AstroNebulee

Yes as the lid will be placed over and attached to your original focus wheel with a longer bolt, makes a great fine focuser ☺️

Hi I have a skywatcher eq3-2 mount with my skymax 127 on it, I have installed a skywatcher single axis motor to the ra control, now when tracking (say Jupiter as that's the only one that was visible long enough tonight) the ra tracks gone but Jupiter drops out of the ep. Is this a polar alignment issue (as I thjnk I'm pretty much bang on) the latitude set wrong on the mount (I'm in North Cornwall 50.62 according to Co) my mount reads just after 50, the bubble is in the centre of the target on the mount or are the weights wrong on the mount (even though its balanced fine) not sure if I'm missing something. I'm sure it needs a bit of fine tuning somewhere. Bit of a silly question to ask.

It is a great game, its like one of those what can you spot and cross of your list pc games, between us all I think it's been solved ☺️

Hi Your scope sounds great even though you only have a small portion of the sky to view from your garden, as someone said on here any astronomy is better than no astronomy. I live in a 1st floor flat so very very hard to lugg my scope and mounts down the flights of stairs, so I generally starfagaze ftom my bedroom window that faces east to south bortle 3 skies in North Cornwall. I'd love a garden to set my scopes up in but just not practical. Plus I don't drive so ko option to go anywhere. Enjoy your new found hobby, ii really is the best hobby to have that offers an infinite amount to view and wonderous sights. Clear skies

Hi Is there a thread on the inside of the diagonal that can attach to your telescope, I can't quite tell from the photo, normally as John showed you, the diagonal show have a silver nose piece that slots inside the scope. But yours may screw on but kit sure, I'm only just looking at thus quickly before work and haven't looked at your many yet. Edit.........If you look on your case there's a sliver short barrel nose piece with a thread on it screw that silver barrel into the diagonal where there's a little thread, then your diagonal should look like the picture John showed you and then sorted 👍

The field of view in the maksutov will be smaller than the 150p, but it depends as you say on what interests you most at first, but when you get one scope you'll want to get the other not long after as I did with mine ☺️, look at videos on YouTube to assertain the physical sizes aswell may help with your decision for using on a balcony.

Agree with John here as I have a skywatcher explorer 150p eq3-2 and the 127 maksutov, the maksutov would be ideal for your balcony as will give you great views of lunar and planetary and some bright dso's, I've found it to be brilliant on my eq3-2 mount, with its short physical length but long focal length, but there will be a long waiting list for many scopes at the moment especially skywatcher brands as they cannot keep up with demand.

Hi Marv I've yet to try any filters on the planets, I've a 80a blue and a skyglow filter in my case if I want to use it, but kind of like the natural view I get of Jupiter and Saturn, I will use the 80a blue when I next image Jupiter to see the differ as you suggest. Clear skies

Some great images there, I've yet to get the GRS but hope to soon when I get a clear night, plus now I've fitted a RA motor to my mount on my skywatcher eq3-2 I can keep the object in my vision longer than trying to manually track or just watch it zoom across the screen, the latest images of Jupiter and Saturn I've had a few weeks ago. I did try to view Jupiter last night with Ganneymeade transiting across the surface of Jupiter but was to cloudy. Clears skies to you all.

It was a svbony sv105, but think I sorted it, I've changed the output file from avi to ser and instead of doing quick captures in sharpcap, I've done the normal start then stop capture and seems to of resolved it, well it worked in colour when I last had clear skies

Done 👍

You weren't the only one 🤣

Yes mine is set to 30 seconds, just been looking at deep sky camera and seems to be doing what I want which is taking long exposure images one after the other for as long as I want, so I can set up up to take images of the Perseids and hopefully capture one

Thank you I'll give that one a go

Hi This will be a totally ignorant question but here goes, Is there a way of setting up my android smartphone to take multiple long exposure shots without having to keep pressing the shutter button, as I d like to just set up my phone on its tripod to take captures through the night to catch the Perseids. Or set up the scope with my webcam and sharpcap to run through the night, as I can do startrail photos on my phone to do extremely long exposures but want that minus the star trail. I realise I'm asking for gold when all that is there is muck but thought id ask

I agree with Kat, it may help bring out more detail when you take a video and stack and process them. Use sharpcap to alter the settings whilst capturing with your xbox cam

Hi Its a great adapter and saves a lot of money, I may have a go myself instead of having to keep taking off my nexyz adapter when I change ep (I usually use my svbony105 webcam but like to use phone every now and again). Your moon shot look overexposed, if you have a pro mode or can adjust the iso and exposure settings just trial and error to find the best settings as the brightness of moon and planets changes all the time, if I remember rightly go for an iso of 100 shutter speed of 1/250 and alter exposure to make it darker. Basically its all about altering those 3 settings and you can see the changes on the screen, e.g if the picture is to bright alter the settings make it brighter. A better way is to take a video of the target and then use autostakkert to stack all the images to one image and then use registax to alter wavelets to sharpen and smooth it out, then photoshop to tweak it. I'm sure there's a link on here to show you how to do it, rather than my inane attempt to explain. https://petapixel.com/2015/02/20/smartphone-astrophotography-how-i-capture-the-moon-and-planets-with-my-phone/

Looks a great bit of DIY, I'd like to see how the photos turned out when you get clear skies.

After 2 days of mist and fog here in Delabole, North Cornwall, whilst the rest of the county and country had been enjoying full sunshine, the mist and fog rolled away around 9.30pm and gave me a couple of hours to try and catch the Perseids and do a little stargazing. The view towards the north and east isn't great at my spot as there's a road and streetlights, the east to south is much better for me. So last night I set up my skymax 127, smartphone and tripod with my binos to get a glimpse of anything as its been a long time since the last clear night. I searched for the double star Almach in Andromeda and found her through my skymax, swapping the 20mm ep for my svbony 105 webcam to get a few captures, which a couple succeeded in satisfactory (well to me anyway) the sky was a bit soupy and turbulent but after stacking and processing turned out passable and just about managed the split. I then moved to my binos and got the Andromeda galaxy in my view but just couldn't get my scope lined up properly with it as the low fov even with a 32mm ep, I know the skymax isn't great for dso's but wanted to give it a go. I should of put my skywatcher explorer 150p on the mount but didnt want the faff of moving it all again but there will be other times to capture it. Meanwhile the smartphone on tripod I was taking 16 second exposures at 400 iso in the night photo setting of my phone, (though some captures i used the star trail setting as in the attached photo) in the hope of catching a Perseid meteor, I know the peak isn't until 12-13th but wanted to see if any where there and may of got one but seemed in the wrong place and not in between Cassiopea and Andromeda, but I'll attach for you to see. The sky started to get more soupy with the mist starting to drop in, so was starting to pack away now. The moon was beginning to wash things out a bit as well but lovely to see Mars in close conjunction with it rising in the East. So in short a good few hours of viewing to get a good fix of astronomy after so long. It's not looking good here for the peak of the meteor showers but will give it a go as CO & MO have been a bit far off the mark recently. Sorry if the report rambles and repeats but my first attempt

Hi Tippon What I did for my astromaster 130eq marmite fine focuser lid is drill a hole dead centre of the lid, then unscrew the bolt holding the focus wheel on the telescope, then placed the lid over the focus wheel and put a slightly longer bolt through the hole and attached to the focus wheel, this makes the focusing much more fine tuned, I hope this is easy to understand, I'm not good at explaining things haha, clear skies

Yes that was the thing about the heritage that put me off, that different style focuser and whether an adapter would work, good luck be interested to hear your results, clear skies

Remember when using any planetary webcam it'll be similar to using a high power ep, think this is like a 6mm ep but will give you a good dip your toes in the water to planetary imaging at an affordable price

It is a great way of getting into imaging and many smartphones now have a pro mode built in where you can change various settings as on a dslr, depending which phone you have, like you I've had some great images from my smartphone, clear skies friend

I agree, the butterfly feeling when you finally get a good view of Jupiter, Saturn, moon craters or dso's, makes up for the disappointing and frustrating times. There's so much joy to be had and you don't have to spend hundreds to get that satisfaction, if I don't get a chance to get the scope on a night I regularly use my 7x50 old binoculars and can see so many things, meteors, satellites, learn the constellations and where to look. I've only been seriously into this great hobby since April 2020 and the satisfaction I've had on the few nights it's been clear (and I live in North Cornwall and we have well ropey weather off the Atlantic only being 3 miles in from the coast where I am) have far outweighed anything else. I showed my partner Jupiter and its 4 moons through my scope last week and she was blown away, so don't give up as many have said and you are seeing much more than many many others will ever see in their lifetime in the night sky

I'm really hankering after the zwo asi120mc, just got to persuade my wallet to use the money 😕, the svbony sv105 is, very capable but the asi has faster frame rate and more colourspace options