josefk

hi Joe - i think you'll find focus moves out more than 50mm when inserted before the diagonal - this is my pet peeve re. an otherwise optically brilliant and very useful accessory. i put some pics in this thread :- 

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/409800-extender-q-16x-or-powermate/#comment-4380381

😞 

On 24/09/2023 at 07:44, josefk said:

Thanks for that book recommendation @F15Rules - i  used to use transparency film many years ago (not for astro) and so i still have the kit to view slides. A few slides being included with this book has caught my attention - i hope they are still attached to the book when it arrives later this week. Depending on how they are mounted i may be able to project these pretty big somewhere; even "just" under a loupe they may be quite immersive versus a printed picture. 🤞

Book came without slides! Nooooooooo!

14 minutes ago, YogSothoth said:

 

Thanks for the positive comments. I think I’m improving. When l look back at sketches I did 6 months ago, the sunspot I drew then were huge and way out of proportion. 

i know the feeling when i run out of room for a series of craters in a given space on a sketch of the moon 🙂 

And ditto the AZ100. It’s a weighty lump but an extremely useful one and compact in outline so it packs well for travel (by car at least). 

Happy Birthday for the website Matthew. I’ve always enjoyed your reviews and observing notes. Thanks for taking the time putting stuff out there for our enjoyment and interest! 👍🏼

Glad you’re happy with it @Concordia000  - I will never be scrutinising mine visually to the extent you are with that inspection SW but I do like the fine, round, in-focus to the edge, stars I see in mine 😀.
 

Which ring won’t unscrew for you?  I can reach focus leaving the CAA attached, then minus the Tak standard extension, minus the Tak visual back, plus a Baader click lock (similar depth (length) as the Tak visual back bit, and with a Baader 2” prism (110mm lightpath).
 

Cheers

Thanks @Mr Spock - TBH i have @mikeDnight to thank for triggering me to get out in daylight. Why of why i have never tried that before i have no idea. In daylight it has been very rewarding.

Thank you @Nicola Fletcher - these are my own aide memoir so the blue triggers the memory of the view through the eyepiece. I am probably going to get a bit of red card too for filtered views!  Tongue only half in cheek.

Thank you @mikeDnight - i wish i could have gotten closer to just a day or so either side of the conjunction but i value my eyesight too highly to take any chances and befroe the conjunction i couldn't arrange things safely and just after it was cloudy. I think the engagement is greater following a series of something and enjoying the progression or development of something over a shortish period of time. It will be variable stars next 🙂 !

A very funny thread and definately not funny hahaha.

I would one day like to do the entire Herschel list (not just the H400 which i am anyway totally stalled on); but where i live currently i have to hump my gear about to observe whether on foot or in the car so the 12" or 14" i would really need to make the project feasible looks a bit daunting - i would practically need to move house to make it possible. I see night vision in my far future if i don't move to the Norfolk coast first!

if i could physically carry the mounting arrangements of the larger scope to a photogenic spot without needing to break it down it would take an equally "amusing" pic. There is easily >20kg difference and a three hands versus one hand difference in mounting arrangements between the 130mm and the two little ones.

Thanks for that book recommendation @F15Rules - i  used to use transparency film many years ago (not for astro) and so i still have the kit to view slides. A few slides being included with this book has caught my attention - i hope they are still attached to the book when it arrives later this week. Depending on how they are mounted i may be able to project these pretty big somewhere; even "just" under a loupe they may be quite immersive versus a printed picture. 🤞

Thank you @Kon for the kind words and also the validation of your image from the same period. I really like that back-up because these “details” to the eye are brightness on bright so easy to wonder if they’re optical illusions! Your image is also great. Cheers

26 minutes ago, Mark2022 said:

Since I don't yet have any pics of my setup of today, I thought I'd throw in my set up from circa 1993 before life took the hobby away from me for decades.

A shot of my AstroSystems 8.5inch Newtonian having a peek at Jupiter above the electrical cables while my daughter (who'd be around 1 or 2 at the time) was asleep in the car. Occasionally, she just wouldn't settle and I'd wrap her up, put her in the car seat and drive the 10 mins or so to the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh on Blackford Hill, whip out the scope and its Super Polaris mount and do a spot of observing. I didn't mind when she wouldn't settle, it gave me the excuse!

Not a great shot. I was on film back then. I think it was taken with an old Minolta SLR.

🙂

i really like the atmosphere that shot on film is creating. 👍

...and we're back on the other side 😃. I haven't had daylight opportunity for Venus since the inferior conjunction till today but today was great and it's great to be able to continue a series of observations - somehow the whole is greater than the parts and i'm having a blast. This observation is at 11:00 - 12:00 BST.

No cloud detail to see today but a lovely soft terminator, bright limb, bright cusps and hint of thicker brightness on the North East quadrant round to the cusp. 

Quite breezy (shaking my lightweight tripod a bit) so x169 was a good middle ground magnification but it was steady enough 90% of the time to be really useful and the sky itself was very steady.

Using filters with the TOE eyepieces; #15 Dark Yellow really emphasised the cusps, #23a Light Red felt like the best aid to observation and really revealed/emphasised a very slow graduation in brightness from the terminator (not just a soft edge to it), #82a Light Blue was very naturalistic and gave a very steady view. #38a Dark Blue and #47 Violet were way to dark. Too much for this aperture maybe? (3.3").

Another cheeky hour on Venus during the daytime. Not so much by preference as by opportunism - just taking advantage of the clear sky (day or night).

Very very nice @PatientObserver. You have a powerful combo there!

38 minutes ago, glafnazur said:

I've not seen these Mova globes before, they look stunning.

They slowly spin too - energised by ambient light - v. cool.

36 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Nice image. CCD or CMOS? 
But I thought you were more of a visual guy 🤔

Stacked and de-rotated and flats and err... 

My son bought me this fabulous Jupiter Mova globe for father's day :-

I love it so much i treated myself to Mars this week as a reward for a bunch of decorating just finished but that has been tediously taking up weekends and evenings 😉

I could pursue a bit of a collecting urge for globes both celestial and terrestrial - i particularly like older ones and spent ages admiring these ones in the Whipple museum Cambridge this spring...

3 hours ago, RobertI said:

Perhaps not a bargain as such, but I reckon SkySafari is incredibly good value considering the depth of functionality, usability and the fact that you can also use it to remote control telescopes over wifi or use with Celestron’s Starsense. 

100% - it has become my right hand at the scope and a total bargain as it becomes fractions of a pence per use and actually a really nice product not just a really useful one. 

Clouded out here but good luck!

Cracking read and sounds like a cracking session. Great finder arrangement at the top there. 

You made me check the small print @RobertI “apparently” the explanation is you have to adjust NELM (down) at the same time otherwise the calculation assumes you are becoming superman as you age. 😁

that’s definitely a bug because I only ever input SQM and that’s objective rather than subjective so remains fixed as an input versus the age variable. 
 

Superbly poetic Richard. Love it.

if you don't know it @Mr Spock the diet app "MyFitnessPal" is very good for keeping an honest eye on things diet wise. The free version with ads is annoying, the paid for version is expensive for what it is but it is a brilliant tool for managing portions and, if you do want to get into it, also for managing things like carbs and proteins and fats etc.

I had and have a "relatively" healthy diet in composition but always ate too much of it overall - with the app and weighing some foods to get my eye in for portion sizes it all became very controlled in a good way. This screenshot shows part of my breakfast today - even multiple parts of meals can entered with one button press after a few days of using the app and it beginning to store your regularly eaten foods (so it isn't too tedious to use).

i'm using it to keep the weight off i "lost for free" in the last few weeks of my Type-2 being undiagnosed (the only silver lining to the experience).