Pixies

ready for the summer

Yep - saw them in my 10x50s a few nights ago. The sky was very transparent (all 7 main stars of Ursa Minor were visible naked eye to me) I follow a different hop to find them, this was from @John:

Ooops. Sorry

Doesn't necessarily need to be steel. Just avoid the 'budget' aluminium SW ones. I use a Manfrotto 055B and it's as stable as a stable thing. Picked it up secondhand for under £40 I love my new AZ5. It's such a revelation having decent slo-mo controls on a stable AltAz mount.

Yep - managed to get Alula Australis. In the Skymax90, with 15mm (x80) with very good seeing tonight. Alula Borealis - no luck. I was planning to stay longer on it with some higher powers, but the clouds rolled in.

I'm collimating and star-testing my old Skymax90 before I sell it shortly. I might aim it at these two and get some use out of it, one last time.

I fund that a disposable plastic knife, blunt pencil and the fossilized jawbone of a cro-magnon man are best. Well, that's what it looks like I've used whenever I've tried to cut it myself!

I agree - the observing reports on this site are great for inspiration and ideas for good targets.

Hi, re your pic: A is the shadow of the focuser draw-tube, as it projects inside the main tube. I assume you were racking it inwards to get the out-of-focus image. Nothign to worry about B- a bit odd. Are you sure you weren't observing over a wall, near a tree branch, etc.? Sometimes the view through he finder is OK, and it's not until you see somethign like this that you realise the view from the actual scope was obscured! Have done it plenty of times myself when observing south from my garden!

Nice report. M57 was the first DSO I ever observed, and was my 'Saturn moment'. I'm looking forward to see it again later this spring. It's pretty easy to find and observe - so I assume it was poor transparency and the clouds you mentioned, that thwarted you. Saw in first in an 8" dob in Bortle 6 skies. There was no astronomical darkness then, either. In a low power, it just looks like a grey fuzzy star. Perhaps not as distinct as a lot of other smaller planetary nebula. But from around 100x magnification, it's a very incongruous-looking fuzzy grey polo mint. As for Hubble's Variable Nebula - I've not seen it yet, and perhaps it was better placed a few months ago. But the blurb says that its magnitude varies by 2 over months/years. Do we know how bright it is at this moment?

This is the beastie. Red is M43/1.0 and blue M42/0.75 (T2)

That's M42/0.75 (T2) though, which matches the T2 thread at the end of the visual back. The thread on the drawtube is M43/1.0 by the look of it. Wrong 'sex' too. It will work, but it will have to be screwed onto the end of the existing visual back.

I was thinking about this. The ST80 has the same visual back. I haven't been able to determine the thread on the end of the focuser draw tube, but it's not a T2. @wibblefish, of you can find out the thread on the drawtube (the silver bit in your pic), or of anyone else knows, I'm sure there's a better visual back or an adapter that will fit.

The domain name registration of "astro-baby.com" has expired.

Second-hand again! Unused. Bargain price of £30.

Thanks @John. I've been using an artificial star indoors, so far. The best I can get it just now, still shows some miss-collimation. When I take it to one side of focus, the CA shows a bright red central 'dot' inside a blue halo, but the red dot is not central to the halo. Also, a laser projects a dot about 2-3mm off-centre on the objective lens, and the reflections in the Cheshire are not concentric. I know what you mean about chasing perfection in a budget scope, but having the optics aligned should be achievable. In fact, I think it should be expected, even in a budget scope. I'm not complaining though - and I don't want Stu thinking I'm regretting buying this from him. I love fettling and I bought this scope with the intention of getting my hands dirty with it. As for the internal reflectivity. The coating on the inside of the tube doesn't look too bad. It's a relatively new scope, so perhaps things have improved. Does this look typical?:

Bresser 10:1 focuser gear set

I admit, the clacking sound is a little disheartening. I assume it will go as things tighten up as it cools down. But it seems to me that if it is moving about, then at times is it not going to be aligned correctly. I did the lens-shoogling thing several times and the results were about 50/50 OK/coma. I was playing around with the collimation last night, too. I can get it better than it was but still not perfect. I reckon that if one could file the focuser attachment screw slots in the OTA into a more elongated shape, then add a very thin rubber o-ring between the focuser and OTA, it would provide some range of focuser tilt adjustment. As for the AZ3 mount. I can say that the AZ5 is great!

As @John said (and others), tapping the objective cell when loose and reseating the lenses help fix the coma. It's still slightly there, though, and when checking the collimation, it is slightly off. Nothing major, but something I'll deal with over the next few days. Thanks everyone

I put a wanted ad in AB&S for this model and had 2 offers in a few hours. Worth a shot if you don't mind used?

OK. Here is the view with the reticle EP (which I reckon is around 6 deg TFOV): and with a 30mm Vixen NPL plossl:

It looks similar to my Altair Astro 60mm RACI finder. https://www.altairastro.com/altair-10x60mm-raci-finder-scope-90-deg-erect-image-prism-variable-illuminator-eyepiece-2504-p.asp I've never tried to work it out, but the TFOV appears to be the same as the outer ring of the Telrad - which is 6 degrees. You can, of course, use whatever EP you want to! You could put in a 32mm plossl and perhaps get an even wider view? I don't know, whether the diagonal or any baffles might stop that down. I'll check for you. Give me 15 mins!

Again from the same source. This gives you an idea of the extent of the Virgo super cluster of galaxies:

I'm no imager, I'm afraid. Markarian's chain is the big draw, I guess. Includes: M84 (NGC 4374), M86 (NGC 4406), NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435. Image taken from https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/yanking-markarians-chain/

Virgo is appearing in the evening sky (it's there now - but later in the night). Lot's of galaxies in that region (plus Leo), and best viewed during spring before summer comes - when there's a distinct lack of dark skies in which to properly observe them.