Stu

We do have a Soapbox race on New Year’s Day up and down Crewkerne High Street, perhaps I should enter 🤣

This little project has been on my mind for quite a few years, ever since I kept the wheels off my daughter’s buggy when we got rid of it! I have wanted something to make it easier to use my 16” truss dob and to transport it down to the bottom of the garden without doing my back in! I made myself a nice, solid work bench during January and sorted out all my tools, so I am much better set up to do projects like this to a higher standard than my usual wood butchery. Whilst this is better than previous stuff I’ve done, I’m learning all the time so it still has its rough points. It is made largely from off cuts of wood from building my bench, the buggy wheels, and old broom handle and also some aluminium tubes salvaged from old camping chairs! I have some finishing off to do, plus giving it a couple of coats of protective stain but it is essentially functional now. I just need to get the tyres inflated first which is proving a little tricky but I’m sure I can sort it. It is large enough to take my 16” either with or without EQ Platform. I will either chock it up on blocks once in situ, or I may add some feet on threaded bar which can be lowered to lift it off the wheels. The biggest negative so far is that the front wheel pair just roams free rather than being linked to the handle so it is sometimes a little wayward. I’ll try it out a bit and will see if I need a different solution at the front. So, here it is, the Scrapeheap ScopeTruck 👍

Correct but not correct 😊 Stars cannot be resolved into true discs due to their extreme distance, but light diffraction causes them to appear as airy discs through a scope (with enough magnification and when seeing conditions allow). That is what Sunshine is referring to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk

That’s my approach too. If she says this one looks larger, I just say no my love, it was a lot further away last time you saw it 🤣🤣 Of course, I do my dear lady a great disservice. She knows full well when yet another scope appears, she just humours me with a dignified silent grace whilst no doubt cursing me under her breath 🤣. This one was so big I had no choice but to give it a fanfare when it arrived!

There must be a very good business to be had for ‘discrete couriers’, where large scopes can be smuggled into houses in large brown paper envelopes 😉

Nope 🤣🤣

Nope 😉

Very nice @lukebl. I caught the very end of this as the shadow was leaving the disk. I could only just tell it was there unfortunately.

A surprising eight sessions in Jan for me. Two of those were Solar Ha sessions with the 150mm PST and the rest either the FC-100 or FS-128. That’s not bad going versus last year.

Yep, I’ve taken some corkers in my time. This is one of my early Moon shots, complete with lunar X. There are some good ones in my StuPOD thread here:

You think you’ve got issues, these are just the Fluorite ones*! 😬😬 *The Genesis is a bit of an outlier here, but apparently it does have a fluorite element in the rear Petzval doublet. EDIT they are known as the Fluorite Floosies, from left to right: Freddie, Felicity, Geoffrey, Phil, Florence and Phyllis 🤣

Some useful info here: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/page/2/ How about one of the table top computerised ones like this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/heritage/skywatcher-heritage-90-virtuoso.html

There are rotating rings available for newts; I’ve seen them occasionally available on the used market. They are pretty heavy though I think so the solutions suggested are probably better. http://scopestuff.com/ss_arrs.htm

Thanks Peter. Can’t wait for the sun to come out again, as I now have the tracking working on the AZ100 so should be able to manage a much smoother video next time.

Indeed, a lovely scope. Don’t hang around too long if you’ve been wanting one!

How about something like a Heritage 150p? Would give you a decent leap up in aperture, is not overly expensive and can be removed from its dob base and fitted to other mounts. Pretty sure the AZ-GTi would handle it.

Looking at SkySafari, Callisto was also visible but a little away from the planet. I too observed at that time and only spotted the one moon.

Yes, that’s the one problem I find, any muck in the eyepieces seems to show up far more than usual so clean eyepieces are a must. I’ve just received the power adaptor for my AZ100 so will be able to use tracking and panning on that now so the next video should be a little less jumpy! I need longer arms to reach the slow motion controls!

How about the good old Skywatcher 100ED? These are f9, and a full four inch apo scope with a great reputation, but probably viewed as a little old hat these days so perhaps valued lower used. I see one on ABS for £500, bang on budget, not sure if it’s still available and no images so would need to be checked out. Would given very decent planetary views I’m sure. Personally I wouldn’t go for a fast achro if wanting to view planets, both CA and SA will limit what you see.

@dweller25, move your red dot down to a few miles from Heathrow and it’s even worse. I could often count twenty vapour trails in the sky, more sometimes. I too remember the beautiful clear skies after the Icelandic volcano and during Covid, quite an amazing difference. Things are much better down in Somerset, far fewer planes around and I think the seeing is generally better.

@MalcolmM I find the Duplex Lunar Atlas very good. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/duplex-moon-atlas-the-next-generation-lunar-atlas-by-ronald-stoyan.html Also there are some resources pinned at the top of this forum covering the Lunar 100 which might be of use: https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/30-observing-lunar/

Thanks Roy. It’s not an issue normally for me, as I use a 2” Clicklock for binoviewing then put a 1.25” in to use 1.25” eyepieces, that gives enough distance for it not to be an issue. I’ll be mindful though if I use it in my T2 prism with just a 1.25” Clicklock on it. I have a parfocal ring on my Nag Zoom for that reason.

What a cunning idea! 👍👍

Lovely! Quite fancy one of these on the AZ100 for visual 😊