markse68

58 minutes ago, Chriske said:

Yep, after a quick drawing I ran a simulation in my slicer.
My slicer gives me an estimate value of the filament length required to print that thing, estimate time to finish that part and also the cost to print it.
In one of the settings of slicer I need to fill in the cost of 1kg filament.

Ah ok yes you could do that but I was talking about getting it made in nylon on an sls  machine which is a bit more pricey and puts the moonlite cost into perspective (did for me anyway ;)) Actually I was really shocked by the quote having had other parts made by the same company and finding their prices quite reasonable for the quality. But I checked around and they were still by far the cheapest 😳Much cheaper than Shapeways for example

2 hours ago, Chriske said:

I have absolutely no idea how a base like that looks like. I did a  60 sec drawing(about 120x120x25mm) and put it in slicer. It gives me : 1.60€

Where did you get that quote? Are you talking your own machine and filament cost?

1 hour ago, Chriske said:

woow £50 for just the base...?...🤪

well it is quite a hunk of anodised CNC'd aluminium- it's not really a bad price for the quality. I've been looking around to get a base 3D printed in Nylon for mine and the cheapest I can find is about £70!! CNC'd one off would be about 200+!

4 hours ago, Alan White said:

Have you got the Moonlite measurements at all?

Here they are- tube diameter is 57mm and across the flat is 56.2 or there abouts

Mark

3 hours ago, Alan White said:

Have you got the Moonlite measurements at all?

I will measure them shorty for you

Mark

They're really cool looking too- where did you get the tubes- not turned surely?

That’s super cool- does it hold collimation well? And does the secondary bounce around a bit? Not sure if that’d be any worse than my drain pipe Fullerscope where the whole thing wobbles around a bit too much on its dob mount though tbh  🤔😉

Hi Alan, not sure what wears in that focuser but it looks like a copy of the Moonlite focusers and depending how close a copy it is there’s a German Ebay seller called classic-telescopes who has some nos moonlite focuser tubes at the moment- I just ordered and received one- he’s a very nice eBay seller, they’re a good price I think and the postage is a good price too. If it is the tube that’s worn might be an option?

Mark

2 hours ago, Stardust said:

My thought is to remove it and shorten, then machine down 15mm of the the knurled part to the same diameter. 

😳

I don’t think I could bring myself to do something like that but I guess if there were no other option... yes it does unscrew.

I'm still in the planning stages of my upgrade to a 2” focuser and the plans have just changed once again since I picked up a replacement focuser tube giving me over an inch extra travel so I plan to redesign the adapter mount allowing enough infocus to handle this bad boy- hope it proves to be worth it 😉

It’s really light btw- ~300g

seems to have a bit of a yellowish caste though unfortunately but might try the old Russian camera lens trick of leaving it in sunlight to see if the uv clears it

I’ve just started a new project to build a motorised manual focuser for my dob and given it’s an f7.3 I reckon I should be able to get away with direct driving the coarse focus knob of a Moonlite with a Nema17 400 step- I found a nice Sanyo one on eBay cheap, and it should have enough torque and resolution- hopefully 😉

The idea of constantly fighting gear train backlash  when changing direction didn’t appeal at all - but then I’m only going to be using it visually so hopefully holding torque won’t be an issue with the motor disabled for battery saving

That’s very cool- thanks for showing me 😊

I saw another implementation that used a long roller that contacted the focuser tube with a screw thread that pulled it laterally to finely rotate the tube but thinking about it I think I must be mistaken as it would have to slide when you just turn the tube 🤔 Maybe it was a ptfe pad- I’ll have to see if I can find it again. Your solution avoids that problem- just backdriving the gears like a normal Crayford with geared knob 👍

13 hours ago, Chriske said:

5. Helical Focuser BB dual speed

Almost exactly the same as the one here above. But this one I added a dual speed unit. I can rotate the barrel just the same as the one above or use the dual speed knob.

Wow you keep yourself very busy Chriske!  Awesome work! 😊

on this helical Crayford how does the dual speed knob work? It looks like there’s a ra gearbox going to a wheel pressed against the tube. So is it a geared down method to turn the tube slower? And the wheel just slips when you turn the tube manually?

Thanks Mark. Looks like tonight is going to be the last good weather of my holiday so I’ll most likely be out again in the wee hours. I don’t know if it was my imagination and I couldn’t make out any structure but I got a  distinct impression of a redness to the area the NAN should be last night without filters 

50 minutes ago, Saganite said:

It is being at the eyepiece, under the stars in real time for me, and always will be, enjoying the peace and quiet. If I could not do that, I would not bother at all.

I’m new to this and haven’t tried imaging so my opinion is pretty worthless but this resonates with me. I was walking along the shingles of Dungeness yesterday behind a long line of guys and girls sat patiently waiting for a fish to take their lure. It struck me that there might be a parallel there with this hobby- getting outdoors usually alone and often waiting for clouds to budge or like for me last night, Orion to peep over the horizon. The patience and the reward were a magical experience. I hope I never tire of peering through the thermal ripples to glean  fine detail of the moon or gazing upwards catching shooting stars or the iss. I did buy a set of rgb  filters though just in case 😂

So cheap! Are they any good? Nice looking 😉

To recap I’m spending a few days camping in Bortle 4 Kent coast and it’s been an amazing few days seeing things as never before! I had planned to set alarm for 4am one morning but a large family group arrived yesterday and kinda surrounded me so I abandoned that plan not wanting to wake them all at that ungodly hour.

So I waited and waited till about 2am last night for my first ever look at Orion and boy was it worth it! Pretty spectacular despite the closeness of the half moon and the low altitude at that time but even with those limitations it’s the most incredible nebula I’ve seen yet- so vivid and 3-dimensional. Wow!

I do have a question though. It’s going to get better and better with darkening skies, higher altitude  and with a lack of moon, but will something like an oiii filter be the icing on the cake or is that just for things you can’t really see without?

Not so much in action but airing off the dew after action. Took a few days off work and having a few much needed days holiday in Romney- with my scope 🤦‍♂️😂

Bortle 4 skies!! My first with a scope and oh what a difference it makes compared to my local 8-9! Milky Way clearly visible in perfect clear skies for my first beautiful night and easy to get lost in the blanket of stars not visible from home. The Ring was much more defined and the Great Globular spectacular😊 (I could actually see very clearly the stars of Hercules! 😉) Sadly for some reason (maybe coastal humid air?) the planets were really poor and I’ve seen much better from home 🤷‍♂️ Looking forward to a few more clear nights and will have to set the alarm for 4am one morning as Orion was right there clear as a bell when I got up for a pee 😉

edit for actual action photos 😉- sunset in Kent and if you zoom in Jupiter’s the only thing visible- and nice and high and sharp (😊) at 7:30pm!

That’s really great work and I really like the silent movie style of your YouTube vid 👌😊

Finally- an Oiii filter 😃

I was waiting for a 2” but got bored so plumped for this T2 version with an m42-m48 adapter which I think should cover most of my eps without vignetting and will be nice with the 1.25” eps not having to refit it each time when swapping between them with the 2”-1.25” adapter. No idea if it’s the 6nm or 12nm version though as it doesn’t say🤷‍♂️ Hoping for the later obvs for observing use...

At last I might see evidence of this illusive  Veil and other Cignus nebulae I hear so much about 🤞

5 minutes ago, Ruud said:

It does look interesting!

Is that the field stop I can see in the bottom up view?

No it doesn’t seem to have a field stop as such Ruud so the edge of field isn’t super sharp. I just measured and the focal plane is about 15mm above the barrel/nose junction so that is really quite a lot of focuser in-travel 😳 I think I have to rethink my focuser plans...

Spotted this beast on eBay from ENS the other day and couldn’t resist- another addition to my growing  “interesting eyepieces” collection 😉 I found an old thread about it on here but no opinions other than it being tricky to focus- the focal plane seems to be about 10-12mm above the barrel/nose junction so you’d need plenty of in-travel on your focuser. Anyway I’ve nothing to put it in till I sort out the 2” focuser on my dob but will update then- hoping for a nice widish view low power “finder” ep 🤞

PS it’s new old stock and they had a few if you like unusual eps

24 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

ADC = atmospheric dispersion corrector

Thanks Craig- ingenious sounding device!

I think so though different mirror makers- Craig’s is a David Hinds and I’m trying to find out who made mine- I was told it was a Hysom but there’s some doubt. Same spec though 😊

My 8.75” fullerscope Stu- it’s all I use since I got it. I think I must have seen Neptune 😊 Very satisfying

1 hour ago, CraigT82 said:

Nothing like the image unfortunately! Visually I can make out the Cassini division (just) and maybe some slight banding on the planet but that's it.  Ans that's using an ADC too!  

That’s a relief lol 😂Sounds exactly like what I see. When the seeing is stable and clear it’s surprising how much detail I can see- it’s been sharper than Jupiter on many occasions. What’s an ADC btw?