gilesco

From what system are you SSH ing to the Astroberry from?

I expect, since becoming a Dark Skies site, that they've made all the changes to keep it that way. https://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/enjoying/stargazing Surprised I have not seen this mentioned anywhere on here, especially as it appears to be running right now... (although many events will probably not go ahead because of the weather). https://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/enjoying/stargazing/dark-skies-festival Interesting you can hire SkyWatcher Dobsonians from any of their National Park Centres, £25 a night, plus £100 deposit, £10 per each additional night. Sounds great for families who have a passing interest while visiting the park on a break.

I have not, Exmoor is a little further, and I'm more at home on Dartmoor, anyone fancy getting in touch? I can still do Exmoor one night, just 10+ mins drive for me and I suppose a smoother drive with equipment. Would be good to know what artificial lighting is there, I know the dartmoor sites have none, Exmoor is a dark site space, so should be hopeful on that.

Yes not seeing a good window this month at all... am getting a part shipment tomorrow, which will help with setup planning. Hoping for a better November, have some long weekends booked with work too....

Personally, I don't see much technical difference between an invoice that says: And a pretty piece of paper that says: "This is to certify that this Esprit has undergone a Optical Bench Test) blah blah blah"

Would be really good if you can tag or somehow copy paste this thread into the Devon & Cornwall club topic list, as I think it is relevant there. And if you are in Devon, join the club!!

Kind of read between the lines... "we have soooooo many waiting for delivery on this scope"

Tweaked, but not sure about collimation on a refractor, if it is possible to tweak then yes, but he doesn't open the tube and adjust lens positions etc... It is just easier to take in mind that you have a scope from FLO, that Es Reid would have accepted if he had bought it from a distributor. That is the peace of mind that the £75 buys you, you could spend more than that just getting it shipped to you on a non vibrant container from the factory.

If you go to my website, I have recently posted a talk by Dr Robin Glover, which goes in to levels of light pollution noise and how this helps / hinders your necessary exposure time when imaging. If you can obtain better detail with lower length exposures then you can get more subs in a given time frame and thus more detail. Bortle is a rather rough scale. Lower is better. SQM higher the better. It also translates to observing quality, but it is difficult to quantify, as your eye is fixed in its abilities regarding focal length, aperture, and exposure time. Of course having a telescope is altering your focal length and aperture to your eye, but exposure is still set fixed, to whatever your brain copes with. Location looks good, looks like good shielding from passing traffic, larger space than what we've been looking at. Don't know if car park closes overnight, there are some buildings in the area, but also some amenities (toilets). Do you know who runs the car park? Would like to clear with them for use in that way. It is a lot further from me from other sites, but time on road is just +10minutes, given some is motorway and major A road.

If you have the ZWO filter wheel then check the physical prominence of the filters in the wheel, too often the issue is that they stick out too much and jar the wheel. I have a seven filter set of LRGBHaOIIISII ZWOs. I'm happy with them, but don't have a compare with anything else.

Steve did mention, before going for his Sunday dinner, that they would look into perhaps a holo sticker (I assume a sticker with a hologram that is tamper-evident) that they'd put on scopes that have gone through the process. So they may do that in the future, although I wonder whether stickers would be made available to those who have already purchased a tested scope... they will have to consider this, as otherwise people will be selling second-hand scopes with and without provenance and those who have been tested and didn't have a holo sticker would be a bit miffed.

It has not been too active, am trying to revive activity there, particularly dark site visiting.

From what I can tell, the bench test is: (a) visual inspection (b) aiming a laser at the head of a pin, or small bearing, to create an artificial star and viewing the artificial star at various points through the telescope. Looking for chromatic aberrations, changes in size etc... Dud telescopes go back to the distributor, the good ones get shipped to FLO.

Since recently, FLO only offer the Esprit series with the bench test, they don't sell any that have not been benchtested. So your invoice is your certificate.

Welcome, be sure to join the Devon and Cornwall club on here

Welcome, be sure to join the Devon & Cornwall club on here.

Here's the Light Pollution Map info, better than my Bortle 4/5 at home.

I popped up there this afternoon, it does look quite promising, at the car park level you can find points which are shielded from the road in both directions. Quite a few cars there at the time, I imagine that it dies down near to dusk. Remember to bring a spirit level! View from the ridge: A panorama, I guess that you have 360 degrees, horizon at car park level is probably around 10 degrees.

I was not aware of the 3m recommendation for USB3... I think I will hold fire and try and improve cable management, then perhaps look at getting a Pegasus PPB Advance when the budget allows. Thanks for all the recommendations, I do still need a slightly longer USB2 to go from my mount to the USB hub. So will check Lindy and ETGuuds brands for their offerings.

The tool is great, I use it on my works in progress http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/?wtml=http%3a%2f%2fworldwidetelescope.org%2fwwtweb%2fShowImage.aspx%3freverseparity%3dFalse%26scale%3d2.207991%26name%3dcombine-RGB-image-mod-lpc-cbg-csc-St.jpg%26imageurl%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fnova.astrometry.net%2fimage%2f9340892%26credits%3dAstrometry.net%2bUser%2b(All%2bRights%2bReserved)%26creditsUrl%3d%26ra%3d39.184698%26dec%3d62.720308%26x%3d3263.4%26y%3d3461.7%26rotation%3d-138.40%26thumb%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fnova.astrometry.net%2fimage%2f9340894%26wtml%3dtrue The image cross-fade is great too, gives you real satisfaction to know what you're imaging is what is supposed to be there.

I have a ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro, it is producing perfect results, my imperfections are in other areas. Will certainly be considering this one for future OSC results, but the for time being, I will be building LRGBHaOIIISII images in one form or another very manually.

I have a whole assortment of USB cables some old, some which came with equipment I've bought (e.g. ZWO cameras). I would like to look at purchasing some longer length cables (not much longer, perhaps 4 or 5 metres). Looking around I see that the cost of these cables varies immensely, without much to tell whether the more expensive ones are of a better quality. What USB cable manufacturers do you recommend which are quality, work for astro, and will not break the bank? I need various different ones with differing form factor ends.

The third car pack up from the Warren House Inn, just beyond Bennet's Cross kind of looks promising as it appears to be shielded from the line of sight up and down the road (I doubt there is much late night traffic there anyway). I am waiting on some new kit, which I need for remote site work, currently expected to arrive first or second week of November, weather looks awful all around this month anyway, so if I do get it together the next window of opportunity would be 13th / 14th November, clear skies permitting...

I'll look at the Postbridge area later, a combination of the streetview, satellite and light pollution should help find something suitable. I've stayed at the Two Bridges before, so know that road a bit, by the way, you do realise that that road is haunted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_Hands Agree, unless I take a day off work, it's going to be a Friday or Saturday.

I did ask and got the answer, they are from different manufacturers, despite the similar branding - but both are Taiwanese.