Carbon Brush

Yes it was great shortly after dark, seen from the supermarket car park. By the time I had got home and (quickly) eaten only the moon was visible through the mist😡

I have in the pasted imported and exported a lot of small but high value items. When importing, you will be hit by potentially 3 costs. 1/ There may be an import duty. I have found this a minefield. Even without trying to import weapons🤣. Commodity codes and forms required vary with the season. 2/ The importing carrier may impose a handling fee. Maybe a tenner. Maybe a lot more. If you don't respond promptly some try to charge storage. I once had an importer try to bill for a months storage when he hadn't told me the item had arrived! no prozes for guessing the content of my message to him. 3/ On top of the above costs, there will be 20% VAT. That is easy. Compulsory, no negotiation! Add to this the serious hassle of a return if there is a problem in warranty. By this I mean keep hold of every scrap of paper, email and everything else relating to the import. Even then buy a wheelbarrow to handle the paper trail it generates. Buying from a UK retailer is much easier.

The Practical Astronomy Show in Kettering is only a couple of weeks away. Why not have a chat with a few retailers at the show? Pre-covid time at this show I talked to a couple of retailers and an expert who was wandering around. Not letting on I had already emptied my piggy bank on the LS60😏 Their comments made me realise some sellers just want your plastic. Others want you to think before spending. I'm not going to names the names on open forum - the discussions about PST vs Quark vs Lunt vs Coronado then mounts are enough🤣 Importantly, I came away thinking I had chosen wisely. Good luck with the searching. David. PS. One last comment. My LS60 had a feathertouch focus added by the previous owner. The original was left in the box of bits. Chalk and cheese are words for comparison!

The reason I use the Solarquest is convenience. I could use any other mount. This is my typical use. Take the scope out early morning, look for a while. Go and make a cuppa. Wait for cloud to pass. Pull some weeds. Wash the car. Fetch a different lens, etc. Every time I return to the scope between other activities, the sun is still in view. No need to mess around finding it again. Then later in the day when a tree or house creates shade, just pick up everything in one go and move across the garden. Reset the Solarquest and in a couple of minutes it is back in sync. If you do any public/outreach a Solarquest comes in really handy. Just talk about something while it is sorting itself out.

On the 'rusty' PST. Just look at the objective. Is it brown? Does it look as if it has fungus? That is to be avoided. If the lens is bluish, you are OK. I think by now the old rusty lens models will have been repaired, or the inner working put into other scopes. Unless of course you are at the car boot sale or certain auction sites. TAL100 conversions using a PST etalon were popular at one time. I mixed parts from 2 PST to make a good one. One had a rusty objective, the other a broken etalon.

The PST is very much unpack, point, look, tweak focus then etalon. An instant result without options. With the Lunt scopes (still thinking the used market not just new today) you have lots of options. I didn't want to complicate things with the B500/600/1200. But it has been brought up! Then with pressure tuning, the previous owner of mine splashed out on the air pump system to maintain constant pressure, rather than turn the big reservoir/piston. Would I have spent on this new? Does it improve things? No idea really. Finally @LDW1 has shown his Lunt atop a Solarquest mount. A great mount for solar. Completely useIess of course for anything else. Place on the ground sort of level, just left of the sun and power up. Go inside to fetch the solar scope. While you are doing the carrying, the mount finds the sun and starts tracking. There is a nudge adjustment. But you don't need it to start. Just hang the scope on the mount and start looking. I can confirm the Solarquest will carry an LS60. Though the Skywatcher tripod is a bit flexible for my liking. A sturdy tripod/top is on my 'to do' list.

I'm assuming you mean a lead from the powerbank cigar lighter outlet to the scope control. Probably a '2.1mm DC plug' at the equipment end. Available from many astro retailers, ebay and amazon. But....... Could this be with the mount and handset? You would soon notice if you tried to power a mount for a prospective seller.

Hello Lisa. First of all sorry about the loss of your father. Was he an SGL member? We sometimes only hear about losing members when family come along, or we notice we have not heard from someone in a while. I wouldn't worry about a missing lead for the power tank. They are standard items that can be obtained for few £. When you come to sell the scopes (and presumably other astro equipment) you have several options. The first thing for you to decide is whether you want just have someone pick up the lot sell items individually. A used equipment dealer will take everything in one go, but at a low price. If you sell in the astro community you will get higher prices, but spend much more time dealing with enquiries. You will of course find help on this forum if you are struggling to identify something. HTH, David.

I have owned a PST and moved on to a Lunt LS60. In both cases I bought used and took a chance. Actually I bought the LS60 about sunrise on a grey January morning. Yes I had to trust the seller! As @Elp has said, quality does vary and you need to bear this in mind whether buying used or new. I think I would find the thermal tuning on a quark to be a bind - but have never done it. The LS60 I have is pressure tuned. I like this. You can buy tilt tune and I have heard good reports. What I'm getting at is that if you can visit an owner of any Ha scope on a nice sunny day and see for yourself, you will be better informed. Not just the views, but the setup effort. You might say 'wow' when presented with the eyepiece. But did the owner have to spend 2 hours getting to that state? HTH, David.

I assume the March to October restriction is a combination 'who wants to go out of season?' and giving the island wildlife recovery time. Maybe in future inegotiate for a boat load of star party astronomers to visit for a week in winter on condition of not trampling all over the island? But another dark sky in the UK😁!

Hello Gary. Welcome to SGL. Contact one of the astro retailers (for example FLO who sponsor this site. They can advise which right angle adapter to fit your mount. Another big help generally would be to be able to leave a pier or tripod permantly set up. A pier cemented down is ideal. Align once and you are done. You can buy weather covers (look up Telegizmo). If you are bothered about damp affecting the mount, you can install a small heater under the cover. HTH, David.

I haven't tried night time from Lincoln but fully agree with @Adam J From driving around there, I think head north on the A15, then go west towards (but not that far) Sturton By Stow you may have good fortune. Of course your definition of dark depends on the pollutuion you suffer at home. North of Lincoln feels like it ought to be better than Salford. If you are around on the right days, you might want to look in at Lincoln Astro society. HTH, David.

Looking at the background in your photo, you don't appear to be in the UK. The snow being the giveaway😁 Knowing where you are will help us give relevant advice. I think you may be looking at something 15-20 years old. I haven't owned much Meade kit, so may be wrong. Is the motor dead? Or is it just that you can't drive it, and the drive circuit may have failed? If I am reasonably correct in the kit age, then you may have a big problem with the handset. The old Meade handsets could suffer from memory corruption if there was a dodgy intermittent battery connection. The AA cells holder and associated wiring for example. Reprogramming this old stuff required an adapter/programmer. A few people have built these. But the cost of doing it yourself can exceed the cost of a handset! I think establising if the problem is the motor drive, or the handset is a good first move. HTH, David.

My first attempt to obtain a new cap was for a !0" orion Optics reflector. It was a vacuum drawn flimsy thing. The price quoted made me fall off my chair.☹️ Almost 10% of the scope cost. That led me to decide that shower caps and carrier bags were viable alternatives. People more skilled than me with needles have made hats for scope open ends. In past years I have used a 3D printer to make various caps. Though never for a '130. When I made parts for a 10" reflector they were too big for the print bed, I made them in pie type sections. 3 in this case. Easy to clamp and glue. Choice of colours😁 Sometimes, just sometimes, you can get lucky with a repurposed product. I once used a kitchen clock front reigid plastic disc and frame on an 8" reflecor. Only last weekend I was throwing away a cardboard tube that had plastic end caps. Looking by eye they appeared to be 1.25". A quick measuring stick confirmed this! Two more 1.25" tube caps for my collection. HTH, David.

A UK purchaser at the 'pre-order' price of £335 + £13 filter adapter + shipping (£35?) can look forward to 20% VAT (£76.60?) and an unspecified import duty. Not forgetting there is potentially a handling fee (£20+) applied by the carrier. So about £500 once in my hands.

May I put a possible scenario where neither insurer will pay? Or at least try to avoid paying. You knew wind was forecast so should have taken reasonable precautions. That being putting the scope away. I'm not saying I agree. But having experienced insurers who argue to avoid paying.....😡

Good advice from the above. Don't forget you can do all these tests in daylight on a distant object. No need to lose valuable imaging time😀 David.

I would be good to separate focus droop on loading from a focusser that doesn't point down the tube centre. Set up the collimation and then change scope orientation. Two separate tests. Horizon to zenith. Tube horizontal but rotate in the rings. In either case you are looking for movement. Horizon to zenith change tends to indicate something sagging under the weight. Rotation in the rings tends to indicate some side to side play in the focusser. I have yet to try collimating a CC. But on a standard newt, or a Mak newt I find a simple laser useful. Just look at where the reflected spot lands and either move the scope as described, or apply gently finger pressure to parts. HTH, David.

Yes great images from a phone. When I was trying to grab pics from a digital camera 15+ years ago, they just did not have the sensitivity unless you spent £££.

Yes that package should produce some great images. Looking forward to you posting some when the clouds clear. 2024?🤣

Another vote for the Vixen SG. Had mine a few years. Great for when you don't want to carry much.

I know that I have used a particular Zeiss varifocal lens for some years, and had good results. So I thought I would take a look at the Zeiss UK site for data, to help with the enquiry. Unfortunately the Zeiss site only shows 'glossy leaflet' type of minimal information. OK I really mean it is next to useless. Us uneducated peasants are locked out of the useful pages. Reminiscent of when I asked (as an industry professional) about the contents of their lens cleaner and they wouldn't play ball. That information is only available to industry users..... But I am an industry user. Look at my email domain. Look up the company on the web site...... In this case we decided to not buy the Zeiss product and went for something we could identify. On my next visit to the optician I will try to grab photos of relevant pages.

Agree absolutely. Another factor is how rapidly they change from far to near vertically. If you choose 'Harry Potter' round lenses in a 40mm diamter frame, it is not a worry. But if you choose letter box shape frames that are only 20mm high, it is a different matter. If you want to use a screen, or read a lot, you don't want a spot 'near' section. Though a large near section may compromise middle/distance results. In the back, or under the counter, the optician has a lens catalogue. It shows the lens characteristics, rather like contour lines on a map. Imposing this over your desired frame will be very useful. Ask to see this if the 'front of house' staff can't (as if often the case) answer your questions. Or go elsewhere. HTH, David.

Biassed opinion coming up. My first proper scope was an 8" newt, shorter FL on manual EQ5. Yes a good combination. I had many many hours of enjoyable viewing. Even after selling this first scope I have always owned a reflector in this size range, or a bit bigger. The EQ mount takes a little while to get your head around, but once learned it is like riding a bike. The scope is a good all rounder. A long FL eyepiece taking in larger objects and magnification up to 400 with the ight eyepiece - and a stable sky. Plenty of light gather. Don't worry about photo use for now. just enjoy the views. An alternative to consider (and save money) is a dob mount version. Again regarded by many as a 'keeper'. You may have heard about collimation. Don't worry. It is easily learned by hands on. A Cheshire or simple (low cost) laser are all you need. Then how often? My experience has been hardly ever unless you throw the scope around a lot. How long does it take? A couple of minutes - unless you have had the scope apart for flocking and cleaning. The nice thing about a reflector is that being simple, you can modify or upgrade with ease. They are basicaly a tube with a big mirror, little mirror and focus tube. all held by few screws. Lots of light pollution from the sides? Flock the tube or use better black paint. Mirror dirty? Bird droppings? pollen & sap? Easily sorted in the sink. Focusser a bit rough or sloppy? Buy another better type. Don't like the finder scope - fit a right angle. Always my first choice though ohers may differ. If you do go for an 8" reflector, take a look at other offerings like Bresser & the FLO 'own brand'. They all are similar, but have different accessories included. HTH, David.