CCD-Freak

Very handy !! (^8

I just noticed the 178 series is listed twice. 

Yes    )^8

I am getting very tired of this.  I have not been out to may dark site in a couple months.

13 hours ago, Vroobel said:

The mount weight is 90kg, the OTA + accessories are another 20kg. I assemble and disassemble it usually in around 30 mins, but it takes much more before I'm ready to the session. 🙂

You need a garden observatory !!!  (^8

Impressive build.

Thanks....I just found it.  It looks useful so I bookmarked it into my Weather Folder.

On 02/12/2022 at 10:01, Mr Spock said:

Need I say more?

What weather site is this ?????

Looks like it goes out farther than the one I use now.

This is why I worked to get my imaging rig set up so I can control it remotely from inside my house or Caravan.   With crazy Texas weather and bugs it makes things much more comfortable.   Now I can sit inside and image when it is cold in shorts and a T-shirt with a cold BEvERage in hand.  

The lack of clear sky is the main problem now.

Great image....I love B&W Ha images.

Hi There and welcome to the Lounge.   I think you will have a good time here.

There is nothing wrong about having a weak spot for 4" refractors....I have one myself.

Hang around long enough an you can be a Lounge Lizard like the rest of us.  (^8

Here is the telescope I lusted after when I was a kid.  From time to time I get to use this marvelous old Unitron 6" refractor which is located at the University of North Texas (UNT)

At that time I thought a long white tube on a heavy EQ mount is what a telescope is supposed to look like.

Maybe they can just scale up the JWST design since it has be very much a success. 

Having a launch vehicle large enough to get it up could be a problem.  The SLS  or maybe a SpaceX Super Heavy could do it.

Lets hope they can get it funded.

Welcome from a Texan "Lounge Lizard"

Great place here...lots of great people and information.

Welcome from another on this side of the pond. 

Have fun here on SGL.  I do.

Here is another classic beauty....My Meade RG-880 with lots of upgrades.   At The Okie-Tex Starparty some years back.

I saw this beauty down in New Mexico back in May.  6, count em 6  TEC 180s on a L600 mount !!!!!   Each one with an ASI6200 with EFW and filters.

My understanding is that it is being used to search for exo-planets.

Here is another one of my scope that I think looks nice.   Orion Premium 110ED on a CI-700 mount.

Imaging at Fort Griffin State Historic Site near Albany, TX back in 2015

Here is a nice photo I saw today......and the moon is not distorted. 

Here is another scope I have always thought to be a "good looker".   My Ultima 8 with all the bells and whistles I could find.

Here is my AP900 with a SharpStar 150mm F2.8 Hyper Newt.  I like the red, white and blue as well as the carbon fiber tube. 

The AP900 also looks nice with a long white tube ES 127ED on top....again in red, white and blue.  (^8

Here is a nice image from Artemis....I am sure there will be many more spectacular shots. (^8

30 minutes ago, Dark Adaptation said:

Well, that's good then. Would hate to have a mission to the Moon and no pictures.

(But I'm being silly--why wouldn't there be pictures?)

Let's hope for some wonderful compositions.

I was reading this......

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-artemis-i-cameras-to-offer-new-views-of-orion-earth-moon

(^8

I would imagine there will be lots of pictures.  The spacecraft has cameras all over it inside and out. 

My first thought was the Cobra Nebula.  8^P

46 minutes ago, MG01 said:

Thanks everyone.  I've had several pots of tea and am feeling a little less mad with myself now.  

I'm reassured by some of the above inages that there is some hope that I can get something out of it that's at least showing a better range than I'm Limited to with my dslr.  

I don't get a lot of sky time so I'm used to very slow progress, but thought I'd snatched an utter steal so the temptation of the dark side grasped me! 

In fairness, between this and a scope for my son, plus upgrading the scope control I wouldn't have been able to get filters until I'd recovered from Christmas so maybe I'll be thanking myself it's OSC at least in the short term. 

It should be here by the end of next week if I'm lucky so I'm guessing just in time for another belt of clear skies to break through this dire patch of the last fortnight.

Only reminded me that size matters when thinking DSO...in that having large amounts of time on target is one of the most beneficial ways to improve images.

Gives me some time to figure out how to get the correct flattener distance figured out too.  Does anyone know if this camera has the same 17.5mm back focus as the mono version?

Thanks for the input everyone.  I just needed a little reassurance and now I have it.  I'll probably post some darks etc when I get a chance and if anyone has any comments that would be great.  Won't be for a few weeks though.

I used a 40mm extension tube and it worked well with the AT2FF flattener I had at that time.

This is one of the best images I ever took with the 393L+OSC

Probably not mine....I sold it many years ago.  I typically used 5 or 10 minute subs and shot around 30 images.  I now know that it would have been better to shoot many more subs but I was still working on my technique.  The M20 mage was 15 x 5 minutes through an 8"RC.  Not bad for 45 minutes but it would have been much better if I had managed to get 60 to 100 subs. 

Here are some more images from back then.