Barry-W-Fenner

Ive just realised! All this cloud is down to you Merlin. You keep ordering BST eye pieces 😂

OK chaps, I will see if I can get a decent shot tomorrow. 👍

Hi all. Just managed to get a couple of shots down the focuser tube. Not the best as the scope is tucked up in the corner of the utility room at the moment so not much room to extend and manoeuvre the tube about. I just though I would try to show the currwnt alignment of the mirrors. Maybe there is something obvious to those more experienced than I! when I have the scope out cooling for its next outing I will attempt some better pics. 😀 Baz

Will do Steve, the more eyes the merrier appreciate the assistance. 👍

Doesn't look like there will be any viewing tonight as it's all cloud here. Might set the Dob up in the utility room and double check the collimation later. 🤔

Hi Steve, @Don Pensack Does have a valid point there regarding my cooling times, As mentioned above I have been giving the mirror around an hours cooling time before use but this might not be sufficient. I will try to set up the scope around 8pm going forward. This should give a couple of hours cooling before use. Out of interest, Do you all cool your dobs with the covers obviously off and at a horizontal position, Or say 45 degrees. I keep my dobs in the utility room out back so thought they would be closer to outside temperature from the outset, However that may not be the case. I shall report back when I get some viewing in! Thanks Steve

Hi Don, Thanks for the insightful post regarding the primary mirror, It would seem that you have forgotten more about mirrors than I will ever know 🙂 As you in the optics profession? So it would appear that i have collimated to a mechanical state by going over the usual processes. How would one know how to collimate to a optical state? Reference the 3 Cs I think the scope was out for about an hour on each occasion cooling. Perhaps i am not giving the scope the required amount of time to cool down enough. It might explain why the moon looked great at 6am as I left the scope out from my 3am viewing session. Thanks for your assistance, Much appreciated. Baz

it does have a crosshair at the bottom. when I go out I will fully rotate the cheshire and see if the crosshair stays central. Thank you

Just remembered that I took a couple of pics of Mars in the early hours of Saturday, One of them I have attached. Please forgive the rather poor shot of Mars itself, The reason I have attached the pic is to show how poor the the two white "points of light" are, This is pretty much how most brighter stars show at focus. Quite blurred and out of focus. from memory this was while I was using my 12mm BST To contradict myself, Mars looked excellent, as mentioned in @Johnobserving thread a very clear gibbous phase, Red in colour with the striking southern polar cap visible. Jupiter & Saturn also looked probably the best I have seen them. The Cats eye blew me away and the detail in the moon this morning at 6am against a bright blue sky was spectacular! I will re-check collimation shortly and do as suggested above on Polaris to see if I can get a better understanding of whats going on. Thanks all Baz

All suggestions welcome John, I'm a bit proplexed as to why my views are not particularly good. I purchased a short cheshire and the Baader click lock a couple of weeks ago, part of my reasoning for purchasing the click lock was to make sure the cheshire was central. two of the 3 primary clips were showing clearly but the 3rd was minimal. I tweeked the secondary via my collimation knobs and got the 3 clips even. There was no actual loosining and moving of the secondary, just a slight adjustment on the screws. The primary was then quite far out, maybe 1cm from the dot to the ring in the primary. I got this lined up perfectly and put the scope away for the best part of two weeks 😕 I have used it the last couple of nights and stars are definitely not the bright points of light that they should be. Back ground stars are very dim/faint. Main stars like vega look like they would if you was slightly out of focus by a small amount, a bit blurry and not sharp at all. I will try to get a pic if I can tonight. I will also run through the collimation process again to see if anything needs changing Thank you Baz

Hi Steve. all Good thanks matey. Hope you are keeping safe and well. Thanks for the heads up regarding the comet. I have Ursa major at my north West becoming visible around 11pm will it be visible near this? If so I will try to hunt it down. I am not having a great time with the bsts unfortunately. The 8mm, 12mm and 15mm seem to perform OK on planets, however stara are not good, main stars are still displaying quite blurry and look slightly unfocused, the back ground stars are also very faint through the focuser, almost barely visible. If I look through the finderscope they are very clear. I have collimated the scope with my short cheshire and it seems spot on. All 3 primary clips visible evenly and the dot in the donut so I'm happy with that. I just don't think the bsts and 300p0like playing together. I'm now looking to purchase a mid power Morpheus and barlow it for now. Cheers baz

Hi Ian. I am thinking similar, I would like to purchase something mid focal and hopefully barlow it for more power. That's assuming a Morpheus will play nice with a x2 BST barlow? Not sure what to go for to be honest. I quite enjoy viewing with my 8mm bst at x187 in the 300p. However the image is not great to be honest. Stars seem to be a bit distorted and mushy. So maybe something along the lines of the 14mm Morpheus and barlow down to 7mm?? Again any advise appreciated Barry

Yeah seriously poor viewing recently. It was nice to get out and have a look at The gas giants and a few bits at 3am this morning. No joy with the comet for me though. My NE is the worst area for me, All house roof and trees in that direction.. I left the scope outside and managed a look at the moon at 6am as well. It was very clear and showed some excellent detail against a clear blue sky! If someone could invent a morphing eye piece they would sell like hot cakes! All focal lengths in one! 🙂 Baz

Nice job raph, I to am a fan of a beer on a Friday night while observing. Hense the coaster. Hope you like the leffe glass, I sunk a fair few of these while in bruges a while back 👍

Hi Simon. I think you might mean a wixey. If so it's a magnetic digital angle gauge that you can stick on your tube to give you the altitude reading for the angle your scope is at. It should guide you to the altitude you need to be at when locating targets. They are quite cheap on ebay. Cheers Baz

Hi Ian. I haven't purchased any new eye pieces yet. I am quite interested in picking up one in the Morpheus range at some point. I am quite pleased that I decided to hold off for the time being to get some experience with my current eye pieces. Unfortunately that hasn't happened as the weather has been so poor over the last month. Regards baz

Great stuff folks, real good to hear you all had such an enjoyable night's viewing. I draged myself out of bed at 2.30am and got my 1st views of Mars, as John mentioned the southern polar cap stood out wonderfully, a real contrast in colour with the red planet! I spent about an hour looking at a few bits before it got light 😕 No joy with the comet as my NE is very obscured. What height is it at roughly, I might go for an early morning walk to see if I can get a glimpse! Baz

Beautiful set Jeremy, I would love to try some serious quality eye pieces like these in my 12" dob.

Following on from the Refractor vs Reflector thread. Errr look at all them yucky Refractors, They are making my eyes hurt! Of course I am only kidding Stu, Lovely collection you have accumulated there. I am quite interested to see the night sky through a quality Refractor now! Regards Baz

And the conclusion of the deeper meaning will be, it was all to try and educate some plonker called Barry 😂

It was a very tounge in cheek review. I was trying to see the funny side of having a brand new scope sitting under a cover for the best part of a month 😂 Still Im sure our luck will change soon and we all get some observing time, ever the optimist... Baz

Excellent thanks gents, you learn something new everyday. I am going to print that diagram off and have a read tomorrow. Thanks for pointing out the two lens types Alan, this has given me a great visual understanding now! Baz

Sorry to sound a complete amateur! But what does the term "plossl" actually mean about this type of eye piece? Thanks Baz

Hi, it's a one man job but in two pieces. 1st the mount then the tube after. cheers

Hi all. So it has been one month sinse I purchased the 300p and I thought I would post a review. It gets a 10 out of 10 for looking good in the corner of my utility room. Frustratingly I have managed about 2hrs viewing with it so far when we have had a clear sky! Having said that the views have been extremely impressive in spite of the lack of astro darkness this time of year. I have managed to get the scope colimated with my short cheshire and setup to my liking now, light shield, click lock, flocking, right angle finder, regal finder, dual speed focuser & beer coaster all installed 😁 I really can't wait to give this scope a good session to see what it is capable of. Regards Baz