Stu

I haven't tried it in my 7x35s, but with a 5mm exit pupil, they are generally pretty good for widefield observing somewhere dark.

Wow, that's an amazing difference!

Good stuff Ed. Star hopping is quite easy once you get the hang of bit, and with Skysafari it is easy to match the limiting magnitude and field of view to what you are seeing, so that makes it a breeze; much better than star hoping anyway I've not observed it long enough on any one night to notice movement, must be good to see. Quite dramatic movement night to night though, it is really shifting!

I think the rain yesterday must have improved the transparency, because even with a brighter moon, it was a direct vision object in the 10x50's at about 11pm. It looked larger than before, but I still think I'm only seeing the core, not the faint surrounding halo. Much better view though, so am pleased. Very easy to find too.

It should have been tested after the upgrade though surely? I would certainly go back to the on the backlash issue.

I just popped out with the 10x50s to see if I could nab the comet again despite the moon, and found it to be much easier than my previous binocular attempt, direct vision this time. I assume this is due to the better transparency after the heavy rain today. It was a fair amount dimmer than M31, but looked larger than before, again an effect of the transparency I guess.

Nothing wrong with EQ mounts, the ones I've had have always worked very well.

I'm not even sure that would help if the problem lies elsewhere Paul. I still wonder about power supply as that can have this sort of effect, is it worth trying an alternative to rule it out?

Great setup PGM! Just a few teething problems to sort. When you say you saw nothing with the prism in the light path, could you see a bright refocused moon or just darkness? I'm guessing it was more a finding issue, best get at least an rdf sorted so you can find things more easily then go from there. You should at least see bright moonlight through the eyepiece even if way out of focus. You with get there.

The brightness is spread over a large area, so its surface brightness away from the core is very low.

Glad you got it Magnus. We got it last night from Esher, didn't check the sky brightness unfortunately but possibly similar to you by the time the lights had dimmed.

As a very quick example of what you can do in Snapseed on the phone, here are two images of before and after a very quick drag of the curves to reduce the background glare. You can tap on the line a number of times to add additional points which can be adjusted, and can also adjust individual colours.

I had a quick go at the other one. Another tip is to make sure you don't over expose any parts of the image, otherwise you lose the detail and don't bring it out when processing. Reduce the shutter speed or ISO to do this.

There are a few phone apps which are good for processing images. I use both PS Express and Snapseed, both offer different things but Snapseed is great for adjusting curves to reduce background glare or bright sky background.

Excellent, and very interesting analysis Gavin. Nice one!