Carbon Brush

Is the big handle existent but missing from the photos? David.

Before jumping at dob (they are good - I have one) I would suggest you tell us a bit more about your planned use. Are you in a light polluted area? Do you have to negotiate narrow doors and stairs to put a scope outside? Storage? For example my 10" dob is quite a lift on it's base to go in and out of the house. Splitting base from tube is a good idea. A 6" or 8" dob is much easier to handle. A short tube refractor and Alt az mount are very easy to handle. There is a saying that the best scope is the one that gets used the most. HTH, David.

At Sandtoft (North Lincs) there is an amateur radio society. A small group of people who are always experimenting with microwave frequencies, bouncing radio signals off the moon and other activities. They host several radio beacons to assist in UHF and microwave propogation measurement. I have visited them a few times and eventually joined the club. The club is extremely fortunate to have their own premises which means there is no caretaker jangling keys at 9pm. They can leave equipment in the two buildings that are on the large site. The site is reasonably dark. I'm sure that I am not alone in noticing that there is a significant overlap between people who are interested in the night sky, radio astronomy, amateur radio, electronics and mechanical engineering. The members represent this overlapping range of interests. The buildings include radio shacks (as expected). a large lecture room, small radio museum and a workshop. Under construction outside they have a large mount, with drives, that will hold a 2.4metre dish. This being for moon reflection radio at microwave frequencies. My most recent activity has been to promote the night sky to the members. Recently lending my Skywatcher 250 goto dob for members to use. They knew i was going to bring a telescope. But I think they were expecting a table top refractor! I tend to forget about what non astro folks have experienced until questions like 'will this shows the craters on the moon' get asked. My hope is that there will be a closer link at amateur level between radio, radio astronomy and visual astronomy. I am hoping that the site will be made available to amateur astronomers. Being between (light blighted) Doncaster, Scunthorpe and goole, there should be significant interest. The club always meets on Tuesday evenings, and Saturday afternoons. There may well be members there at other times. Take a look (no charge) and see if it is of any interest. It is located near to the Sandtoft trolley bus museum and Sandtoft airfield. If there is interest, I will look at arranging a 'bring your scope' astronomy evening with an indoor talk of some description in case of clouds. The radio club has a really great asset with the buildings, large site and dark location. It is underused by the amateur radio community. David.

Excellent focusser. I upgraded my MN78 to a Moonlight a few years back. Money well spent. Good luck with the sale. David.

Do you have the Tracer part number?

Welcome to SGL. What sort of equatorial mount has failed? What is the replacement? I suspect prolonged damp in the basement has allowed corrosion, but it may be recoverable. On the replacement, a bit of grease in the right places after minor dismantling is a good preventative measure. Specific advice does of course depend on the individual mount. HTH, David.

The general rule for reusing silica gel (with or without indicator colouring) is a couple of hours, or more, at a little over 100C. The only restriction is whether the glue or bag may be damaged by the heating. If so, never mind, you have tried. Having an allergy to opening my wallet, I tend to hang on to any suitable size silica gel bags that come my way. Noting the 'do not eat' labelling. At this temperature the oven won't use a lot of electricity and you can of course puts lots and lots of bags in there. Just allow air to circulate around them. Think cooking sausage rolls rather than stacking sandbags! HTH David.

Ah yes astrophotography. Sell your house. Cash in your pension. Sell the dog. ....... No seriously. Stick to visual first. Enjoy the experience. Then maybe dip a toe in the photo pool with phone photos, a webcam. A low cost DSLR (used price half your scope budget). David.

Sound advice from the above.

Welcome to SGL. The best astronomy forum in the world. Don't forget that if you buy a decent scope on manual mount, you don't have to stick with this. If you like the scope, when the funds allow, look around for a good quality goto mount for your scope, if you feel you need this. The problem with technology is that goto is sometimes 'go somewhere in the general direction' and you can spend all evening fiddling around with wires, buttons and screens. When I started out, goto was extremely expensive and scopes were more expensive in real terms. That forced(?) me into an 8" newtonian reflector on an EQ5 manual mount. I really really enjoyed my time with that combination. Since then I have played with refractors, reflectors and compound scopes. Mounts from a basic alt/az up to the Alter D6 with AWR goto. Nowadays I find a 150 or 200mm reflector on a dob mount is a very quick 'go out and enjoy the view' package. Goto, EQ mount, etc are more for when I really want to see and track this specific (hard to locate) object and maybe grab a photo. Keep asking the questions on SGL. There is lots of good advice on here. Is there a local club where you might get hands on with a scope or two? Face to face chat with users of paqrticular scopes? Enjoy the journey, David.

Looking for suggestions, or maybe advice from someone who has done something similar. I have an Orion Optics (UK) dob mount, intended for their 10" offering and wish to fit a Skywatcher 10" tube. I already have both items so the cost to me is fitting effort & parts. The scope gives good views and the OO mount is superior to the Skywatcher 'MFI' mount that I don't have anyway. The Skywatcher 250 tube has the standard rings, intended to fit to the dovetail. The OO tube rings are quite thin and bent to the diameter of their tube, which is a bit smaller than a Skywatcher tube. One choice is to slightly straighten the OO rings, fit a spacer to extend the hinge and a longer clamp screw. This solution also involves machining a couple of millimetres off the OO spacer blocks as the assembly will be just a bit too wide for the frame. Another choice is to mill the SW rings flat in the region of the fixings and drill more holes to match thee OO block. Possibly thinning down (milling) the OO blocks as well. The above options mean that the OTA can be moved in the rings for balance. If I drill the OTA for the OO blocks and add a shim, that would work. That means fitting a balance mechanism. Adjusting either weight or location to suit different eyepieces from 1.25" plossl up to 2" jam jar types. I will try to get some photos of the bits later today, or tomorrow. Suggestions and ideas please...... David.

Some years back I bought the (then current) Canon 1000D. Out of the box it was good in daylight. I tried it for astro. But the number of setup changes between day & night was a pain. Especially navigating the buttons in the dark. Screen off, shutter lock up, etc. So I bought another that had been astro modded. This allowed me to leave them in their best setup. More money than sense? Perhaps not. They were both used cameras and not too expensive. I still have them. HTH, David.

If you managed a full W10 upgrade and observatory software running short of only a key - WELL DONE. I never seem to have things run so smoothly.

Hi Tim. Welcome to SGL. The best astro forum in the world! David.

They look like water stains from your photo. Or maybe a bit of surplus glue from any mirror pads? If so, definitely unexpected. But not doing harm. It is the front of the mirror that matters. Some more pics would help. David.