Pixies

Here's a rough comparison of the 2 views: 8mm and barlow (assuming x2) and 25mm alone. Using https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

Flight scrubbed for today. The FAA inspector was late!

If you want to stick with a reflector, how about a Skywatcher 150 Heritage dob for the OTA and use a Skywatcher AZ5 mount, on your Manfrotto tripod? The OTA is about 3.5kg without the base (£250) The AZ5 is 2.3kg (£170) So that's 6kg total (for £420) Which Manfrotto tripod do you have? The 055 will take 9kg, and you won't be extending more than 1 section of the legs and not using the central column, so it will be very stable.

Actually, all UK financial institutions have a legal requirement to stop and report financial crime/fraud (see the recent fining of NatWest when it failed to do so). They shouldn't ignore your information.

Report it to the bank?

Many months ago, I was pretty skeptical and taking perverse delight in any failings, explosions, mishaps, etc. I can't say I'm a big fan of Mr Musk and then there's Starlink... But now I'm really enthused about these recent attempts and will be egging it on via YouTube whenever it launches.

The secondary shouldn't need adjusted very often at all. I'll only check it after transporting the scope. I will check the primary every night (while I wait for it to cool down). But it only takes 30 seconds and need adjusting very rarely.

Hi. I'm going to follow with interest - as I am considering a bit of planetary imaging this summer. However - you might want to consider putting this topic into Beginners Imaging, rather than Equipment,

Here is an excellent recent thread on this very subject. @Don Pensack's comment on exit pupil vs filters is gold:

A 32mm plossl will give the maximum TFOV and an exit pupil of 4mm An equivalent TFOV will come from a 24mm TV Panoptic - with an exit pupil of 3mm: As far as the views go, you will see the same area of sky, but with the TV, you will be "sitting much closer to the cinema screen" But the difference in exit pupil will mean with the plossl, the view will be brighter. This might adversely effect the contrast without filters, as the sky will appear brighter. However, if you were observing a nebulous target using a filter like an Oiii or UHC, the extra light should help make a target brighter. That's my limited understanding and experience with a Oiii filter.

Hi, Whereabouts are you going? Here it's not fully dark until 10pm now.

Managed to get another shot at it, between the showers and cloud. I'm enjoying this 'grab and go' setup. To my eyes, it's fainter than it was 2 nights ago - but it appears a very similar brightness as HD220770 (which is 7.8)

You can get your local one by clicking on 'Annual darkness' on the Clear Outside website.

Depends on your latitude, really. Up here, astronomical darkness end in May and there no actual nautical darkness during June and July. And that's just southern Scotland. What we need is another bright comet to keep us occupied during the summer months.!

The outer edge of the secondary (orientated to show as a circle) is what you need to be looking to get aligned under the focuser - shown in yellow: Once you have that right, you just need to adjust the tilt of the secondary (using the 3 adjusters) and this will cause everything reflected in the mirror to move. It's easier to make the initial secondary orientation by inserting coloured paper behind the mirror and between the secondary and primary. You get a view like this: Then adjust its position under the focuser using the cheshire as a sight-tube. Get it perfectly concentric: Now you can remove the paper and get on with the collimation part. You shouldn't have to move the secondary up/down the tube now.

Last friday night I managed to split it quite easily - around x170 magnification. It was a night of very good seeing. Was an 8" dob, though. It was a tiny but bright pin-prick of light on the edge of the glow around the primary star - but very distinct, impossible to miss. I did a sketch, but it doesn't convey it's diminutive size.

Put a wanted ad up for an AZ5. I did and got one within a week!

Was beautifully clear at 9pm and now foggy at 10pm! I was about to start boasting of 4 clear nights in a week! Supposed to be clear at 3am, here. I won't be staying up. However, can I ask how people are measuring the magnitude of the nova? Is it purely by comparison? And if so, how can one be so precise down to a decimal point? Cheers.

There's a set of 6 Takahashi abbe orthos on AstroB&S just now.

It's hard to say from that photo. Certainly, The eyehole (small black dot) is not inside the doughtnut. As you can't adjust the primary, your aim to make sure the secondary is correctly aligned, is to centre the dot inside the doughnut. Are you using a Cheshire? It looks like there is a cross-hair that's out-of-focus. You can use this to make sure the secondary is correctly positioned under the focuser and that it's rotated correctly. It's a little easier to do that if you use coloured paper behind the secondary and also between the secondary and the primary. It'll give you a view like this: Then with a Cheshire/sight-tube, you can make sure it's aligned under the focuser correctly, by adjusting the secondary so that it is perfectly concentric to the end of the sight-tube: If you find that the secondary has been (mis)adjusted a lot, there is a good way to 'reset' it: Keep loosening the 3 adjuster screws and tightening the centre screw. This brings the mirror back up the tube, away from the primary. Keep doing this until the mirror has been pulled all the way back to the top of the tube and is flush against the vane-assembly, with the adjusters just barely loose. This means that the base of the secondary holder is now flush with the assembly. Now you can bring the secondary back down the tube by loosening the centre screw by a turn and taking up the slack with the adjusters by screwing them all in by equal amounts. If you repeat this until the mirror is directly under the focuser, making sure the 3 adjusters are always rotated by equal amounts, you can be sure that the secondary mirror is not tilted. Now, all you need to do is make sure it is rotated and facing the focuser correctly - so that the image of the secondary is concentric as above. Then you can take out the paper and make a final adjustment of the secondary tilt. As you can't adjust the primary, just look to put the dot inside the doughut. Does that all make sense? Drop me a PM if you need a hand.

Turned the ST80 on the moon tonight and was surprised with the steady seeing. Thought it might have been down to the aperture being smaller than I was used to, but have now read this thread! I'm not usually too interested in the moon. Perhaps I'll try and get to know it during this summer's light skies. I was expecting to see some Clangers though. It was that steady

Saw it again tonight. Lovely clear skies after an earlier shower. First in the 10x50 bins. Faint but clearer than yesterday. In the ST80 it certainly looked the same as before. If the nova's magnitude has changed, it's subtle and beyond my ability to determine. M52 was just visible, too. That's the first time I've seen it.

OK. If you want to be fussy: You could get the secondary centred more accurately, but it's really not bad. The secondary is aligned to the primary well (all 3 clips showing). However - you need to adjust the primary collimation so that the black dot (eye hole) is inside the doughnut.

Yes - I can confirm that is the moon! Congrats. Looks like you had success, as well as clear skies. Did you manage to get the finder aligned OK?