suit perhaps.

looks pretty stable now then I do find that the IRcut when it switches can give slight out of focus under IR lighting, so I tend to tweak for best focus under IR and accept a slight out-of-focus in daylight, which is hardly noticeable by comparison. Different use case than what you're trying to achieve tho of course.

does the lens tilt slightly when you tighten the lock screw I wonder? I use a M12 screw collar to clamp mine on the cctv modules, tho that too can shift focus a touch so needs a couple minor tweaks to get just so. The one CS fit I have takes care to lock as its quite easy to shift the focus slightly when tightening.

was suggested that too Gina but wasn't keen after the bifocal experience. Problem - well argument with optician more like - I've always had is reading distance. For "work" or computer use, my screens are arms length or a bit further away normally and of course they insist that's too far away! Sorry but I ain't using flat screens and having them at the front of the desk, wasting the workspace I could be using for paperwork etc, so they tend to have to make a pair for regular reading distance and a pair for screen working. So much for the customer always being right huh

ahh was more thinking of the ones blowing jets of air in your eyes etc for the extra testing they do these days. Shame you can't opt out of those as that really does deter me from going unless I've broken my glasses so have little choice. Thankfully I can get away with ready readers in the main worst case

interesting experiment Mark, not sure I'll pull any of my TAL plossl's apart tho I've yet to try the new TAL 2x Barlow I recently acquired tho I expect it'll perform nicely when I do get the chance.

not everyone gets on with bifocals, either regular or the wider join occupational type. For me every time I turned my head it felt like the floor/table was being whipped away from under me, leaving me feeling very nauseous. Thankfully my optician got the 2 pairs re-made as 2 separate prescriptions at no cost so I ended up with one pair of each mag. Only need them for reading/close work, being long-sighted and I guess I too am due another check/prescription, when I can be bothered to go and have my eyes tortured once again that is, hate those test machines they use nowadays.

nice pics, well done! I too have the 10+ and initially struggled to get anywhere, switching to pro mode and manually controlling the focus/exposure improved things but I think I'll need to get a holder to really achieve much given how awkward it can be to align the correct camera with the eyepiece. That and using my glasses to get the scope in focus, since being longsighted and not usually wearing them I note the pics I had taken were a touch out of focus lol.

so slowly picking this up again tho progress will be slow after a spell in hospital so not feeling quite up to serious fettling at the mo. The penny washers arrived, offering one up it looks OK but marking up the edges, its a little too narrow an overlap I think certainly not much metal to support a couple small threaded holes and screws if I want this to be a durable fix. Oh well, a larger penny washer may have worked but hard to find in 2.5mm or above thickness. So just bought one of these metal brackets from the local DIY, 2.75mm thick and the right width so when I feel more capable I'll have a go at opening up the hole to correct size and working the end to fit with a deeper overlap onto the original arm. Should be a lot easier too given it'll have a squared end which will be simpler to file the original arm to match. I can see signs of the prism chips on the inside of the objective so these will need a good clean internally, a bit of matt black on the chip should be all that's needed once I get to that stage. Still have to figure a way to sort the cracks in the plastic occular holder, plastic welding maybe? A bridge to cross later, may see if I've any metal eyepiece holders I can swap onto this pair tho the size of these occulars may make that impossible.

I recently bought a RDF with hotshoe adaptor from Astroboot which arrived not long ago, just before I came home from hospital. Not had a chance to try it out yet but here's a pic in case it helps. The RDF has a flat foot that fits into what looks to be a 3d-printed hotshoe adaptor. Might be you'll need to do something similar to make up a hotshoe plate that can then carry the RDF.

welcome aboard, Patrick. Hopefully you'll get to enjoy the new scope when it arrives and discover the wonders up in the night sky Know what you mean on the buying front, I ended up with a lot of binoculars collected in a period between jobs then went down the next rabbit-hole and started buying scopes lol

yikes! I store my gear in the conservatory but am careful that the OTA's are pointing away from the sun's path, just in case a cover comes off unnoticed. I cap the finders too as well as remove the EP's and cap the focuser. No sense courting disaster knowing what you can do with the sun and a small magnifying glass let alone a 4-inch frac or large mirror. Folks have set places alight by just hanging a crystal in the window after all...

this may help

could you share some pics so we can see what you are working with? I have the SW130EQ2 and yes it should have 25 & 10mm eyepieces but buying used one may have already been missing. The 25mm isn't bad at all and the 10mm is quite usable but if you are going to have to go buy a replacement it'd be worth upgrading to a better one perhaps. Did it also come with a barlow lens, usually 2x on these?

surely that's for lenses and not mirrors? I'd have thought the usual method of remove, wash in soapy water and rinse with distilled is all that's needed. OK it means taking the secondary out and recollimating afterwards but at least it won't harm the coatings.

hi Harry I doubt that going from 114 to 130 aperture you'll perceive much difference to be honest. There will be some improvement but it'll be a little. If you really want to upgrade then a 150 would be a better step I think. I've a TAL-1 (110) and SW130 and there's not a lot between them image-wise, tho the TAL does punch above its weight. As Kat says, the mount will become more important as you step up, because of the weight of the OTA and the need to keep it more stable as well as its payload capability. For EQ mounts you can always add in a RA motor to allow it to follow objects once you've located them which can be handy.

on your EQ2 it'll be the one that sticks out sideways, the other that lays alongside the tube is the DEC control. Once you get to the stage of being able to just turn the RA to track, you might want to consider hooking up the motor, as that'll track for you once you are on the target. Then you can relax and take the photo or enjoy the view or both, as well as show your son and not have to re-find the target Nice work on the photo's tho, Carole's tweaks to it make it look really good.

you'd need to be careful on placement so the IR from a CCTV doesn't upset your imaging, even with an IR filter if the beam hits the lens it'll create a flare. Also consider the cheap CCTV tend to talk out to a server on the web that you connect to, they aren't the most secure things and you'll rarely (never even) see firmware updates to fix weaknesses.

thanks Mark, yeah getting there. No idea what went wrong as I'm not that bad of a cook lol

today arrived Manfrotto ball head from the bay and a TAL Lanthanum 2x barlow from one of our members here.