dd999

Do you know the bolt size by chance?

Thanks - I'll take a look

Thanks!

I'm guessing just replacing the bolt with a smaller headed one!? Another bit to buy!!!!

More photos of the current setup

OK this may be a silly question - but having bought everything to convert my AZ GTi from AZ to EQ.... it seems I can't use this setup because of a locking bolt! I bought the Star Adventurer wedge, attached the AZ GTi to the wedge - but it can only spin around 270 degrees because a locking bolt (holding the plate where the AZ GTi sits) gets in the way! Is there a workaround??

Haven't phoned - but yes tried booking on their website. Shows fully booked for the Fri, Sat and Sunday nights

I'm gutted this is fully booked!

Hi All, Since starting this astronomy journey around 15 years ago I have only ever used the standard come-with-telescope lenses. Usually the 10mm and the wide-angle 25mm. Crazy I know! I have a birthday approaching that under almost every other circumstance I would have been happy to forget about, but with mounting pressure for gift ideas, the thought of upgrading my lenses to something 'better' just about has me excited about turning another year older. In terms of magnification I am looking for around 8-10mm and as I have a SW 130pds, ideally I'd like a 2" lens. I quite like the 'comfort viewing' of the standard 28mm 2" eyepiece that came with my 130pds. What would you recommend? Thanks in advance!

Just come back from a 4 night stay in Snowdonia. Picked a perfect lodge cabin, miles away from anything. High up position looking across to Snowdon. Bortle 2 skies. Packed my scope, mount, dslr plus the bins. Very excited. My excitement was met unforgivingly by 4 nights of 100% cloud cover, with some thunder, lightening and 55mph winds added to the mix for good measure. Not one star did I see! Last year I spent a few nights on a ranch in Wyoming in Bortle 2 skies. It was amazing. I then camped in Yellowstone where I was so captivated by the sky that I took a 2am stroll down to a riverbank in Bortle 1 skies - was so taken aback by the sights unknown to many of us in the UK until I was brought back to the real world with a thud when remembering I was standing alone in the middle of pitch black woods in bear country! The things you do for a Bortle 1 sky on a cloudless and moonless night!

The 130p and 150p suggestions are great choices for a beginner. I started with the 150p on an EQ5 mount (although brand new this cost me nearer £400) - but the 130p on an EQ2 mount can be bought brand new for less than £200 on most telescope retailers websites. I had a 130p (only sold to upgrade to the 130pds recently so I can start imaging) and really rate these. It's a great versatile scope. There's also no need to buy brand new. There are some good scopes that come up on the second hand market - although the good starter scopes are a little harder to come by and come up less often. If you do go second hand you may be able to get a little more for your money (like the bigger 150p). A £200 budget should be enough for a good scope to see good a good level of detail of the moon, bands of Jupiter, rings of Saturn - plus star clusters, galaxies and more!

If anyone else happens to stumble across this thread, searching Google for a similar issue (as I regularly do!) I want to update this post to say everything seems to now be working fine. I tested again and this time attached my 'heavier' 130p telescope with a dslr attached, just to see if the mount could handle the weight, and whether I could improve the goto accuracy. This time it worked fine and the mount remembered my manual adjustments for next time. The only thing I have noticed is that after each session the AZ GTi mount attached to the extender tube comes a little loose. So if you leave your AZ GTi mount attached to the extender tube you may need to unscrew and re-tighten after each session. Being loose would certainly cause a decrease in goto accuracy. My lessons learned were to re-tighten the mount to the extender tube after each session, and making sure batteries are topped up (or as ScouseSpaceCadet says, get a powerbank!) - also if the goto starts behaving improper, just try realigning again (only takes 2-3mins to North Star align) ....before you decide to drop kick it! Trust me I've been tempted! Thanks to everyone for your help, as always.

Thanks for the suggestion - and yes I did try these too. Unfortunately many retailers are showing as in stock, but all are using the same main warehouse who haven't had any in since early June apparently. The good news is I've just heard these have now arrived, and should be being sent out in the next couple of days

Since around mid June I've had everything I need to turn my AZ GTi mount from AZ to an EQ mount - I've just been missing the 1kg counterweight and bar. The recommended method I'm trying is the Star Adventurer 1kg counterweight and bar with a thread converter (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-counterweight-kit.html)....... ......but everywhere has been out of stock of this since mid-June, and still supplies haven't arrived. I've had one on backorder since end June. Has anyone else found an alternative method for the weight and bar that works - and somewhere that has them in stock at the moment?

That's a really nice shot! 👍 I have a tracker in the AZ GTi - so in eq mode I could achieve longer subs than just 20 seconds or so. I guess I wanted foreground in at the same time - but a little bit of post editing can sort that out. If that is the case would I achieve good results with my stock 18-55mm (at 18mm) lens at f3.5 on a tracker - post edit the foreground in PS - and save on an extra lens purchase?

Unfortunately for just a passing interest in this at the moment it's outside my budget for a lens

Mmm possibly, but as you say the 25mm eyepiece is giving a reasonable size FOV, so I would hope that one up and right wouldn't be causing the problem, but who knows! I'm just not sure if the mount should be remembering my re-centering, and calibrating as a result - or if it doesn't do this and my manual adjustment to center and confirm is for my own visual comfort. My guess is that it should be re-callibrating based on my re-centering otherwise what's the point of the mount asking you to manually center and confirm once done (?)

Ahh the 17mm would be a Zoom too, it's not a prime lens either Its a 17-50mm f2.8 lens

I've recently purchased my very first dslr. I'd like to try my hand at shooting the milky way. I can have a go with my 18-55mm kit lens but I'd rather something a little more suited. Given the option would you opt for a 10-14mm lens at f3.5 or a 17mm lens at f2.8? Im leaning towards the 17mm f2.8 lens to give me a relatively wide but faster lens - but would a 10mm lens at f3.5mm give me a better wider shot, and the f3.5 fast enough for the Milky Way?

Cracking suggestion by the way! - I was going to look at the larger powerbanks, but this is a much better solution! 👍

In this example with the 130p I did start north (and used a compass for precision) as well as making sure my scope was level before it carried out the North two star alignment process on to the first star - Dubhe - before heading off to Altair. It just seems to be the mount not making corrections when I'm having to manually center which ever object I go to. What I'm not sure of though is whether the mount is supposed to be 'correcting' and learning each time I go to an object and then have to manually centre and confirm....... or whether at that stage the mount already has its plot of the sky, and the centering is for viewing comfort only??

It appears my celebrations were a little too premature! Tonight I tested the same setup but this time with the SW 130p. The accuracy was better, and each time landing the object in my 25mm eyepiece BUT the biggest problem I seem to have is the mount isnt 'learning' For example I goto Jupiter - it placed Jupiter just to the very edge of my 25mm eyepiece. I center and then confirm to the app once centered. It just doesn't remember this for next time. Its so bad that I go to Jupiter (where again it puts Jupiter at the edge of the view), I center and confirm. Then I immediately ask the app to goto Jupiter again..... and immediately it puts Jupiter to the edge of the eyepiece again. I would have expected the app to confirm it's already centered and not try and reposition the mount. I tried 6 or 7 times in a row to center Jupiter in the eyepiece, confirm to the app when I have centered - and then immediately goto Jupiter again. Each time the same result, it took Jupiter from the center of the eyepiece to the edge again. It was the same again back and forth between Jupiter and Saturn too. Last night was a little different with the SW 102 ST as I wasn't observing through an eyepiece as my dslr was connected. I just took photos after each goto and the object looked 'pretty much' centre. So I didn't have to mess around centering and recentering. I also tried switching the auxillary encoder off and on during the tests but it made no difference. Surely if I center an object, the mount should be remembering this for next time? - or does the mount not act this way?

I must admit after attaching a 130p scope I also added a dslr so this really pushed the 5kg payload. I increased things even further and tried to add my mobile phone to a ball joint attached to the dslr - the AZ GTi didn't like this and couldn't move! Lesson learned there. I'm going to get a SW 72ED - but I'm thinking about selling my 130p and getting a 130pds, one reason for visual (and I find the reflectors so much more comfy for visual than a refractor - and the 130p is one of the smallest) and also so I can attach a dslr and image planets and lunar if I want. I may though have to test out the performance of the mount when loaded with the 130p and dslr - with the new batteries (or power pack) and see..........I just don't want to wear the little fella out!

A much different night last night! I made some bigger changes to the approach, but after this the goto was very accurate all night long - centering everything almost perfectly, as I went to from one object to another. Here are the changes I made. Unfortunately they weren't in isolation, so I'm not sure the true root cause, but perhaps they all played their part: Changed from using the Synscan app to using the Synscan Pro instead (not for any other reason other than trying something different); I leveled off the tripod with a spirit level reader at the start of the night - although I think it was 98-99% accurate before; I changed scope - I went from my 4kg SW 130p to the lighter 3kg SW 102 ST; Replaced the batteries in the AZ GTi! Embarrassingly it may have been the batteries (and I may have to switch to a power pack) but the 1kg saving in weight on the scope may have helped too. I kept the auxilliary encoder off (not that I tried it with it on to see if it made a difference) but it was very accurate enough without. Thank you all for your helpful suggestions - and a much less stressful night!

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