Mandy D

You ciuld try a Tamron 70-300 zoom. Inexpensive and works well. Even cheaper if you can find a used one. Have a look at the used lenses at Park Cameras, Castle Cameras and MPB. An interesting alternative and super cheap, if you can find one, is a mirror lens. I have an 800mm f/8 Samyang with M42 thread and a Nikon adapter.

Clouds here, too!

@astrolulu a colour version of my camera is definitely on the cards!

@astrolulu Wow! Your results with my image are amazing. Thank you for doing this. I will have another look myself later and see if I can achieve similar. You are quite correct about pixel size, as I used my D800 for this work, which has a pixel size of 4.88 um. I am planning to make my next attempt with the D3200, which gives 3.84 um, so a slight improvement. Obviously, my best option would be the ASI178MM with it's 2.4 um pixels, but I am not able to set up at present and I don't think the Moon's disc quite fits this sensor with my current telescopes, but it should give some nice close-ups. I'll keep practicing! PS, if you put an @ before the name of anyone you are replying to, they will recieve an alert. I have to look for your replies at present. 😊

@astrolulu I've had a bit of a play with the original stacked image and adjusted the colour balance. It looks a lot better than the original colour image. Your image taken with the LX200 is fantastic! @Laurieast thank you for the link to the coma corrector. I'll certainly keep it in mind for future reference, but I think I'll spend a bit of time perfecting my technique first, then go for kit upgrades. I just need some clear skies, now! Thanks again, to both of you. Your advice is always appreciated.

Yes, I'll have another go at processing the colours. Can you explain a bit more about coma, as I really don't understand it fully. Is there anything I can do in processing or does it have to be dealt with during imaging? I didn't realise who you were when we first started talking in here, but then I saw your link to the fantastic Moon map that I downloaded a long time ago. Thank you for that. It is so much easier to use than others I have seen.

Thank you for your concern. I understand where you are coming from, but you are incorrect. It is the gross axle weight rating which counts here and that does not include the weight imposed by the coupling on the towing vehicle. There are light semi-trailers rated for 4500 kg that have a legal axle rating of 3500 kg with the remaining 1000 kg carried by the towing vehicle and are sold in the UK which are fully compliant with C&U regulations. In any case, as I indicated in my original post, the trailer will not be heavily loaded. In fact, I doubt it will be carrying above 250 kg. Thanks for suggesting the phenolic ply. Given the price, I may have to pass on that, but it would be a great option.

Thanks. That is good advice. I recall my bathroom fitter using some pink foam adhesive for the wall panels in an aerosol. I guess that would be perfect for this.

Thank you. Yes definitely will fit a CO monitor. I think an extractor fan and good ventilation is on the list, too. Withe the insulation, do you just bond direct to the metal panels?

As some of you already know, I have no real facility for observing from home with most of my views blocked by buildings or trees and frustrated by LED street lighting so I do a lot of my observing from dark(er) spots in the Peak District. I am currently unable to drive, but have a Land Rover with a towbar, so this is an ideal time to embark on this project with an aim of completing it by the time I am declared ok to drive. I also have a boxvan trailer with a box size of 2.4 x 1.2 x 1.5 metres high. It is currently on twin axles with 10 inch wheels and is fully braked, but needs serious attention to the braking system and requires a full set of new tyres. I have a brand new 750 kg unbraked trailer axle and 13 inch wheels I can put under it. The unladen weight is only about 250 kg, so that gives me a legal payload of 750 kg with 250 kg on the towball of the Land Rover. That is way more than I will ever need! My garage mechanic can do the axle coversion work, so that leaves the interior, which is where I would like to solicit the advice of you good people. I am proposing a bench / desk across the front of the trailer, about 750mm deep on which to put a laptop and maybe a second monitor. Under the bench is space for a leisure battery to run my mounts and computers. I have a 3 kVA petrol generator that can be lugged along to run other stuff any time I need to, but don't see a need for that under normal circumstances. A small propane heater can go in to keep me nice and warm on cold winter nights. The construction of the box is a 25 x 25 steel box-section frame, so I can insualte with 25 mm extruded polystyrene boards (pink stuff). There are double loading doors at the back, so getting kit in and out will be easy. I have a rechargeable Quechua red and white lamp that can be seen in the What Did The Postman Bring section and can add more of those or similar if needed. The floor is probably in bad shape, so that will be replaced with 18 mm marine ply, but do I insulate and what do I top it with? I want to keep it as light as possible, so I can move it by hand as I cannot get the Land Rover round to where I will store it. I see a jockey wheel being necessary and will fit some landing legs at the corners to make it rock steady when in use as an observatory and it will then remain coupled up to the Land Rover. I also have a 120 volt, 500 watt rotary inverter that can go in to give me a.c. power for anything that may need it. So, can you clever people help me with suggestions and ideas to make this into a great little mobile observatory control room, please.

I was wondering about this when I read the article. It's practically impossible to see any of Jupiter's moons with the naked eye because of the brightness of the planet, so this should be much worse.

I see someone has already posted about the notch punch that we used to use back then. Double the capacity for no extra cost, what's not to like? We also had a 14" Winchester drive where you had to physically install the stack of platters, close the lid and vac the chamber down. Ran at 3600 rpm because it was American so we had an inverter to supply the synchronous motor at 60 Hz from the 50 Hz UK grid! I think each stack had a capacity of 10 MB! The mainframe was a Honeywell 516 which was programmed in octal.

Glad you had such a great first night with it. Nice set of eyepieces, too. I don't have any decent eyepieces here and use the scope with my cameras. I put mine out to cool last night with not a cloud in sight, then as my target, the Moon, rose it began to cloud over. By 11 the whole sky was gone. It looks like someone has replaced the collimation screws with different ones on your scope so you don't need tools to collimate it. Normally you ned hexagon keys for this, but it is really easy and they hold collimation very well. My 250PX has never needed adjustment from new. The 200P, which I bought used, was so far out I could not even see a hint of the primary mirror through the focusser. Do you have a Cheshire eyepice? That is what I used to collimate mine. It took about ten minutes, most of which was figuring out which way each screw moved the primary mirror and how the Cheshire was used. Doing the adjustments only tokk a couple of minutes and it now gives lovely photographic results on the Moon and Jupiter. Bright stars give amazing diffraction spikes which I think look great in photos. Enjoy your new toy!

My first floppy discs were 8" single-sided with a formatted capacity of 160 kB! I still had the drive in my garden shed until a couple of years ago. I also have 4 Seagate IDE hard disc drives of 20 MB capacity.

Nice. Thanks for posting this. I'm definitely hoping for clear skies now.

I prefer to think of it as being up the A53, a much more scenic route! I'm no fan of the A38 / A50. When I'm able to drive again a meetup could be on the cards as I am frequently near Staffs.

You will love it! They really do pull in lots of light. Hope you get clear skies really soon. I just noticed that you are only in the next county across from me!

Here is my effort. Not the best time to photograph when the Moon is full, but it was the first time I had captured sufficient images to stack and actually stacked them. I have posted this photo before, but in colour. This one has been converted to greyscale in GIMP and I think it has improved the overall result. Images were acquired with my D800 at prime focus of the Skywatcher 200P. Hopefully, I will soon be able to use the ASI178MM and get in a lot closer.

It happened back in the seventies, too. I had a school friend do exactly the same when using a telephone for the very first time! I also never understood why the handset was always referred to as a "receiver", when it both transmits and receives: Surely "transceiver" would make more sense! We also referred to telephone poles as "telegraph" poles. Why did the teacher not correct this error in rehersals? I can only guess they were also too young to have experience of rotary dial phones.

But, it's red! You have to buy it just for that. I want one, too, now but I already have a red 152 mm RC6! Do they do it in blue? Did I help? 🤣

Having it not level in the north-south direction is going to be equivalent to a change in latitude, so should not present a problem. Extrapolating this idea suggests to me that it won't matter east-west either, but I have not really thought that through yet.

Given worldwide shortages of raw materials, a fall in demand wil be a good thing. Prices have risen due to demand outstripping supply. It is economics 101. The world is going to take a very long time bounce back. If you shut down a blast furnace, it has to be re-lined and is 6 months before it goes back on line and you see steel production from it. Things are unstable at present, so supplies of essential raw materials are in short supply, but demand is high. I have seen price increases in some materials of more than 100% in the past 12 months. We are now quoting with a 7 day validity instead of the usual 60. Hopefully, things will eventually level off and back to normal as has happened in the past. It may take a long while, this time. I'm sure the likes of FLO and RVO are not gouging anyone on prices.

Very nice work. I have a Skywatcher 200P and have used it on the Moon with my DSLR. I also have the monochrome version of your camera, the ASI 178MM. You have inspired me to see what I can achieve with the two together. I'll have to post my first stack taken at the last Supermoon in this thread. Not the best time to photograph the Moon, I know, but it was a clear night. Thank you for the inspiration and let's hope we see many excellent efforts getting posted in this thread.

Holding your breath whilst focussing is sensible as it reduce body movements. I always hold my breath when I take a photo for exactly the sam reason, especially long shutter times and long focal lengths.

I like the Oklop bags. I always look at the dimensions rather than what scope a particular bag is intended for. When I needed one for my iOptron RC6, there was not one listed, but I found one in the range that looked perfect. It was for an 8" Celestron (I think), but with the baffles in the RC6 it was the perfect size and has a handy pouch at one end for accessories. I'd definitely buy Oklop again.