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DamienBoath

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    Adelaide, South Australia

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  1. Sure. I do like the idea of buying new so I have it for awhile. There is this though: https://www.teds.com.au/2nd-hand-canon-eos-77d-body Remember, pricing in AU so this would be roughly 400 pounds.
  2. Australian availability: https://www.bintel.com.au/product/bintel-gso-rc6-f9-astrograph-metal-tube/?v=322b26af01d5
  3. What about this as an option for a scope: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ioptron-telescopes/ioptron-photron-6-ritchey-chretien-telescope.html Chap on youtube reviewed it and it seemed to give good results. Especially for a starter level scope:
  4. https://www.teds.com.au/canon-eos-90d Current exchange rate is for every UK Pound, it is $1.82 AU. So essentially double. Any prices quoted, simply half.
  5. Thanks. I presume the Sky Watcher EQM-35 is a star tracker too as it has some 42,000 preprogrammed co-ordinates for stars/celestial bodies. ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ
  6. Hey all, It's been awhile since i posted, can thank Covid, divorce and winter for that... Busy busy. I had received some advice awhile ago about the cheap telescope my father had purchased my son and it's been great to develop the hobby. However, this scope has severe limitations as expected. I've just ordered some new eye pieces and diagonal as half of them didnt work properly (i even dismantled two so as to clean this weird grease off the lens, its almost as if whoeever had it before tried to clean it with WD40..... anywho). I'm looking at now moving on and up into astrophotography. I've spent the last two or three months really researching it and have settled/narrowed down on the following: Canon EOS90D Camera. Might get the lens kit also so i have other options outside of astrophotography: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/canon-eos-90d-dslr-camera-with-18-55mm-is-lens Skywatcher EQ mount: https://www.opticscentral.com.au/skywatcher-eqm-35-mount.html?___SID=U Telescope: This is where I need your suggestions! I have a budget of $5000 AU total for this. With camera and mount, we are up to $3198. Leaving roughly $1800 for a scope. Could probably push this to $2000 (roughly 1000 pounds for the poms) if needed though. I have no idea where to begin. Obviously needs to be able to mount the camera to the scope so must factor in the T adaptor (they seem cheap though? $50). And be suitable to click on to the mount. Your next question will be: What will you be photographing? A: Deep space/nebulae and galaxies/Milky way. We have the cheap refractor for looking at the moon. I have seen that decent, larger refractors are recommended for astrophotography and not Dobsonians. I'm in a great location, if i follow the light pollution website, we are on the very edge of the low light polution (im about an hour from the city) and we are 10 minutes up the street from zero light pollution with lots of farming/open space. Fire your suggestions through and any specs i should be aiming for. aka size of refractor, it's focal length etc Thanks Damien
  7. We are in daylight savings here in Adelaide, and Venus is crazy bright. It stays up around 8pm for an hour or two just as the sun is setting. We only just received some filters, so might try tonight if it's not too cloudy. In the telescope it just appears as a super bright dot. Damien
  8. So further update: Lad and I made some good progress with the scope. We used blue painters tape on the focuser barrel (only needed 2 strips) and the slop is gone and still smooth to operate. We then dismantled the mount for the scope barrel and added a star washer between barrel and mount, so when the wing nut is tightened, it has more ability to lock in. I noticed the thread was just a bit long and bottoming out, so it would never tighten fully. A washer each side fixed that. I also noticed a tightening screw was missing where the silver bar sits in (altitude control). The manual says to remove one of the tightening screws from the mounts and use this for tightening the bar ๐Ÿ™„ Lets not do that.... so I'll replace it with another tightening screw from the junk box. Managed to get the finderscope aligned finally by completely taking it off, lining an object up (lamp post across the valley) in the main eyepiece and then using the finderscope to centre it in the crosshairs. Tightened all screws and tweaked it. Overall it's rigid now which is good. You can slightly back off a tightening screw, smoothly move it to your object and lock it.... and it stays. Also received some filters off ebay. We tried the sun one (with caution) and it worked quite well. Will try the others when the moon is out as it came with red, yellow, blue, pink and green filters in the pack. Only issue is, they have a thread on them and the crap eyepiece with the telescope does not. Can anyone suggest a brand/eyepiece (20mm and 12.5mm) that will fit that won't break the bank? Preferably ebay as Amazon australia sucks. Thanks Damien
  9. Thanks for all the responses! I do recognise it being a cheap/starter telescope which in some ways is good because I can be more tolerant of the short comings of it. It would be worse if the scope was $400, or $1000 and I didn't have a grasp on the basics of telescopes! I'll go through some of the suggestions/tips across the weekend. Currently bucketing with rain today and tomorrow in a summer storm, so any chance of being outside is.... none. Damien
  10. Hey all, After hitting the internet and Youtube, I stumbled on this forum and thought "I'd say they'd be able to help!" My father gave my son a telescope for Christmas. It is essentially this (not exact brand but near identical): https://skywatcheraustralia.com.au/product/60700-az2-refractor/ He did mention he obtained it second hand, but was still in original box etc. My son has been excited to use it, but like everything, there's a learning curve and expecting a 10 yr old to calibrate it for 15 minutes wears out quickly ๐Ÿ˜‚ Ive never had a telescope before, so it's been a lot of fun learning and dipping into some photography (using a 3D printed adaptor for a phone *ducks* ) with some okay results. I've noticed a few "issues" with the scope and I'm wondering if people could weigh in. Based on responses, I have no qualms in purchasing upgraded parts for this scope as I'm hesitant to sink coin into a different beast and potentially annoy my old man as he's already worried he's purchased a lemon after I mentioned the learning curve we've had. The finder scope is near impossible to align. I've followed guides on picking an object about 500m away during the day, aligning it via the main eyepiece and then adjusting the thumbscrews on the finder to centre it in the crosshairs. It just does not do it. I have learnt to work out "where" it's aligned which is far right of centre. So if I put the moon to the far right in the finder, it should be in the eyepiece. Not ideal. Slop in the focusing system. With an eyepiece in (say 20mm) I can find an object (moon is easy in this case). I can focus in, but if I let go of the wheels, the tube assembly "drops" by a few mm which is often enough to have the moon completely disappear from the eyepiece. The system seems to be geared/teeth on the underside and I can easily move this up and down. No way to lock in place. It means I have to focus the object and then move the scope up (object out of view) and let it "drop." If that makes sense. Becomes frustrating as it leads on to the other issue I have in point 3. Drift. By slightly bumping the view finder/ focus system until I let go and it settles in the middle of the view, you can finally see what you want... but it slowly drifts. The whole scope (even with the wing nuts on the mounts tight). So if I have it set and call my son over to look, even in the 20 -30 seconds it takes him to meander over, it can have tilted slightly enough to have the moon disappear. Which results in adjusting the scope physically and then the whirlwind of the slop in the focus system comes in. I've learnt to hold it while the lad looks and then he too makes adjustments. If we put the 3D printed adaptor on the eyepiece with the phone, that slight bump can throw it out. Let alone the additional weight of a piece of plastic and phone. The drift is really noticeable (if you just stand and watch the moon), almost as if the scope is weighted incorrectly, or the locking of the nuts has too much tolerance. Eyepiece choices. As we experiment, we've found the 20mm eye piece and the 12.5mm eyepiece really good for looking at details on the moon. If we put the 4mm in, we can't see anything. no matter how much we adjust focus etc. It just appears grey/dark. If we put the 1.5 x Barlow lens in, with a 20mm eyepiece, we cant focus in on anything. The 3x lens seems to exceed the power of the scope. I have purchased some filters from ebay so we can have some fun with that. Will have to research those more. Looking at maybe buying better eyepieces with wider glass in them. Things to observe other than the moon. We are in summer/daylight savings in Adelaide, South Australia. All the youtube and internet seems to focus on the northern hemisphere. The moon has only risen up near with venus around 10pm for a brief moment in the last few days. For January its below the horizon. We have crystal clear skies with minimal light pollution (we are an hour from the CBD and rural properties are a 5 minute drive away). Jupiter/saturn etc are below the horizon even at midnight. What else can we observe? Is this scope only good for the moon? It'd be great to get into astrophotography, but I feel that may be a rabbit hole at this stage! Thanks for enduring the long post. Any tips and links would be greatly appreciated. I uploaded a photo we took using a Samsung S8 on the pro setting and me literally holding the scope and phone. ๐Ÿคจ Damien.
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