Mandy D

@JamesGlasgow glad to help. Tell your wife it is part of his education!

@Nik271 I noticed last night that we heading for a conjunction, but I've seen nothing in the usual places to notify us. Tonight they were nicely positioned and I grabbed a similar shot to yours. Nikon D800, 600mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO-200. You must have been at ISO-100, then.

@janemc40 Some time between about 5 and 6 p.m. today, there was a train of bright Starlink satellites passing above the Moon, which were moving quite rapidly. In you images I can see the Moon, with Jupiter below and slightly left, but you also have some imaging artefacts present, due to internal reflections. Your last image appears to show a couple at about the correct separation above the Moon.

@lukebl I was imaging the conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon as they went over. I thought about turning the camera to them, but I would have needed to swap lenses. Nice to see that you captured it.

My 1.25" adds about 37 mm and the 2" adds 48 mm. It is very handy that the Skywatcher Newtonians need these adaptors to reach focus with an eyepiece, as it makes them so easy to use for imaging with a DSLR which has the sensor buried deep in the camera body. For Nikons it is 46.5 mm, IIRC. If yours are too short, you can just pull the eyepiece out a bit and lock it with the screw until you get the right one.

Two very different views of the Moon. The night Moon, imaged 2024 01 17 in the evening through the 200P at 1200 mm FL and edited in GIMP to bring out the mineral colours. This Moon is showing 45% waxing phase. The day Moon, imaged 2024 01 18 at 15:00 through the Vixen A105M at 1000 mm FL, with the Sun still in the sky, edited in GIMP to get a neutral colour balance. The phase has increased to 55% waxing.

Definitely, but I am not wealthy... 🤣

Yes, it was just the first frame I shot to test for exposure and focus. I got lucky. I wondered if anyone would notice that one trail appears to pass behnd the Moon. I should have called it "Schrödinger's Moon". I reckon this photo would have the Flerfers in a tizzy as they like to see trails that appear to pass behind the Moon so they can claim it is local. Let's see them try to puzzle this one out!! 🤣

@Planetary Observer Thank you! Luck must have been on my side as I'd only done a rough focus at this point and it was the first image out of the camera. Even the exposure was close.

Bit paradoxical, in' it?

I answer "No" and "Hell, no!" to those questions, yet here I am enjoying this hobby ...

That is nice. I got out this afternoon and early evening with a x2 focal extender on a 200P, imagaing with a Nikon D800. I was happy with what I got, but nothing like as good as that, but I was onbly processing a single frame. I'm struggling to get my greys and contrast as good as yours.

I missed the passing jet by a matter of seconds, but it left it's trails across the crescent Moon for us all to enjoy.

Same here. I've just been on Orion and it is very clear.

@Nikolai De Silva Most small refractors do not have collimation adjustment and no-one complains about that. Why should a small reflector be different? If properly made and aligned at the factory, they should hold collimation well. I've not had to adjust the collimation on my 200P since I did it about 6 months ago. Maybe, I'm not as fanatical about it as some, but it certainly works very well for imaging the Moon.

I know this can be the case with standard visual Newtonians, but my Skywatchers (200P and 250PX) with standard (not low profile) focusers all provide an in-focus image at least 60 mm beyond the end of the focuser drawtube. I image with Nikon DSLRs, which have the sensor 46.5 mm in from the front surface of the lens mounting flange, the T2 adds 10 mm and I get focus with about 5 mm of outward focuser movement.

Surely that should not be a problem as each sub can be rotated to take account of the Earth's rotation prior to stacking. That is what I would do and that is what an EQ mount does continuously.

That's a pretty good deal. If I was in the market for another 10 inch, I'd consider biting at that price.

@ObscuredView Thank you!

@Neutrinosoup don't forget to point your scope at the Moon. It is pretty incredible to see through an 8 inch and can stand a lot of magnification on a clear night. Then there is the Sun, too with a suitable aperture filter.

A 1 inch sensor, paradoxically, is not 25.4 mm diagonal nor side length. It all goes back to the videcon tubes, where the tube diameter was measured, but the imaging component in the tube was much smaller. There are great articles on Wikipedia that explain this.

The Moon photographed in daylight, just before the clouds rolled in. Skywatcher 200P, Nikon D800. 1200 mm, f/5.9, 1/200s, ISO-200. Processed in AS!3 and GIMP.

@Lung Some of the package deals of Skymax, mount and tripod do not use the same OTA as the one that you buy separately. When they are this cheap, it is worth checking whether the telescope has the facility to be collimated, if that is important to you. Don't let it, necessarily, put you off it cannot be re-collimated as they tend to hold collimation very well. But, it is something you should know before pulling the trigger on this. Ask the question.