markse68

It’s an old military “fire control” tripod gifted me by a friend years ago. I’d hoarded it for years as i really like its construction/design and finally have a good use for it I’ve seen a couple come up on ebay- popular with hipster lamp builders… Mark

Sorry to hear you were ill Joe- come to the next one. It was a very good meet shifted to the Sunday due to weather but we had really good clear skies and a great turn out- in the region of 70 (!) people was the estimate and loads of scopes out. We were rushed off our feet all night! Excellent views of Jupiter and Saturn though the somewhat enhanced local light pollution from a funfair made favourites such as the Ring and Dumbbell nebula nigh on impossible for the visual observers, not so much a problem for the few robotic scopes though. Really good fun evening Mark

You make really beautiful things Keith 👍 Hopefully this works out and you get to use it more than that other beautiful scope you made. (I have that same hoover too- they’re great )

Would be great to meet you Joe- I’ll be there 21/22nd this month- can’t make the 14/15th but yes they’ve changed it this year to twice a month meets so hopefully lots of opportunity to dodge clouds 🤞 Mark

Yes I’m Greenwich way- but not so far! If you get a chance do come along to the Flamsteed meet-ups- they’re quite regular this year but i’ll miss the next one. Always a very pleasant evening Mark

Haven’t bought much astro related recently but always fancied one of these but could never justify the price until this one showed up on abs. It’s got some really nice features- i like 👍 Mark

Funnily (🤔) enough a Newise was actually my worst and most frustrating purchase I struggled for ages to collimate the scope- it hinted at wonderful views but couldn’t make points for stars. I ended up sending the secondary assembly to a seemingly very helpful and enthusiastic Newise expert owner in the US to see if he could remove the secondary mirror which i suspected wasn’t flat. In the meantime I found the real problem was the primary- a large chip on the concealed back surface had rendered it pringle shaped. I found an optics expert who could grind me a new mirror for a seemingly reasonable price (8” f3 spherical is hard to find) and was contemplating going for it but in the meantime things got strange with the US guy- he still has my secondary assembly and keeps “forgetting” to return it more than a year later. I’ve given up now. It almost killed my astro mojo completely. But the planets are back, cobwebs dusted off my simple trusty Tal newt and life goes on. Mark

Interesting video about new theories for globular cluster formation. Fascinating objects and i think my favourites Mark

cool- how much is a new draw tube with BF? Mark

if you diy a phone mount for your dob then you should both be able to use it- you should have a few uses of the activation code. Several of us have diy’d mounts: Mark

Excellent stuff Tim and I wondered what the kink in the brightening phase was- if it was due to missing periods of capture or something but the light curve Jeremy posted shows it clearly and it’s a common trait on longer period variables apparently- https://www.aavso.org/sites/default/files//publications/staff_pubs/templeton_mira_humps_bumps.pdf Mark

The Tal 120 is a bird jones i think with a correcting optic built into the focuser. These optics are prone to delaminating so check it well before buying. But i think they were good quality scopes and nice and compact Mark

Excellent find Peter. My hunch is the anodising is harder than the melamine surface of formica but like moonlight focusers, the softer foundation material (alu) will lead to eventual wear esp with abrasive dust. BUT it’s cheap enough to replace and easier to work with so looks to be most excellent! 👍 If I do ever get round to building my 12” for which i have a beautiful mirror in a box, I’ll give this a go- thank you. Nice bit of bling too Mark

How could it work during the day if it needs to see stars to work? Mark

Hi John, do you know what fov this sketch was? It looks quite different to this sketch also from CN. I’m struggling… edit- I see both star patterns in the chart- the ep views are just very different fov- this last one is 150x. And was through a 14” newt. So the chart and all these sketches are newt view? Edit just noticed the compass markings on the chart so these are all refractor view 🤦‍♂️ no wonder i couldn’t match the stars. This is newt view