Mandy D

My new, used Explore Scientific 2 inch star diagonal with 99% reflectivity, dielectric coated optics and 1/12 lamda performance. The sky is clear right now, so it should shortly cloud over ...

I just checked on my dovetail bar, which is identical and they are definitely 1/4"-20. M6 will only go in about one turn but my tripod screw goes in easily.

Thank you! The Skytee 2 is amazing. Mine has quite a bit of slop in the azimuth drive, but the thing is so heavy and has so much inertia, you barely notice except when you reverse direction. The bigger problem I was finding was that with the Moon as high as it was last night, I was sitting on the ground to look through the viewfinder or at the LCD and could barely reach the altitude control knobs! It really has become not-so-much-anymore "grab and go", but I have now cleared space where I can get west and north without being seen and it is not far from my door, so I don't really care as I keep it set up in the hallway and just have to unfold the legs, mount the scope and I'm ready to go. That sounds worse than it really is, but it takes no longer than dragging the 200P Dob out. I must really get it on the 2" tripod with the pier which needs a bit more machining to achieve that, but will give me more height.

Last night everything came together; the Moon approaching first quarter, clear, steady skies, the RC6 nicely cooled and mounted on the new Skytee 2 and the trusty old Nikon D3200 with it's smaller pixels acquiring the images. This is the best and sharpest image I have ever acquired of the lunar surface. I am very impressed wih the RC6 and knew that the D3200 was capable of good quality imaging, but the results still surprised me. My next step has to be to go closer with the Explore Scientific focal extender, but it's clouded over and pouring with rain. Final processing was carried out in GIMP as usual, after stacking in AS3.

I have to admit that I was tempted by one of the limited edition small pink refractors that FLO had a short while ago, simply because it was pink, but I resisted. It's a girl thing: you probably wouldn't understand.

At this time of year, Saturn is rising in the east about 4 hours before sunrise, if you are in Melbourne, Australia. Wait until it is high above the horizon for the best views, but before the sky begins to brighten at sunrise. Try Stellarium online for finding things in the night sky. I could not figure how to set it to your local time, so it might be running UTC for me. Maybe someone here knows how to do it. https://stellarium-web.org/

Thank you. I'll have a search. There should be a manual for this kit coming my way soon, so that may also help.

I've spoken with the supplier who has told me the backlash can be adjusted out and is going to get me a manual for it from Synta. I guess backlash is inherent in any system with moving parts and the general idea would be to minimise it to the point where it no longer matters. Mine seems to have an awful lot in the azimuth gears. Are you using it purely for visual or are you doing imaging with it?

After waiting over six months for stock to arrive, I finally got my new Skytee 2 mount yesterday. I swapped the saddles out for some better ones with two clamping screws, as I intend to mount my 200P on this, or perhaps even my 250P at some point in the future alongside my RC6. I've noticed that there is a lot more play in the azimuth gears than I would like, so will bring this up with the supplier on Monday. The altitude is fine and everything else is as expected, including an abundance of clouds in my region, so for now, here is a photo of it on my bathroom floor.

I finally got to see Mercury for the first time on 6th and 7th of April this year. I couldn't get the big Dob on it s it was too low and I had a wall in the way, but I did grab a very poor photo of it with the 600 mm lens. Good luck with your observations. It is very cloudy here, tonight.

@Franklin That is so true. I've done a few early morning (3 a.m. onwards) sessions and never seen a soul. However, I am now getting rather older and much slower, so I would still be nervous.

@Samop I used to use a spot on a green lane in the Peak District a few years ago, but one night after I'd been there for about an hour, a couple of guys turned up and parked on the tarmac road about 200 metres from me. It all seemed pretty innocent, until they got their huge drone out and started flying it very low over me. This thing was huge, more than a metre long and covered in lights. It came within about 10 metres of where I was, so I hastily started packing up just before they crashed it in a field next to my parking spot. I beat a hasty retreat. It has really put me off using remote spots for observing, so I cannot honestly recommend it, any more. Yes, it might have been an isolated event, but once is enough. I know I have been filmed and observed by drones in other popular parts of the Peak District in daylight on several occasions and it makes me really uncomfortable. I'm always very near to my vehicle when I set up remote, but it honestly no longer makes me feel safe or secure. I think being in a group, rather than on your own is only a partial solution, but it's better than nothing. The thugs will stop at nothing if they want to relieve you of your kit or cause harm to you and even being in a small group won't put them off.

@PatrickO To get maximum resolution on the Moon with your kit, use the 300 mm lens with the x2. This will give you 600 mm at f/8. Unless you are trying to photograph the nightside of the Moon during the partial phases, you will not need the star tracker as your exposure can be very short. Your micro four-thirds sensor is big enough to cover the full Moon at this focal length.

@Stu Wall to wall cloud up here. So pleased you got to see it and grab an image. I had big plans to get Vesta in the image as well as some of Jupiter's moons, but no chance. Congrats.

It is the same in the Derbyshire Peak District National Park. All the oiks discovered it during covid and now walk their furry friends there. I went to one car park at a beauty spot, from which I have done some observing in the past, opened my car door to step out and then spotted some of the (literally) thousands of bags of dog waste scattered around the car park. I guess what is happening is that these people are keen to be seen picking up after their dogs, but are not prepared to take it home to dispose of it, so disceetly drop it out of the door before driving off!

This might help, in conjunction with @Cosmic Geoff's advice above: http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ Just plug in the requested sensor data and the model or details of your telescope, then choose different focal reducers until you get the desired field of view. I guess, given this camera's limited capabilities, you are trying to image a large part or the whole of the Moon.

Is anyone using QDSLR Dashboard successfully? I can't get it to install under Windows 7 or |Windows 11. I am using the X64 version to match my OS. It complains about missing DLL files, then when I install them, still does not work. Has anyone installed and used it successfully? Any tips or advice would be welcome. Is it any good? If not, I'll give up, now.

@dark star Maybe a local sheet metal worker with a set of rollers could cut a strip of steel (or aluminium) and roll it into a cylinder for you.

This looks like a very interesting way to do things and with their location, you should have a great many clear skies. My biggest concern around supplying my own equipment into Spain from Britain is the effects of brexit on the whole process. At one time this would have been very simple, but now there are potentially going to be duties payable on anything that moves there.

There are a couple of ways to get wider without going to Fisheye lenses, but being a Canon owner, you may not like the idea. Switch to Nikon where the crop sensor is 24 x 16 instead of 22.5 x 15 and you will get results with a 10 mm lens that you would need to use a 9.4 mm lens on the Canon for. The other option (which may be possible with Canon, but I don't know) is to go full frame and use a 14 mm lens, which will be wider still and equivalent to an 8.7 mm lens on your Canon. If you are uber-uber rich, you could always go for a 13 mm Nikon ultra-ultra-wide angle lens for about £50k second-hand!!! But, you will be getting equivalent to 8.1 mm focal length and no fisheye distortion.

I found the best way around the "post early for Christmas" thing was to post cards on the 23rd with a first class stamp. Mine all seem to arrive on the 24th that way. Post in the few days before that and they don't arrive until January! Wierd, huh?

Yes. Yes, there is, but you will have to hang around a while in the group until you have accumulated enough points for posting interesting stuff before you can access it. Why not put the scope to good use in the meantime and get into the enjoyable hobby of astronomy?

@Rustyspurs, I'm not going to attempt to answer your question as there are so many possible answers to this, that will depend on your budget and what it is you want to see. If you want better answers than this, it is worth thinking about what you actually want to image with your existing camera and state that. Also, if you indicate your budget, that will help. My personal view is that you can image something with almost any camera you have coupled to almost any telescope you can get your hands on. What you can image and what quality image you obtain will depend on the telescope, it's mount and your camera, but it will also depend on your level of skill and dedication as an imager. I do a lot of my lunar imaging with just a DSLR and a telephoto lens. I also do some planetary with an 8 inch Newt on a Dobsonian mount and have even attempted M42, the nebula in Orion with the Newt. I also have a 6 inch iOptron Ritchey Chretien telescope which I am assured is not the best instrument for planetary or the Moon due to it's large central obstruction. I have used it quite successfully for both, but will admit that there are better options, but it does not stop me using it for such projects. DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are often stated as not ideal for successful deep-sky imaging, yet there are people out there who get stunning results with theirs. It should be possible to couple the XT4 to most telsescopes at prime focus with a suitable adapter, which is going to make life easier than trying to use it through the eyepiece in a similar manner to mobile phones. This is not to say that there are no wrong answers to your question: there are many, but there are also plenty of options open to you.

Nice! So, you'll eventually have some gear there anyway from the sound of it.

I have mainly larger scopes that are not travel friendly, hence the scope transporter in my signature. But, also have our largest scope in the South of France, a Skywatcher 250PX. On several holidays we have known in advance that an event would be taking place and have taken kit with us, usually just long focal length camera lenses, but also a H-alpha scope. Mostly, I would be happy to bring my own gear, as I am more familiar with it and can expect priority use of it. Can I ask if you have experience in astronomy? As, I would expect someone venturing into something like this to have their own telescopes. If not, why are you doing this?