neiil phillips

Hi Stuart. Was actually quite good getting out again. Everything seemed to go quite smoothly. There's usually something slowing me down. From polar aligning. To collimating the primary (stock springs on this) very hit and miss. Ive had a merry go round on occasion. But no everything just fell into place. which surprised me.. Cheers for the comments Bud.

Hi Pete. Good to hear you had got some time in too. Cheers

Ive not been doing any astronomy. Tonight. I thought I would. Very rusty. Nothing fancy. No winjupos Just a IR685 and color rendition 12" Stella Lyra eq6 r mount 22:33 UT for the IR685

Looking good Stuart. Its a pleasing result mixing UV into IR for colour. I like this balance. Personally I am not sure there is a correct colour balance for this kind of thing. As I am unsure if it can even be calibrated for at capture. Of course weights can be adjusted after the fact. But not sure that could be seen as true calibration. So what ever balance one chooses or prefers after capture is likely just for its pleasing effect. Not sure there could be a true standard. In visible light. Created from spectrums outside of visible light. Really only useful for aesthetic purposes. But that's the nature of invisible wavelengths as we only really get to see a portion of the red and blue that's inherent in IR UV wavelengths So under interpretation if ever I've seen it

Great shot Geoff

Good to see you back on the board. A nice icebreaker considering the conditions.

love that red

For sure i will pm you at some point, either here or the other place. Its good to know what you have been doing. I sold nearly all of it. Couldnt bring myself to sell the old 10" Orion though. So will take a while to get up and running again. But i am feeling it again after a long break. So looking foward to getting out there again. Anyway take care and speak soon

Yes Simon lovely image. what gear you using now ? Nice processing.

Great view of Olympus mons there Peter. Excellent work

Great to See you still producing world class images Darryl. Was going to message you on the other place. I missed our chats. But needed timeout from anything astro. Just burned out on it after years of lugging Newts around. In the coming months i am thinking of starting again Stunning images Darryl. inspiring. Need to catch up some time its been a while. Hope you and Pat are staying safe from the bug

At that focal length and size scope 5x would be way too much. Even 2.5 x would produce a rather dim image, my old 300 p was barely passable to image Uranus and Neptune, i always took the outer planets to mean Uranus and Neptune apologies if you didnt mean that. btw 5 x your FL is 12.180 I once imaged at 16.000 on a 14 arcsec mars with a 10" Newt But thats imaging not visual. I like the look of these scopes. Right up my street.. As a visual quick look scope, and even lunar imaging, the cc6 is very attractive. Hats off to FLO in securing this range., So whats the full apeture of the CC6 i wonder ? I want one of these scopes. Thinking of starting imaging again. They are the most exciting scopes i have seen for lunar and planetary imaging Since SCTs And Maks were released

Thanks for the extra info i will look further into it.

Hi Vlaiv Thanks for the reply. Well i am not so worried about a slightly reduced fully illuminated field. It will be used for the moon and planets mostly. But of course losing aperture is something else. Will be sometime before i can measure the distance from secondary center to the focal plane. Wonder if anyone knows this figure. Its a Orion Europa F6.3 Cheers for the help

Hi guys. I want to try a Antares 1/30th wave secondary with my 245 mm 1/10th pv wave primary. F6.3 My current secondary is 50mm minor axis Antares have two options A 1.83 minor axis. Or 2.14. I Would prefer to go smaller. I have calculated the size will be 46.482 mm For the Antares 1.83 Flat. So a loss of about 3.6 MMs Over my current 50 MM Flat. The question is, will i lose any light from the primary with a 3.6 mm loss ? https://www.antaresoptics.com/SEMirrors.php#:~:text=Secondary Elliptical Mirrors All Antares Optics secondary mirrors,GPI interferometers can measure highly reflective coated surfaces.

The eq3 mount head lip measures 1.1/4 inch The tripod mounting hole measures 1 inch

Nearly correct. I am attempting to attach the EQ3/1 head to the mounting plate of the EQ1 tripod. But the tripod mounting plate hole is too small.

Hi again. The problem is the mount head lip does not fit inside the EQ1 tripod hole, illustrated in the pics. The hole is too small for the mount lip. I need the eq3 part.

Thats good info thanks. The link just shows a new mount. Not just the tripod

Just to be clear what search exactly should try on ebay ?

Any idea where i could get that ? just keeping my options open

Hi lenscap What tripod would fit the old eq3 head do you know ?

Agreed phillip. But even with the flimsy eq1. Viewing was ok. Apart from very windy nights. Its just a makeshift upgrade i am after

Hi guys. I am tying to rebuild my daughters small 4.5 reflector It originally had a EQ1 Attached. But i want to attach a old eq3 head to it, the central column hole is too small. So i suspect i will need a new central puck that fits both the eq3 head and eq1 tripod aluminium tripod legs. Any ideas the cheapest way i could do this ?