Pixies

Great idea. My wife thinks I'm mad enough already. If I start wearing red goggles before I go outside, she'll lock the door behind me!

Last night was a little disappointing - with poor transparency and very average seeing conditions. Started with Theta Aurigae and could barely make out the secondary as it winked in and out of sight. So I moved on to some faint fuzzies, but I was not as successful as last week. Started at the cluster NGC226 - which I had never observed before. However, it was faint and most of the dimmer stars hidden in the murk. The globular cluster M67 was ok, but I cold only just see the 2 brightest members of the Leo triple M65 and M66. So back to doubles again. The seeing had improved a little. Tegmine (Zeta Cancrii) just about revealing the tight component at x300 and showing as notched between fuzzy spells. Algeiba (Ganma1 Leonis) was a clear split at 75x but little colour difference. Omega Leonis and Kappa Leonis were too tight for the seeing conditions. 54 Leonis was an easy split though. Nice colour difference showing blue/green-grey. Ended on Iota Leonis. The tiny secondary trailing to the east of the primary just barely visible.

Altair RACI finder as a scope: 60mm F3.75 A wee bit of field curvature, mind!

Markarian's Chain? https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/yanking-markarians-chain/

Just found that the soft rubber top can come off! 43mm across and 4mm deep

Nope. It's 45mm at the top end:

Just measured it. It's 45mm at the narrowest part (soft rubber top) and 48mm at the widest part (the bottom of the plastic section)

What type is it? Are you talking about the Celestron NexYZ? If so, I have one and also an NPL 30mm - so I can test it out for you, if you like.

M33 is very faint! It's visual magnitude of 5.8 sounds bright, but the galaxy is face-on and that light is spread out over a large area It took me over 18 months before I actually observed it, and that involved a lot of practice chasing down faint objects over that period. Had I been in darker skies, it would have been a lot easier. Basically, you need dark skies and some experience before you can observe M33! So don't worry, you are far from alone with your frustration!

Went out and let my eyes dark adapt while I set up the dob, collimated it, etc. Once I was ready I looked up and Orion was behind a tree! 🙄 Tomorrow I'll get set up a little earlier! To be honest, I'd been round a friend's all afternoon watching the rugby and had had a few beers! Pointed the scope at Theta Aurigae and couldn't split the little secondary - so seeing wasn't great here. I sat down in the camping chair and proceeded to do a tour of some binocular targets, including a few I hadn't tried before. M44 - Beehive cluster. Always nice in binos M67 - little globular in Cancer. Just a fait circular blob. M48 - nearby open cluster ticked-off, but not impressive in binos. NGC 2264 - the Christmas Tree cluster. This is a great little binocular target - the upside-down star pattern of a tree as clear as anything. I dropped further south down to... NGC 2244 - the Rosette cluster. Easily seen as a small patch of stars. Now - could I see the surrounding nebula? I thought I could make out a circular area around the cluster, slightly brighter than the background and taking up an area less dense of stars. It was probably my imagination - knowing where it should be, fooling my brain into seeing something. Can one see anything of the Rosette nebula in 10x50 binos with no filters? M53 - globular cluster a faint blob M3 - larger and less faint blob M94 - small and faint galaxy but definitely there. M51 - Whirlpool galaxy. Small and faint with averted vision. Knowing exactly where it is helps locate it. M81 and M82 - an easy bino target. At this point I was tired and it was getting cold. I decided to forego any observing with the dob now, and packed things away.

Wind OK here despite forecast. All clear but transparency doesn't look great. Going to do my fist attempt at the CFRE dark sky survey tonight while waiting for scope to cool.

It was certainly stiffer than I expected (ooer missus!). I'm off to a star party in April, so I'm interested to see whether mine is normal compared to others.

I knew someone would say that!

The one of the left looks like a mini-me version of an old 2" Circle-V I used to have:

I have one too - but I have a different problem. The 2" eyepiece holder on the Bresser dob is a 3-screw compression ring, but it has difficulty gripping the sloping sides of the Baader reducer. I have to really tighten it up hard, to avoid the whole body of the Baader converter turning when I'm locking or unlocking it.

@vlaiv recently posted a really good diagram, recently.

But bear this in mind: The pictures above are of parallel rays of light coming from infinity and converging to the focal point of the scope, then the eyepiece being adjusted so that it's focal plane meets the telescopes focal point and magnifies the image for you to see. This applies only to objects at infinity (or at a distance to be equivalent to infinity). The scope's focal length defines the point that parallel light rays converge. However, the scopes optics are busy converging light rays from many distances, not just infinity! Something closer - say the TV aerial next door - will have light rays diverging when they hit the scope first lens/mirror. The scope's optics will still converge these rays to a focal point, but one that is further away from the objective. In order to view this in focus through the eyepiece, you rack the focuser out until the eyepiece's focal plane meets this other focal point. That's why you rack out, to see closer objects in focus. Note - as per @Captain Scarlet's post above, this refers to newts and refractors

There was a data update for SSPlus6 just a few days ago. Is v5 still getting updates?

The 18mm Starguider is a bit soft at the edges, even with an F6. The 8mm and 12mm ones are great, though. Haven't used any of the other sizes, though.

I'm always keeping my eyes open for that 5mm you're missing!

That means you can remove the extension and easily get focus with a DSLR / T-piece. More importantly - does it have the new scope smell?

Not the spider vanes - you adjust the up-and-down in your image using the 3 tilt adjusters. You can check the vanes and that the secondary assembly is central, though. Measure the radius out from the central screw to the tube - it should be the same in all directions. Then make sure the secondary is not twisted as I mentioned above. Trying to align the secondary when it is twisted and you end up with it tilted a bit, as it is. In Spile's guide, it's this adjustment: You want to make sure you start with it as straight as possible. This adjustment should only be a slight one.

HI. The secondary looks twisted. It appears non-circular in the picture below (the red oval) within the yellow circle of the sight-tube.: Another clue is the shape of the silhouette of the secondary in the reflection. In blue: the oval won't be central due to the 'offset' nature of the secondary when viewed from this angle, but it should be in line with the focuser and appear straight out as per: I would suggest you first aim to get the outside edge of the secondary (red) central and concentric with the sight-tube (yellow). Firstly, loosen the secondary and rotate it until it appears perfectly circular through the sight-tube. Then adjust its position (up-down / left-right) so that it is then concentric. If you can get the sight-tube/cheshire inserted closer so that the gap between red and yellow is smaller, it makes it easier to see the concentricity. Once you've done that, you can adjust the secondary tilt (3 screws) so that the doughnut marker is directly under the crosshairs. Then it will all be aligned and you can move on to the primary adjustment and get the eye-hole centred within the doughnut.

I had heard so much love for them that I was really disappointed when I first used it. I got advice here on using wide-field EPs but could never really get on with it. I thought it might have just been me and 82° EPs, but then I tried the ES ones and they were fine. Sold the Nirvana on to a good home. Everyone and their eyes are different.