PeterW

Good in the daytime too. The more you can stabilise them the better. http://binocularsky.com/binoc_mount.php has some cheap and effective ideas. Also lying on the ground works well, especially for looking straight up where the skies are darkest. Most plants are visible, so willl plenty of star clusters and a good number of nebulae/galaxies (depends on your light pollution and object finding skills). God luck PEter

Now Jedi I am. goodbye glare. Peter

You’re the one who got it... @Stu pointed it out, went real fast! Peter

See what bit of extra magnification does on the old APM 70mm bins. Need to test on the moon and stars, should be good for the odd time I feel I need more POWER. PEter

Thanks for clarifying. The option of prime focus or afocal is good, the latter seems most popular due to the ease of achieving focal reduction. Peter

I use CURA for everything, more tweaker setting being added almost daily. Prusa slicer is built off Slic3r. I played with simplify3D but haven’t used it much, might be to do with the printer I use it with is a Royal pain to setup and get the best levelled. PEter

Mainly people using video or more recently stacking short exposure to build up decent enough images... not the hours of exposures that the imagers take and them spend more hours in photoshop tweaking it further.

Congrats on convincing your neighbours and great to hear they were so accommodating. Outside the US you might get a few nutters, drunks or couples up to no good. Not really an issue if you go as a (small) group as no one is armed. really dark skies are definitely worth hunting out and visiting, though you don’t want to be distracted when you’re there. PEter

We’ve each pushed back different boundaries in their own way. It’s great to find new ways to see new things, stops us getting bored 😉 Peter

Great work, now I know I need to try harder with some of them. Peter

People quite like the eyeball to eyepiece experience, which this gives, though with less of “what am I looking at at”. I agree using a big screen enables you to point stuff out and handle groups better. PEter

Even “measure thrice CAD once” can still have errors. Sometimes designs need tweaking, machine tolerances aren't what you thought.:. Easier that only you know it was a mistake! always good to test and improve. Remember it used to be called Rapid Prototyping for a good reason. PEter

I quite often test our parts of the design for fit and tweak, so delays are annoying! PEter

For (small) galaxies AlanJGreen is the person to ask, he’s using a large dob and going after smaller nebulae and galaxies with NV. everything has pros and cons, though it sounds like @Peter Drew “Swiss army scope” does more than many! PEter

... or deal with print fails, work out what the new cura settings do, breathe printer fumes or work out what to do with excess filament.... there are benefits to sending parts out to print.... PEter

With new full cutoff LED coming in all round me and further it might be the future is darker. Even if we lost all external lighting you’d still have trouble seeing hydrogen nebulosity.... each to their own. NV is a bit like a solar telescope, one trick pony, but a pretty good trick. PEter

7yrs and counting.... still enjoying the view! @GavStar has gone exploring what it is possible to find and what optics gives the best view and reported back to the rest of us. There are cheaper Photonis Echo tunes, which we have yet to see how they perform. PEter

The this the X3 material?? If so what nozzle and print settings/temps are you using, as I’ll give it a run on a small part (part of my frustration was it was a 2day build of nearly 700g...). PEter

Had to resort to recruiting a “lucky charm” from thingiverse to help keep the printer gremlins at bay. Latest filament I hate is RS PLA+ (tough PLA), print hot, print fast.... right, more like turn to crispy charcoal in the nozzle as soon as you turn your back... managed a print with slight extra heat but the layer adhesion was pants. I have recommended we go with polycarbonate if the part has to survive serious abuse. PEter

Depends on what’s available, if you can try and how much you trust. I note new UK military NV is almost on lease with the supplier doing the maintenance etc as part of the contract, so it’ll likely never end up on the secondhand market in years to come. Sadly it looks like this will always remain quite niche, unless the US changes ITAR and looks to make lots of money selling the “good enough” stuff..... can’t see that happening, though the US have been lobbied by their thermal companies to relax restrictions somewhat as foreign companies can have greater sales and hence greater investment and hence produce better kit in the future. PEter

Been there, cops turned up a memorable club session thinking we were “car breakers”:.. someone brought a huge dob in a transit van!! Wimbledon any good, more urban than Bushy. Peter

Nope, but there and devices that can measure the tube spec. Also the power supplies can fail.... If there are no obvious defects in the view(black spots, burnt bits) and you can see stuff then I wouldn’t worry too much... in this case the vendor is checking different tubes with specs, so much better than totally buying blind! PEter

The are designed for the military with 10000hrs a a “50%” degradation spec target, used for hours a night, night after night and to be generally ill treated. I would not worry unless you are going out and using it for long periods every night... in which case if it did start to lose performance you will certainly have got your money’s worth! Peter

.... can see stuff you can’t in a huge (£££) Dobs.... Peter

Fear... when I walk about my suburban area at night there are hardly any people of any sort about (not even late at night). As long as you’re not in locations where you could expect trouble (tend to be overly lit, so unlikely) you should be fine. In the local park the drunks tend to stay close to the gates... probably scared of the dark too. observing with others is always more fun for the conversation and shared experience as anything else. peter