Mandy D

Very nice! The 190 MN looks like a superb piece of kit.

You remove the lens from your DSLR, then the T-adapter attaches to the telescope and the camera attaches to the T-ring just as if the telescope were a big lens. No other lens on the camera is required. You can use Barlows or focal extenders to magnify the image of small objects like Jupiter if you want. It is possible to attach a camera and lens to the telescope, but you really need filter ring adapters and a threaded eyepiece for that. Some users simply hold their mobile phone to the eyepiece and click, but that is certainly not the best way to do things.

@stuy That, also, is droolworthy. I think it's probably beyond my budget, too. But, budget is not what this thread is about.

I was just drooling over the Skywatcher 190MN and am seriously tempted to get one for AP. What size is your MN?

@stuy Awesome!

You don't actually need to make the filter full aperture and the A4 sheet at 8.27 inches width is not far off that. Even allowing for mounting, you'll still have a decent size filter. Rother Valley do larger sheets at 100 x 50 cm, too. https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/baader-astrosolar-nd50-safety-film-sheet.html Just select the size from the dropdown.

I know this thread is about mounting the StarSense unit directly onto other telescopes, but has anyone tried mounting an entire LT 70 on a bigger telescope like a giant finderscope? This could sidestep the mounting problem, with a pair of rings, a dovetail and a clamp as long as the two telescopes could be aligned..

DSLRs generally connect via USB and you can use the manufacturers' own software to capture, view and save images, or you can do as I do and use a third-party piece of software such as DigiCamControl. From this I can do various things with my Nikon, such as liveview, focus, capture, change settings like ISO, aperture and shutter speed and change mode. Obviously, some of the above will not be applicable to using the camera with a telescope as it will require manual focusing and there is no aperture control. I'm pretty sure it does not interface with astro software. There may be better alternatives for Canon that do.

They are just connectors and just because they are RJ45 does not automatically make them Ethernet. On astro kit they are often used for serial communications like a lot of industrial kit which uses RS485 and can be directly or through an adapter connected to USB ports on a PC. Reading the manula for the piece of kit should provide clear guidance. Be careful though, as sometimes they are not serial ports and if you use them as such can cause damage. Read up, first.

Are you familiar with using an equatorial mount? If not, you are going to have a steep learning curve. I would recommend an alt-az for begining as they require no setting up, just mount the telescope, point it and observe. Also, that has quite a long focal length, which makes it tough on the mount and with that focal ratio faint stuff will be very dim and field of view quite narrow. You might want to consider something shorter, like this: https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/bresser-messier-ar-1021000-hexafoc-optical-tube-assembly.html. £301.00 Ideally, put it on a Skytee 2 mount and sturdy tripod: https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/ovl-skytee-2-dual-load-az-mount-with-tripod.html £369.00 OK, so that takes you about £100 over the price of the kit you have proposed. But, I think you would find it more enjoyable to use, at least initially. The Bresser scopes are pretty good. With these achromatic refractors you are always going to get some achromatic aberration (colour fringing) on bright objects. Whether you find it a nuisance or not is more of a personal thing. Personally, I like the clean views through a reflector and am happy with the marginally lower contrast and very slight loss of sharpness. I'm sure others will be along shortly with more advice and suggestions, but I don't think, for general observing this setup will serve you badly. It will be great on the Moon and do OK on planets and allow some hint of galaxies and nebulae to be seen. Longer focal lengths are better for planets and can be great for the Moon, so if those are your targets, go for your original choice, but keep in mind the wobble and additional difficulty in pointing the longer focal length. Personally, I don't have an issue with the latter. The downside on planets of this one is they will be dimmer, but Venus, Jupiter and Satrurn are quite bright. The 1000 mm Bresser I've suggested will give you a wider field of view, so could be a bit better for extended objects, such as Andromeda and nebulae. It's definitely going to be easier to manage, thanks to it's shorter focal length. For high magnifications, you will need shorter focal length eyepieces with this, which are not as nice to use.

You certainly should be able to, as evidenced by this video of astronaut, Steve Bowen taken by Thierry Legault. http://www.astrophoto.fr/STS-133.html

Ah yes, Marvin the Paranoid Android! I must get around to re-reading that.

Yes, f/4. If I photographed my lineup with the 8" f/5.9 the difference between that and the 12" would still be vast, but nowhere near as staggering as with Michael's. Maybe we should turn this into a thread for us all to display our smallest to largest. Sadly, my 10 inch is still on it's holidays so won't be able to play this game!

My 200P was also bought secondhand and the collimation was so far out the centre spot was nowhere to be seen and it took lots of adjustment just to bring it into view. The seller included a Cheshire with it and told me he'd been using the scope, but I cannot see how. Again, it was one of my best purchases and now it is very close to perfect collimation, it is performing extremely well.

You don't need to make any assumptions about solar panel efficiency as that is already baked into the specification. If it says 100 W, then that is the rating under the clearest skies, with the Sun as high up as possible and the panel tilted orthogonal to the rays. However, if the rays are hitting the panel at an angle and you can't tilt it for whatever reason, multiply by the sine of the angle, e.g. at 45° this would be 1/√2 (approx 0.707). For sensible angles you can ignore the extra atmospheric losses, these become more significcant the lower you go. Also, latitude really does not come into the analysis. It is about the angle of the panel to the Sun's rays. So, the output is going to vary from maximum down to very little depending on cloud. At max output, assuming the battery can absorb the available energy and assuming a charging efficiency of, say, 75%, you will want 320 Wh into the charger to take it from flat to fully charged., so about 3 hours 12 mins with a 100 W panel. That is about the quickest you could expect. In reality, on a clear summer day it might take 5 hours. On a grey winter day you will have to allow much longer, probably 5 - 10 times. It is very much a suck it and see thing. But those should be reasonable guidelines. This seems to be roughly in line with the Jackery advice posted by @StevieDvd, above.

I highly recommend that you use "Muppet" mode (Mup - Mirror Up) when shooting with a telescope and remote. First click lifts the mirror, then you wait two or more sceonds to allow the rig to settle after the heavy clunk of the mirror and then finally release the shutter with a second click. The mirror dropping back down takes place after the shutter has closed, so it does not matter how much it all shakes at this point. I call it muppet mode as I always forget that I am in that mode, so press the shutter release once and nothing happens, so I switch the camera off and try again. Eventually, after several failed attempts, I realise and feel like a right muppet!

Yes! I thought so too and thought other SGL users with an intact SoH might enjoy it, too ...

All I wanted to do was get my Daystar Solarscout fixed, but then this depressed webserver, on encountering a 404, decided it had to tell me all about it's depressing life that it had been leading for the past two weeks and how it would shortly get replaced with a newer version! https://www.daystarfilters.com/Wizard/ Don't worry, the scrolling text does eventually end and the webserver does not actually commit suicide, but it does drone on (and on) for many pages. If you choose to click the link, don't say I didn't warn you. Please send all complaints directly to Daystar! 🤣

Looks nice. But, could that be a crack in the tripod head? See enlarged zoomed in view from my screenshot. It could be welded, though.

I think the best thing you can do is to remove the bearing completely and have a look at the whole picture. If you take it to an engineering workshop, someone will be able to remove it for you. It will probably be very tight. Bearings are frequently pressed in and to fit them on to a shaft they usually need to be heated using an induction heater to expand them, then they just slip on, shrink and grip the shaft. If the bearing is being removed, you should replace it with a new one as a matter of course. Personally, I would only use SKF bearings as the quality is known. Avoid cheap Chinese ones and anything bought from dubious sources on the internet that are badged as SKF. If you post your location (general area) someone might be able to help you with this in a practical sense rather than back and forth with questions on the internet.

In agreement with others, the bearing is not properly seated. When it is correctly positioned on the shaft and in the outer seat, you should not be able to see the outside of the outer raceway. It should be up to the shoulder on both the socket it sits in and the shaft it carries. It should, then, be possible to tighten the securing nut as much as you can without it shearing and it will not make the bearing any tighter. The tightness of the centre nut is only critical on taper roller bearings, where it is always left loose and secured with a split pin, which this is not. Have a look at the attached photo which shows the end shield from the drive end of a tiny generator with a stub shaft. The bearing is properly seated in the outer case, but the shaft needs to be pressed in until the bearing is seated against the shoulder on the shaft. Then, you can fit a nut on the opposite end of the shaft to secure it. In this, case it is a tight press fit, so does not need a nut.

CaF2 is transparent in the visible, UV and IR regions. See this page, which has a transmission graph further down: https://www.newport.com/f/calcium-fluoride-parallel-windows

It's not the collimation. Even if it were not spot on you'd have better views than that. Were things wobbling and boiling in the eyepiece? If so, put it down to atmospheric problems. If just blurry, it could be condensation on the mirrors. Try again on a another night.

Wow! That one is certainly worthy of being on the lsit, if only for the story and people behind it. I love that it bends international frontiers and that you ended up with such a superb instrument. The small quantities in which it was produced certainly make it more interesting, too. Thank you for sharing this one with us.

I'm wondering why you think it might not do planets. I have no problem observing Jupiter and Saturn with my 200P (f/5.9) and 250PX (f/4.7). Admittedly, they are both 1200 mm FL, but I would have thought shorter focal length eyepieces or Barlows would make up the difference. What am I missing?