Earl

Not sure what happeed to camera B I suspect the power cable was not in right. 

Canon EOS 50D 300mm handheld, just got in and got the camera out, best of 15 shots.

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

I keep telling myself I have the best optics within reach other than unobtanium scopes.

its diminishing retunrs once you find a sweet scope.

cooke 4 inch maybe 

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/214823-tcooke-sons-4-inch-refractor-from-1850/

If im using a DSLR do i need to use an IR filter or is the inbuilt one enough?

16 hours ago, RT65CB-SWL said:

I have a ‘cheap’ Tamron 70-300mm [Nikon mount] and I am getting reflection when shooting the Moon. I have a feeling it maybe due to my UV filter. I have not tried it without the filter in place. If not that, then it maybe from an internal lens element. It does not happen when I use the lens on terrestrial/daytime/aircraft photo-shoots.

BTW… the lens is the Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD macro and I use it with my Nikon D80 and/or D40x.

I have an old Photax/Paragon 400mm telephoto lens [with M42 thread and ‘slim’ Nikon type T-ring… note: it does not focus with a conventional T-ring] and will give that a try too.

digging into the back of my memory is not an IR filter a better choice?

Is there much joy to be had with this?

5 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Have you tried blowing air across the surface of the mirror? There's an argument which says that this is the best way to break the boundary layer.

I've never tried it and no longer have a Newt.

Olly

Your 20" gone?

I always aimed well below maximum magnification, and prefered 32, 25 and 15 mm eyepieces.

Now my nystagmus makes it all pretty pointless however now, i do need to try my null zone to see if it works with an eyepiece, (I have a feeling it wont as its looking up)

13 minutes ago, carastro said:

It wouldn't suprise me if the very first response they got was enough to put the OP off ever visiting here again.  

Agreed 

1 hour ago, Astronomist said:

You are referring to optical interferometry. As far as I am aware for this technique to work the light paths of the component telescopes must be physically brought together, meaning it simply is not feasible over the very long distances you describe. AFAIK the largest optical interferometer is the VLT at ~140 metres maximum baseline length. For radio telescopes however the data can be brought together via a computer, meaning extremely long baselines of thousands of miles are possible.

with greater bandwidth surly the same proces can be done with digital optical images

8 minutes ago, jACK101 said:

I demolished my home designed observatory a few years ago due to increasing health problems. My granddaughter has now become interested  and I have bought her a telescope. She would like to get into astrophotography, but I am not too keen to spend £4-500 on a wedge. I still have my original telescope mounting with 1/2 tonne of concrete. Would it be practical to make a fixed wedge using steel plate and triangular sides cut for my specific latitude? I could make these myself and get them welded by a local engineer? Could this be accurate enough to allow tracking?

Thanks

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

It would be a starting point, then how acurate you want the tracking makes it need to be more precise.

With all the rain we have been having has it been easy to keep it dry?

I think you have started to pick up the dust clouds which are all over the place.

Im using an old i9 with 32gb nvme 2060 for everyhting, works fine.

1 hour ago, johnturley said:

Some observers used to claim that the C9.25 was superior to the C11 on planets, due to the longer (f2.5) focal ratio of the primary mirror, would be interested to hear from someone who has compared the two scopes.

John 

I never did a side by side of those, just the 9.25 and 180

1 minute ago, vlaiv said:

In imaging it is much more "black and white" than in visual.

When observing - we can't exclude effects of seeing, nor can we increase contrast nor sharpen the image. We do all of that regularly when imaging and that sort of levels the playing field between different quality scopes. Of course, neither should be a lemon, but you'd be surprised what can be recorded with even moderate quality telescope.

For example - this image was taken with 5" newtonian with spherical mirror (F/6.9):

That is remarkable level of detail for such scope and visual on such scope won't come anywhere near, but take any Jupiter image taken with any 5inch scope and you'll see about the same level of detail

If you could guratee the quality of the scopes howver I am very aware of a very large amount of variance in both the C9.25 and C11 a good C9.25 will outperform an average C11

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

There could be a number of reasons for that, but the fact is - if both scopes are diffraction limited (and I'm guessing they should be in 95% of cases) - C11 is simply better imaging platform. You can't beat the laws of physics, larger aperture allows for sharper image.

all depends on the qulity of the specific scope, its not mathematically black and white as there is no way of taking into acount the differences in build quality over the years.

6 minutes ago, Flame Nebula said:

Hi Earl, 

Do you know if FLO will hand pick? If not, who would do that? 

Thanks 

You would need to ask a specialist into which years are the best (bit like guitars) FLO might be able to help im not sure.

having owned the SW 180 mm mak C9.25 C11 

A hand picked (by someone who knows about them in good detail) C9.25 is probably the best choice of those.

From my history of scopes ID probably never be able to work out which ROFL all have strenghts.

1 SW130mm Newt no eyepieces and i need a mount for it as my DIY failed epically.....

130mm i think

I think the responces show it still down to the quality of the local postie.

I have found 2nd class as fast as 1st class these days.