PeterW

Business trip next week and off for a dark Starparty around the next new moon. So suggest some dates and locations. Peter

Quite a latebone then.... relatively speaking. Peter

Any help @Stul? PEter

@Stu if you’re getting all ATM, I could do with some help with a mirror set and focusser I have hiding under a bed.... living in a flat results in no space for tools or tinkering. PEterW

How many older imagers might have old rolls of film in the freezer at home....?? Keep hold of any film pots (with lids) you have as they are impossible to find now and very useful for science demos and storing things. I always thought I’d paint any scope I built that famous hammerite blue.... I made a solar projection box for the front end of mine (with aperture mask of course). Peter

You are correct, sensitising film to help keep the exposure linear. One could similarly ask about reciprocity failure, but I fear it would just get blank stares too. i have a friend who has dog hair and snail trails on his mirror... still seems to work.best to use a nice plastic cover to stop the dust getting on in the first place. You can get good eyepieces very reasonably now, but first things should be better focusser and a right angle correct image finder... avoid back strain and mental gymnastics. When I ordered mine I asked for a telrad instead of the finder... with good enough skies you ought to be able to drop the scope on anything you want to find and you don’t even have to be close to it to use it. Peter

Lovely to see these, my first was an 8.75” from around 1991, sort of rebuilt, but now languishing at my parents house. I thought the mirrors were Hinds, I see you had the nasty little tube cover... which I am sure is designed to rain crud onto the mirror. As long as no one has tried to clean it, it should recoat nicely. I can sympathise with the focusser.. small and rocks a lot... of replace with a dual speed crayford as a bad focusser can hinder collimation as well as observing... also be good to get some new ultrawide 2” eyepieces plugged in. The time when imagers talked about TP2415 and hypering! PEterW

https://www.3dastronomy.com/ clouds for the next week, work nicely in the daytime, so survived the shipping OK. PEter

Well finally.... now the clouds are mounting on the horizon. 3D.... and no red or green filters in sight. Be interesting to try out if it ever clears up! PEterW

America, maybe should have bought from source rather than a dealer via eBay, May have resulted in lower charges. Should have bought British... except we don’t make it! Just makes me angry, all that money for no show. PEter

just had one of those “pound of flesh” letters from parcelforce. Shipping, customs, vat etc adding another 50% to the price... for Saturday delivery I could add another £12.... yeah right! I’ve waited long enough for it to work it’s way through customs in the U.K. another day or two ain’t going to matter. PEter

Oh dear... and I though crazy frog was BAD! That’s a painful ear worm to work loose!!!!! PEter

We get “lab snacks” from Thorlabs at work... a variety of German sweets.. some look like toilet cleaner... always leave them around for others to eat. PEter

Testing out my old 15x70 with a new opticron metal bino bracket.. the old plastic one has always been a bit flexible. Still flexible… huh, why is the head on my cheap horizon heavyweight tripod more wobbly than I remember… the metal casting in it has cracked!! After some recent research I’d convinced myself I did NOT need a new tripod/head, so I knew what to get, manfrotto mvh500ah head. Slight panic that the old tripod head mounting screw was too small, an enclosed thread adapter came to the rescue. Nice and smooth and vibrations die down quite quickly. I can also (just about) squeeze the frankentripod into the teleskop service carry bag which is a relief as it’s now even heavier than before… I might save up for a lighter set of tripod legs. Cheers Peter

Not the ones on the right unless you’re buying a spaceship too ? PEter

I have the Myriad version of he one on the left.. quite a biggie. Peter

Eyepiece?.... bit small for a monster ethos though. Too big for a filter. Sort of binocular size... about the same size as the boxes I have been getting lately ? peter

Bins.... 8x30 for daytime use (had my eye on for ages) and some old (cheap on eBay) wide angle 7x50 to see how they perform. Peter

Just picked up some old clean and collimated old Tasco 124, wife angle (11degree or so) 7x50. Weighty brutes, going to have some fun when I can get under some dark skies, see how much exit pupil I can make use of. Probably should get some weight training in too! PEterW

We should also be looking for other camping sites (especially ones with roofed accomodation) in very fark locations for new star party locations.... PEterW

But with the -L you can move it about tomsample light domes and avoid/sample the milky-way. Both have advantages. PEter

The Geoptik meter looks like the older mom-L unihedron... even days unihedron on the box in this image... https://www.astroshop.eu/miscellaneous/geoptik-sky-quality-meter/p,8850 looks like Geoptik are resellers of the Unihedron and people assume it is made by them. If the box has the clear raised plastic button protector then I believe it is the wide angle unit (not the narrower angle L version). Anyone else have other information?? PEter

The L version from unihedron is the one we all use. Interesting to see there might be another option... be interesting to calibrate them together! Maybe we could look to provide binocular advice to those in wild camping communities... show them great skies and hope they can help in the fight against light pollution. More people getting access to good skies can only be a good thing, if we can get useful data from them then even better! Peter

More “bortle” scale then:.. visibility of different features most of us can only dream of. Peter

I would if I were you, collect numbers to help people work out the best places. PEterW