Zermelo

Hello, If it's a long way off, it's often caused by the location or date/time being wrong. How are you setting those with the Adventurer?

I had this one as a boy, along with "Exploring Space" and "How it Works: The Rocket". They were all given away at some point and bought back, in the last few years, on the Sinus Echonis. Even after all that time, I was anticipating the picture on the next page as I read through it.

A great read, Magnus, thanks for sharing. Perfect seeing under 21.95 skies, "wow" indeed. There are some great doubles about at the moment. An interesting comparison of the diagonals - I have the Revelation too, but I've read how good the BBHS is, and thought about getting one.

https://xkcd.com/2776

Another decent night here. Seeing started average but improved during the evening, and transparency generally good, with the occasional wisp of high cloud. A few doubles in the Mak, including HR 3701 at 1.0", and then some galaxies: M65, M66 (no hamburger again), M99, M100 (barely), and four in Markarian's Chain. Finished with M13, which was showing a lot of structure in the Morpheus 9mm.

Relating this to a different thread, I've found that one of the uses of Facebook is that people in our village (and, I'm sure, many others) use it to post pictures of parcels sitting outside front doors. The parcels were ordered by the posters, but the front doors are not theirs! The delivery company (and here, it's not RM) has of course sent them the picture as "proof" of successful delivery. The message attached to the post is usually "does anyone recognize this front door?" To be fair, RM in my area is usually good.

Or alternatively, if you launch a "New Private Window" in FF, it will have no connection (including cookies and passwords) with your main session, i.e. a blank slate for each website. It's a useful option if you only need a one-off session.

I'm not aware of anyone on here who has both, but I have the Star Discovery and, quite recently, the AZ-GTiX. I've not dabbled with the innards of either mount yet, though there are threads where these have been discussed, for the Star Discovery: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/285612-star-discovery-clutch-adjustment https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/323361-skywatcher-star-discovery-azimuth-slop and you may already be aware of the long thread dedicated to the AZ-GTi: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/387014-skywatcher-az-gti-mount-owners-thread Yes, the nominal capacity for both mounts is 5kg, though the usual caveats apply: that performance will degrade gradually with increasing payload, that it depends on the length of the OTA as well as the weight, and that it depends whether you're using it for visual or imaging. I regularly pushed the limit on my Star Discovery, though not as far as 6.5kg. The mount has never given up on me, but it's hard to tell if the weight is having any effect. I've had some excellent sessions, in terms of goto and tracking accuracy, but it has also been quite inconsistent. I've never been sure whether that's down to inherent mechanics, or to my pushing the limits, or to the Synscan software and the mount's motor board firmware (hence my attempts to monitor the performance). I'm hoping to get a comparison with the AZ-GTiX, which uses the same control software, but different firmware and a slightly greater capacity. Yes, the Star Discovery is marketed as the Orion Star Seeker IV in the U.S., and it does seem that the payload limit is sometimes quoted differently in different markets. To be honest, I've always thought that the single-arm mounts look a bit awkward, and the ability of the AZ-GTiX (and the AZ-GTi, with the counterweight mod) to balance the load seems preferable. This site is an interesting account of one person's experiences of the Star Discovery with different OTAs, and in particular their deliberate attempts to run it beyond the nominal capacity. Apart from any variation in mechanics or software I think one of the main differences is the size of their user communities. I doubt that any official sales figures are available, but I get the impression that the AZ-GTi has a substantially larger user base, in part because of its ability also to do equatorial, and hence better support imaging. As a consequence, (i) the availability of crowd-sourced support is better (e.g. the SGL thread referenced above), and (ii) the support from third parties is likely to be better - for example, ADM do a saddle replacement for the AZ-GTi, but not for the Star Discovery (the last time I asked). See, for example, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/661513-skywatcher-az-gti-useful-links-and-accessories .

The seeing here was better than on Thursday, and I split a dozen doubles with the Mak. Izar and Algieba were looking good. The tightest tonight was HR 3701 at 1.0" with a magnitude difference. M5 and M13 were showing well, and the planetary NGC 6210 in Hercules was blueish. I don't think the transparency was quite as good as Thursday, there seemed to be a little mist about. So galaxies were not at their best, for example M65 and M66 were visible, but I couldn't see the hamburger. By the time I packed up at 01:00, there was also some dew forming, which wasn't expected. But a good evening.

Another thread over on CN: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/441767-good-objects-for-observing-with-the-h-beta-filter/

Yes, the omens are good in the South West. CO, Meteoblue, Metcheck, BBC, Nightshift and GoodToStargaze are all predicting some clear skies. The moon is out of the way, and the seeing is forecast to be good. Dew shouldn't be a problem, and it won't get too cold. And it's not even a school night.

Impressive - I don't have an Erdinger glass, the one in my picture gets called on for any wheat beer. I need a larger glasses cabinet, but then I'd just get more glasses. Sounds a bit like my eyepiece case.

The BBC says clear tonight, everyone else says no. We know where that's going. So the Mak isn't cooling tonight, these are instead.

But now is precisely the time you don't need to apologize: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/28/no-mow-may-uk-gardeners-urged-to-let-wildflowers-and-grass-grow

Going back over this thread, I just noticed this After having read all this Do you have any thoughts on this week's lottery numbers?

Well it was worth sticking with it. The early cloud went away eventually and it turned into a decent evening (morning??). The seeing was mediocre, improving slightly after midnight, but it was darker than I've measured here before (21.02). Doubles included 20 Dra, HD 75353, HR3686, HD136176, and three with only a 0.9" separation: HR5550, HD124757 and HD148734. These required extended viewing to catch an occasional split. Also visited M57, M92, M53 and M64. Mid-level cloud moved in again about 01:00, much as forecast.

Yes, I just about got aligned and now that cloud bank has come in from the East and covered most of the sky. Instead, I've been watching our local hedgehog eating the treats we left out, joined briefly by a bemused neighbour's cat.

Currently just one or two low clouds about, and the Mak is cooling. CO, Meteoblue and BBC all saying that the (non-existent) cloud will clear by about midnight!

M1 seems to be one of those objects that exemplifies the value of dark skies. It is certainly large enough (420″ × 290″), but I've read previously that city-based members have had trouble finding it. I spotted it quickly in a 6" (Bortle 4). Messier's equipment in the 18th century was quite basic. It's difficult to compare with modern kit because telescopes from that era seem to be recorded by focal length in preference to aperture, and we don't necessarily know their quality, but it has been suggested that his might have been equivalent to a modern 3.5" refractor. What he did have was better skies than most modern observers. Given that yours are pushing 22.0, I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of the Messier list were detectable in decent binoculars. By its nature, the list is dominated by extended fuzzies, so decent skies and optics with good contrast will help. I'm sure there'll be someone here who has tried.

Over the last month I've managed to get outside twice, and that's just down to the weather. If I had the commitments of some other members here, I would be observing even less often. Living in the rainy UK, I want to make the best use of every minute at the eyepiece, so the case for goto (or pushto) is a strong one. We spend a lot of money on equipment, and most of the time it sits in cupboards. I feel much more guilty about that than I do about using pointing and tracking technology. That said, I think there's merit in having an unassisted scope as your first, while you're learning how the sky works. And you don't want to be helpless later on if the tech is having an off day.

I have the same scope, but I've never tried to test the resolution in daylight, just at night with tight double stars. In ideal conditions, on pairs with equal mags, I've split down to 0.9" more than once.

Obviously, many will disagree with his characterization of the market as "Televue and the rest", though he did preface that with "eyepieces are a very individual choice". For me, one of the interesting aspects of the hobby is precisely the availability of decent alternatives to the premium-priced kit, and in the trade-off between any extra improvement in experience versus the (usually substantial) incremental cost. But it was an interesting watch, and worth it just to see his (incomplete?!) array of eyepieces, and the bemused comment "I don't even know how some of this stuff got here". I think many of us can relate to that, whether or not we have succumbed to the green and black.

There was some speculation previously that the Opticstar versions might be cheaper because they lacked the waterproofing/purging of the ES EPs, but their web site says they do have it.

Hello, and welcome to SGL. You may get more responses by posting your question on this thread: