Jm1973

1 hour ago, rob_r said:

Hi. I have seen M57 and photographed with a Canon 600D it under Bortle 6 skies with a Skywatcher 127 with a 25mm EP. It is extremely faint and small, like a hazy high cloud. It is best when I use 'averted vision' to see it. It is surprisingly bright when I do this, almost like a vibrant blue. Hope you find it, it is a worthy target.

Ah.. so I was in between the wrong two stars. I will definitely try again tonight weather permitting.

I see. That's useful information, thanks. I have got Darktable installed, but I am not at all familiar with it.

So I need to be looking about here then, I guess. So not that far away really. I'll have another go tonight.

In fact I might already have a shot where it is in view.

How do I go about stretching it in darktable?

3 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi

The bright star is Vega. Alas, no ring nebula:(

Ah, right. I was way off then. Thanks for confirming.

It seems to me that if Vega looks that size then I am unlikely to be able to see M57 with just my camera attached to the telescope.

Does that sound correct to you?

Hi fellow stargazers! First of all apologies for the long-winded diatribe, but here goes:

Yesterday my copy of Turn Left at Orion finally arrived. I'd been having problems with my polar and 3-star alignments, and my Goto mount wasn't 'going to' where it's supposed to, so I thought I'd have a quick look at the book and try my hand at manually navigating the stars. I flicked through the pages till I saw a nebula in the Summer months section, which used Vega as a starting point. As I'd used Vega for my 3-star alignment earlier that evening and knew where to find it, I decided to try to find the Ring nebula in Lyra.

The instructions in the book said to first find the Summer Triangle. Well I'd never noticed it before (goes to show how unobservant people can be) but as soon as I looked I couldn't miss it. Then I had to look midway between Vega and Albireo, to find two faint stars Sulafat and Sheliak. Again, after staring for a while I could see those with the naked eye. Then I had to look for a star in between those two, slightly nearer to Sulafat. There was no way I could see that with the naked eye so I had a look with the viewfinder. 

I got close to where I thought it would be through the viewfinder, then looked through a 25mm EP. At first I got confused with the scale and thought I was much further zoomed in than I actually was. So I spent a good ten minutes trying and failing to find my bearings. Then I realised that I was essentially at the same scale through the EP as through the viewfinder. So I just visually tracked from Vega to Sulafat. At this point I could see Sulafat, Sheliak and Burnham 648. So then I looked in the middle of Sheliak and 648 but couldn't see anything resembling a nebula.

So I attached my Nikon D3300 (not the best for AP but hey ho) directly to the telescope (200P Skywatcher) and took a ten second exposure. All I could see were large what looked like raindrops. So I started the laborious task of focusing a tiny amount and taking another picture. After about 15 or 20 pictures I was more or less in focus. So then started tracking about methodically looking for the ring nebula.

After about 3 or 4 exposures I could see a bright object on the edge of the photo. Aha! I thought... this must be it. But as I got it fully into the photo I could see it was just a star. So I figured this must be Sulafat and I kept heading towards where I thought 648 might be, taking photos every few seconds. After a long time I didn't see another star of a similar brightness, so I thought I must be going in the wrong direction. I Went back till I found the bright star and tried again in the opposite direction. Couldn't find anything there either. At this point the clouds were coming out, so I took a bunch of photos of the bright 'star' I'd found, as this was the only thing that looked even slightly noteworthy among the photos I'd taken. Then I took everything down and went inside. 

Afterwards, I had a quick read of the page about the ring nebula and was struck by the sentence that said, 'there should be no trouble seeing it in a telescope.... in your lowest power it may be hard to distinguish from a star at first.' Then I remembered reading somewhere that stars look lik epoints of light, and when you zoom in on a star it will still look like a point of light. This thing did not look like a point of light.

So to not quite cut a long story short, I think I may have actually got some pics of the ring nebula, after all. It didn't look as I expected it to, but that may just be due to the diffraction spikes and the fact I was just using my camera and the telescope without any additional magnification. So can anyone confirm what I have photographed please?
 

Hi everyone. In anticipation of clear skies tonight (although it is starting to cloud over) I started setting up early.

I tried following this guide https://worcspaul.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/accurately-setting-the-“home”-or-“park”-position-on-a-skywatcher-eq5-pro-mount/

to set the scope to the home position. However, when I got to the part where it says to use the scroll keys to overwrite the current axis positions, I could not see any way of doing this. Once you go into show position the scroll keys don't do anything.

Am I doing somewthing daft, or is it the firmware version I have. I am on 3.12 and it is an EQ5 Pro Synscan mount.

Any help greatfully received, as ever...

Will this one work? It doesn't specify whether it is positive inner or not. I was going to get this and one of the 8 way splitters.

10 hours ago, Waldemar said:

Please do NOT use those, they will fry your mount. Use 13Volts max

Dew control depends on where you are situated, you will find out if that is necessary soon enough...

Thanks. I'll see if I can find/buy a 12v jobby. 

Wow! That's a pretty decent piece of kit. Thanks for the pics. I might try something like that.

Thanks for the replies. That's really helpful.

I actually have a couple of 20v 2A adaptors lying round the house. Would it be ok to use them, or would the 20v fry the motors or the synscan?

I hadn't really thought about dew control. Is it totally necessary to have this in place?

Hi.

I just bought an eq5 pro synscan mount. It's arriving in a few days. However it comes with no power supply. As I'll be mainly using it in my back garden, I want to buy a mains adaptor first of all. I've seen a lot of posts saying I just need a 12v dc supply of 2 amps or more. However I also keep seeing people saying it needs to have a cigarette lighter type connector.

Can anyone confirm what type of connector it needs please?

Hi.

I'm interested in buying one of these. I've seen one going second-hand, but it is black in colour. The tripod legs are tubular, as opposed to flat, and the trim is black on them also.

Is this the same as the current white version, or are they rated lower in weight? Does anyone have any idea on this?

I'm looking to stick my Skywatcher 200P on it.

15 hours ago, SCOOBIE said:

Thank you, yes it was fairly clear here, the only problem apart from weather that I have is trees. Will take advice and try again. 

Same here with the trees. Plus chimneys.

I am also a beginner, with the same telescope. I was also looking at the moon last night... first clear night in ages.

As the previous poster said: get view finder aligned. Get moon dead centre. Use super 25. Very slowly focus. When in focus use the screw to lock the focuser. Then if you want to whack in a Barlow or use the 10mm, it should already be pretty much in focus.

If you've polar aligned it's easier as you only have to worry about 1 axis when tracking.

On 29/08/2020 at 21:20, John said:

If you can remove the mount head from the tripod, you can check the tripod hub fitting is EQ3 / EQ5 / HEQ5 compatible before you commit to buying another tripod.

The steel tubed tripod is a noticable upgrade over the aluminium tripod.

Maybe try the scope under the stars first though and see how you get on ?. It will be at higher magnifications (100x plus) that you notice vibrations / unsteadiness, if they are there.

 

I tried it last night, and at higher magnifications it was extremely wobbly. Although bear in mind I am very new to this, and I was probably being heavy handed. 

If I were to buy the tripod, assuming it fits, do you ever see the mounts for sale on their own?

I haven't seen a single EQ5 mount for sale in the last month or so.

1 hour ago, John said:

The optical tubes can be bought for around £120 used and the EQ5's for around £100 (undriven). Worth bearing in mind.

 

Really? I've not seen them going that cheap.

Although I've only been looking the last few weeks really.

I could do with buying an EQ5 for £100.

17 minutes ago, LondonSi72 said:

Yes! That’s what I’m finding. A few 200ps have been available but all seem to be a 200mile round trip away. I’m also not sure if upgrading to the 200p from my 130 will allow me to see that much more, so a little reluctant to take a punt. I just found there’s an astronomy shop about 40mins drive away so I think I’ll go there and hopefully check out a few scopes to see for myself. I’ve kind of set my self a £300 limit for my upgrade, but think that’s too optimistic!
(A boxed pretty much mint condition 200p +EQ5 went on EBay for £250 early last week - whoever got that was very lucky!)
 

Hope you enjoy the scope and have some clear skies soon! I’d be really interested in hearing what you think of it. 

I saw that 200p and EQ5 I think. And if it is the one I am thinking of, the seller has re-listed it, as he says the buyer messaged him to cancel it.

Must be mental to get a bargain like that and cancel it. If I were of a more suspicious nature I'd suspect some skullduggery was afoot.

17 minutes ago, Alan64 said:

I have this 127mm f/8 catadioptric-reflector, a "Bird Jones" it is often called, and here on a manual alt-azimuth...

This is an old point-and-shoot camera, made in 2002; and with which I've taken numerous afocal-shots through this eyepiece and that, and through this telescope and that...

I centre the brighter object in the eyepiece, position the camera, and snap a shot;  the mount with no electronics, no motors, and with a rudimentary, manual tracking capability.  With that telescope and camera, I took these...

Again, that was with a manual alt-azimuth.  If you equip the EQ-4 with a simple motor-drive, for the RA-axis only, I don't see why you couldn't do better than that, much better even.  Here's what I took through the 150mm f/5...

...and a collage of pot-shots through the eyepiece.

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

I think you are right. I will try to improvise with what I've got for now, and see how I get on. 

Probably best to wait until I butt up to my limitations before thinking of upgrading, as I don't know what my limitations are yet. Realistically, I don't even know what I will enjoy most in this hobby, as I am only just starting out, so no point shelling out until I know what I want out of it.

7 minutes ago, LondonSi72 said:

Ha! I was just looking at that scope on Astrobuyandsell. I asked the seller what the mount was as I couldn’t figure out if it was an EQ2 or EQ2-3. At £265 I thought it was probably too much of a bargain to be an EQ5 and it didn’t look quite right. 
I have the SW 130 and am looking to upgrade but can’t justify the £480 that the 200P and EQ5 are brand new. The score is still listed as for sale so I guess they didn’t get around to updating the listing yet
 

Guess I’ll keep looking.  There have been a couple on eBay recently, but they disappeared before auction end. Probably because the seller found someone local to sell them to. Shipping a large scope is not really practical for second hand...

The seller said it was an 'old eq5'. I did some googling and apparently there was an eq5 that was released sometimes between Helios and Skywatcher, that is the same as the eq4. So it's not as solid as an Eq5, but it seems ok for now. Possibly it won't hold up too well in windy conditions etc. and probably no good for AP, but good enough to get some planet shots and stuff and for visual observing. 

I just saw what looks like the same telescope on sale, just the OTA, on ensoptical for £240, so I guess this was still a bargain.

But yeah, I'm seeing stuff all the time, but usually on the other side of the country. What made this atractive as well, is the guy was visiting near where I live and was able to deliver. Saving me a 4 hour round-trip which would have added 40 or 50 quid onto the price.

Well thanks again for all the replies. I did buy it, and I am very pleased with it. 

I am still not quite sure whether it is worth upgrading the tripod to the 1.75" stainless steel version, if it fits.

There is a used one currently on sale at a reasonable price (£55).

My thinking is that at the price it is a nice cheap upgrade... if it will make a noticeable improvement.

And I haven't really seen any EQ5 or NEQ5 mounts for sale second-hand, and I can't really justify shelling out another £350 for a new one.

Incidentally, all afternoon there have been clear skies and beautiful sunshine, now after putting my daughter to bed and coming back down, the skies are completely cloudy. Typical!

So do you think upgrading the tripod to the 1.75" stainless steel, version, which will take 30kg, will not help that much? Is it the mount itself that is the weak link?

Thanks for all replies. Very informative. I have decided to buy it. If the mount doesn't perform I will try upgrading the tripod with this:

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-stainless-steel-tripod-175-for-eq5heq5.html

9 hours ago, Alan64 said:

That's an EQ-4 equatorial, and somewhat uncommon.  The Newtonian appears to be a Sky-Watcher 150P.  An older kit, I'd say.

Thanks. The seller says it's a skywatcher 200p but he didn't know exactly what model, but it looks like an Explorer. The mount is apparently an old eq5 which from what I've read is the same as an eq4.

Does anyone know what this is please?

It looks like an Explorer to me, but the mount and counterweight look different.

6 hours ago, Adam1234 said:

As long as they are made from a good quality sturdy material, should be ok, although First Light Optics sell a good quality T Ring for about 15 quid. 

If your telescope let's you, I'd attach your camera prime focus instead of eyepiece projection (I.e. attached direct to telescope without eyepiece) as you will probably get better quality images. 

OK, thanks for the advice. I'll leave the eyepiece projection adaptor for now.

I'm looking into buying an 8" dobsonian. I'll be using it initially for lunar and planetary views, but as I get more practisedI will want to use it for viewing DSOs also. I've been looking at the Skyliner 200P as Skywatcher have a reasonable name, and they seem to be of decent quality. F6 also seems to be a good all round telescope.

However I have come across an 8.5 inch F8 telescope for sale not too far away at a reasonable price. Does this sound like it would be a good all rounder also? I know it's probably slightly more suited to planetary opbservations, but do people think it would be suitable for DSOs too? Also it is unbranded but the seller seems knowkledgable and straifght-talking. The primary mirror has been recoated and is diffraction limited, and all appears to be above board. 

Any thoughts?