Scoobs767

Got to see the comet last night! Actually saw it first through the live view of my camera. Then great sight in 70x15 binoculars and an ETX 80. Found it hard to make out with the naked eye. Picture below with Nikon 5200 ISO 800 1 sec exposure f/1.8 lens, cropped and rotated.

I have a Nikon D5200, with a 50mm F 1.8 lens. Any advice on ISO and exposure times for the comet... very new to this.

https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/look-out-comet-neowise It is basically passing beneath the Plough over the next couple of weeks...

Tomorrow night is the night I think! Predicted almost cloud free here. Hoping to snap a picture too.

Does anyone go to large supermarket car parks, or service station car parks to observe? Not sure if the supermarket's would allow you to park there out of hours?

Not sure if there is a mechanical way you can make the RA axis = azimuth and Dec = altitude like in Az-Eq mounts. I don't think goto or tracking would work though.

Is there some slack or space between the hole in the tripod base and the bit from the mount that sticks into it? I.e. the fit is not snug? Is that what is causing the movement?

So my shed has arrived, but not yet built. It's a plastic shed I'm going to house my 10 inch SCT, mount and tripod on wheeley bars, and roll out as needed. I have a Geoptik telescope cover I'll put over it too. I wondered if there are any tips for storage to prevent damage or rust to the scope, mount, electronics, metal etc? Should I get dessicants for example? Thanks!

I approve of the trashcan Mac Pro . Nice mount and set up.

Great - let us know what you decide to get

Hello Col, Here are some pics. Not perfect set up by any means but it works. The L-bracket holding the binos is free to move on the furthest out knob giving it a micro-azimuth action. The centre knob does not allow movement and secures the long bar to the original attachment for the L-bracket, offset at an angle as shown. There are some bits of foam and padding for protection incase things swing about before everything is tightened up and balanced. If you are referring to the L-bracket I don't think that can be bent easily as it is too thick. The Orion accessory I think sits where the L-bracket would have, so you would have to unscrew the L-bracket and replace it with that attachment. To be honest I don't know if the Farpoint mount will screw into your tripod, but mounts like those have an advantage in that the binos are mounted at the side of the parallelogram and this allows for better balance in all axes. Also some people like them because you can get a chair completely underneath since the tripod is at your side.

Also for your tripod I'd check that the mount could sit on it without hitting the azimuth knob you've got there.

So I'd say it's a decent mount but might need some mods by the owner to achieve its full potential. In my view a parallelogram has the following benefits over a regular photo tripod. 1) it puts the binos at a distance from the central pole making it easier to sit underneath and observe objects at high altitude, 2) it provides a smooth ('knobless') action to adjust the vertical position (which is needed together with an altitude change to observe a higher object) - this replaces the crank shaft in a phototripod, 3) useful in outreach to show the same thing to people of different heights. For me the worst aspect of the mount was the altitude adjustment which is just controlled by a single knob you have to tighten each time you change the altitude. This knob actually split soon after I bought it! I had to buy a replacement knob off ebay (which is actually much better). There is no weight balance on that axis so if the friction is not enough, the binos might flop over one way or the other. I think on the more expensive mounts, the axis of rotation goes through the bino CoG (since the binos are held at 90 degree to the parallelogram, rather than point along the axis as in the Paragon), so it acts as its own counterweight, but thats not possible on the Paragon. This need to untighten and retighten really bugged me, and it didn't give me the "buttery" smooth action looking up and down I wanted. So what I did was to mod the altitude axis by pushing back the L-bracket so the bino CoG is further from the rotation axis, and then on the other side of the axis I balance this with a small 1kg counterweight. I use a 10 inch "bar" (actually made by attaching together a metal bracket and an old Orion SLT camera mount, but this could be simplified by using a single bar) to attach the L-bracket and the counterweight shaft. The bar is screwed securely to the original L-bracket attachment but at an angle so that the weight and binos are offset sightly from the long axis of the parallelogram - this allows the counterweight to move down without hitting the mount. The L-bracket attachment is adjustable so the binos still look down the axis of the p-gram. The CW and the binos give approx. the same moment around this axis which reduces greatly the knob friction needed to hold position. With a small amount of tightening of the altitude knob this allows for a "knobless" buttery smooth altitude action, that greatly improved the performance of the mount for me. In addition, the L-bracket is free to move around on its attachment, which gives an additional movement axis - a micro-longitude adjustment. I've had to add a small additional counterweight to the main one to balance this, but it seems to work well. There are other mods people have used such as pistol grips etc, if you look around on here and cloudynights. For your tripod, I faced the same dilemma. I had an AVX tripod and wanted to use that. Problem is the AVX used M10 coarse screw (I think) and the mount used either 1/4 or 3/8" screw holes (as per photographic tripods). So there is a major mismatch of thread conventions. I managed to fashion an adapter from an M10 nut and an adapter I found on ebay that I've wedged into it (it was designed for M10 fine of course!). I also use a plastic spacer underneath on the main shaft. So it can be done but not straightforward! The alternative is just to replace the central crank shaft with a long 3/8" screw that will fit directly into the mount base. However, I think using the AVX tripod (which has 2 inch legs) was a good move since it is designed to hold a much more massive mount, I don't notice any real vibrations or settling time needed for the binos. For your bino connection if you do a mod yourself you can just add an attachment to the bottom of your bar, or if you stay with the original design Orion actually make an attachment. https://uk.telescope.com/Telescopes/Orion-Binocular-Mount-Adapter/rc/1306/p/115935.uts

Definitely recommend a P-mount. My bino observing has been transformed using a Paragon mount, albeit with my own mod that makes the up-down action more fluid and stable.

I had as a kid (and still have) the 50mm "200 power" one bought from Argos. Used to dream as a child about having the reflectors or even the 60mm, but way too expensive at the time. I saw Halley's comet and Saturn through that scope. After a gap of many decades I bought myself a fancy 8 inch SCT, which unfortunately got used far too little due to its weight and my poor planning. I bought wheeley bars for it, and then found they couldn't get through my door. Had to lose the 8 inch, but in more recent times have been building up a better planned set of equipment. I still have the Tasco refractor. As a kid someone showed me how to replace the awful mount it came with, with a photographic tripod. The old tripod has deteriorated to the point of non-function, so I'm detaching the OTA, and will try a new tripod with it. Although I have much better scopes today, I'd like to restore the Tasco a bit and make it usable on a new mount. For old time's sake.