Pixies

2 minutes ago, johninderby said:

A Lunt wedge, a Badder Hyperion  eyepiece and a couple of Baader adapters.

and a partridge in a pear tree...

I have you now...

If you are having trouble seeing stars in the first place, star-hopping might be a little tricky! I'm in Bortle-6 and this time of year the sky is very bright and stars hard to make out. A non-magnifying finder won't help you.

I'm sure the more experienced star hoppers here might be able to help. I would suggest that if you can't get a magnifying finder, why not get a pair of binoculars to try and assist you in finding stars. I notice that once you have seen them in the bins, they start to pop out of the blue sky.

Either that or wait a few months..... 😭

RO water from a Fishkeepers shop is about £2 for 10 litres. You'll need to take your own container.

No. Cooled boiled water will be even more concentrated with minerals.

Do you have a local tropical fish store nearby? You can ask for RODI water. (Reverse Osmosis Deionised Water)

What finder do you have?

The observation list feature is worth it alone! You can download pubilc lists - some of which are on this site.

Red night vision with the observation lists is what I've been using to find and view my targets recently.

yep - I'm on v6 plus. Here's what's NOT in the basic version:

Ahhhh! Found it! It's in the 'Observe' section.... 🤦‍♂️

Sorry to be so dim - but I can't find these settings anywhere. Using android BTW. Can you explain where to find them, please?

Thanks

Thanks - but I'm using version 6 and it's a little different. The settings you mention aren't there. 

I'm sure they're hidden away somewhere else. I'll go and RTFM

On 03/06/2020 at 16:53, Chefgage said:

I have it set up so that I can see what the field of view will be through my camera with different lenses, my binoculars, or my telescopes using different lenses. Again for example.

This is what the field of view would be using my Canon 200d with 200mm lens (moon in the field of view).

 

Hi Chefgage. Where can you set that in Sky Safari?

15 hours ago, Apprentice said:

I will have to study star hopping, as I tried to find it from Vega, but got lost midway

Hi,

What are you using in the way of finders?

I've a Bresser 8". It needed quite a tweak, too. 

For a fast scope, I think so. If you can see the whole of the primary, you're fine.

ps - I like the shade of green. I'm usually an burnt-ochre man, myself 

I'd say that was pretty good.

Hi. John knows his stuff with this scope. But you can also try this for background: 

Cool. You've got NGC 3077 too

The sky  is getting so light in Edinburgh now, it's hard to make out M81 and M82 with my 8" dob, but I could just find them tonight.

Had a quick sneaky peek at PANSTARRS, using SkySafari to confirm where it was. I could see nothing at first, but settled down to wait. The sky is so light, it's not really worth getting one's eyes adjusted. Even with the moon long gone.

Eventually I reckon I could just make it out with averted vision and a bit of judicious wobbling.

Any EPs you get now will be transferable to another scope that you might get later on. Certainly the reviews of this scope criticise the EPs in particular.

https://telescopicwatch.com/celestron-powerseeker-114eq-review/

Bear in mind that we are entering a 2 month period of light skies. Also, there have been a LOT of recent telescope purchases due to the lockdown (judging by the number of out-of-stock products). I reckon that you should get the EPs now and if you wait a couple of months, they'll be quite a few new scopes going secondhand, as some people might realise that this hobby isn't for them.

On 26/05/2020 at 20:45, mih said:

Another idea is an upgraded 8mm eyepiece like this   https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-8mm-ed-eyepiece.html

There's one in the ForSale section just now:

I've been speaking to Stardaze about our collimation 'journeys'! I've been sticking with a collimation cap for now, although I'll get something else once I've gotten a little more experience. I've been aligning the secondary as per AstroBaby but have tested things using a smartphone camera (tiny lens) though the cap and Mire de Collimation to double-check the concentricity (is that a word) of the circles. These are the pics adjusting the secondary - before the final primary adjustment.

Do you have a collimation cap? It's very hard to get a centered picture with a smartphone camera without one. Here's mine.

Also - have you seen Astro Baby's collimation guide?

Some new secondary adjustment bolts (Amazon - £6 for 10)

Bob's Knobs would have had to do a custom job, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how suitable these will be, but there's little money lost.

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