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

Pentax made a range of refractors which are very collectible now and supposed to be excellent. I believe Canon make the optics for Takahashi? Shame Canon don’t make telescopes but they focus on more mainstream consumer/professional markets. Mark

The phone can do what your eye can’t- integrate over long exposure. So it can see more stars than your eyes can. I’m in bortle 8-9 SE London and it works well. It loses the platesolving close to the horizon but then the imu in the phone takes over and gets you close enough. I just swing it back up more vertical to re-register it every now and then. Mark

Thanks Nik- very useful- will hopefully have another attempt tonight Mark

it’s a diy mount i made for my old iphone- bit less bulky than the Celestron universal mount yes Mark

Yep- 45 deg from top dead centre. I have it on a tri-finder bracket with the rdf vertical. Was using it last night and it works fine. I don’t know if it would work better if it was level but it seems to work ok like this. Mark

They are lovely lovely things. I just fitted a 1.25” (for lunt i think) ft single speed focuser to my Tal newt. I didn’t want to go up to 2” as i didn’t want the added size and the scope doesn’t do well wide angle- it’s a 1.25” only scope. The focuser is more reasonably priced though still quite expensive- $280. I had it delivered to a friend in the US and picked it up last month when i visited for work. Dual speed would have doubled the price. Dual speed adds inertia and makes focusers feel smoother than they really are but after slackening the tightness of the single speed shaft against the focuser barrel this one is delightfully smooth and feather-touch. A big upgrade over the Tal r&p which had tight spots and slack. My imaging scope came with a 2” dual speed ft and it is lovely too- I got really lucky. It supports over 1kg of camera etc rock solidly and the way the lock works is superb. it really solidly locks but 1/4 turn of the lock screw and it’s silky smooth to make fine adjustments to the focus Mark so cute! 🥰

Spent about an hour trying to identify it last night with my 6” from bortle 4-5 but gave up. I was looking in the right area- starsense got me there and confirmed with star pattern in finder/skysafari but could see no trace of M101 and struggled with star pattern in ep (20mm). So i think i probably did “see” it but couldn’t identify it. But that doesn’t really count does it haha. Goto with platesolving would have been a godsend or being better at starhopping… Mark

My experience of vintage Pentax bins isn’t that great- in the 70s they used a weird gold metallic coating on the eyepieces to increase contrast (i think) but it oxidises and wipes off if you try to clean it. Mechanically they were nothing special either. Haven’t tried every variant though. I know you said don’t mention others but Nikon and Fujinon vintage bins are nicer I think Mark

they’re linked in Roberts’s post above Mark

If you designed a software to guide a users phone to a target and they just happened to strap it to a telescope with some rubber bands unbeknownst to you, i wonder if that would infringe on that patent? 🤔