M40

I'm not sure what's worse, that they have removed M40 from the Messier list or saying Pluto is not a planet 😉

Brilliant Paul, ta much 👌

Just noticed that Messier 40 has been removed from the Stellarium list of stuff to be replaced with HD238107 and 8. So, I wondered if M40 is still listed in the Skysafari list? Now I love the moniker M40 as it was a mistake and proves we all make them, so if anyone could let me know if M40 is still listed in the latest Skysafari app that would be great. Ta much.

Looks like Moonshed may have hit the nail on the head with laptop resources available. How about trying the camera using just asistudio, it may not put such a demand on your laptop. Hope it helps.

Hello Bogmonster and welcome to the site 👌 clouds are unfortunately a prerequisite and come free with every new astronomy purchase 🤪

We are lucky enough to have space in the garage for a racking system, so the telescopes have their own shelves. This means I can leave them ready to go with just a simple dustcover over them. The mount is left outside 24/7 in a sentry box arrangement complete with dew strap and tg cover. It's been like that for about a year with no obvious challenges but I do use telescope eyepiece desiccant holders.

Well just popped out in the rain to check the settings the synscan retains and I didn't spot anything. I did wonder, as we live W2°54' if I had entered E instead but no. So I think, after alignment, my first target next time will be the moon and see what happens🤞

Was I the only one to spot whatever it was to fall out of the sky last night? 27th Feb about 22.25. Travelling roughly Bridgwater to Bath direction. Doing a bit of stargazing walking doggy and was fortunate to be looking in the right direction.

It's quite a puzzle. I use a wired nevada power supply so that shouldn't be the challenge, so currently I have no idea either. I will check all the settings later but basically the telescope was pointing to a area of sky about 10' lower and immediately beneath the moon. The puzzle is, why did it get everything else spot on including Mars and then get the moon wrong. I didn't go to another target after as I was wrapping up, kicking myself on that.

A rather pleasant couple of hours jumping around using the synscan goto with the target nicely centered each time, thought I would finish up with a good few minutes on the moon, set the goto and it missed by a long way. Anybody got any thoughts on what I did wrong? Polar alignment ok, time and date ok, location ok, maybe 6 or 7 targets spot on including a couple of dso, then it missed the moon, how did I manage that? I was using a Baader hyperion 36mm and it wasn't even in the field of view. We do like a challenge

Hello Samop and welcome to the site 👌 we all have the same challenges when starting, so ask away with any questions, there will be someone who can answer you.

It looks a great build 👌 Where we used to live, I kept the telescopes in a wooden shed, I didn't line it but I did throw lots of good wood preservative over it, both inside and out. It was at least ten years old when we moved, yes it had gaps and shrinkage but on the plus side, as it was more or less at ambient temperature, I never once had to worry about cool down time. On the basis that it is telescope related, expect another two weeks of clouds 🤣

I note in your initial post that you would look to use the asiair as a usb hub, didn't know it could do that, so it would be worth making sure if you decide to go that way. If you are looking for something that just tidies power and usb cables, how about a simple usb hub into your local pc and a junction box for your power? I've started playing with an asiair as it seems to cover all i currently do, but I don't use it for the12v supplies. I have cut off the cigarette lighter plugs or whatever, shortened and reterminated the cable and just use a small set quick release connectors. Food for thought hopefully, options are always good. All the best.

Hello Bigstar101 and welcome to the site 👌 A lot, including me, start with a Dobsonian type telescope for ease of use and bang for bucks; however some of the larger versions could be completely wrong for your daughter as the eyepiece is more or less at the top of the telescope but some of the table top versions may work really well for you both. So if you could give us a rough budget guide we can certainly help in putting a few thoughts your way. All the best.

That sounds unfortunate, I’ve been lucky in that I have not needed to worry about collimation on the skymax to date so can't offer anything useful there, but this thread in diy astronomy might help..... all the best.

How about looking at things slightly differently and simply prove to yourself that you are actually looking at a planet. Mars is difficult as it's very small, so whilst its still in the night sky have a go at Jupiter and try and include it's moons in your field of view. Quite a boost spotting four of the moons. Next comes Venus, again it's very small but try and spot it when its in a phase. One of my first and favourite pictures was sticking the phone on the eyepiece and getting a phase of Venus. Once you know you have a planet, then try and improve the view with filters etc. And don't forget about M42. All the best.

That will be another interesting thread to follow 👌 have a good search through the diy astronomer posts and hopefully you will find all sorts of component info that may be useful.

Hello Stanneman and welcome to the site. I enjoy sharing what I have seen and the family enjoy looking at my very poor shots, so my thoughts are snap away. A word of warning though, once you start, you will want a better picture so starts your journey down that rabbit hole I bought a device similar to Peterstudz holder but it didn't work for me as the thing just fell off the eyepiece so I bought one of these and it works quite well. All the best.

Hello Justin and welcome to the site 👌

Hello Wolfstar and welcome to the site 👍 Know where you are coming from with the building a pc, as that seems to be what I am doing and changing stuff as I go along. First thing to say is look at the eea forums on this site, look through the topics, find the subject that grabs you then have a look to see what people are using. Your cc telescope is probably not the best for eea, so maybe start by looking at a second telescope with a suitable camera for the field of view you are looking for. I go super simple for the eea stuff I do, using just asi studio. Also I have just landed an asiair so can't comment too much on that but I am hoping it works well for eea. Does your ioptron mount work with the asiair? If it does, give it a go with your existing kit using the asi software and see what happens. All the best.

I can't find info specific to the camera, hopefully someone else will jump in if they can find it, but usb2 can typically supply 0.5A which ties in nicely with your info above at 2.0A for 4 ports on the hub. As the zwo info says the camera is supplied by usb2 only all is good. Apparently usb3 is higher current so anything that has both usb2 and 3 definately worth checking. All the best.

It would be worth looking at the detail of the hub and what power it can supply. Something to be aware of is that usb devices have common power, this means that the last source you disconnect supplies power to everything. You need to get into a routine of turning devices off before turning the hub supply off otherwise something may go pop and it could be your laptop port. All the best.

Superb 👌 very small footprint, perfect. We have gravel around the base of my pier which works really well....but... you become very aware of the noise it makes late at night. I am currently in discussion with management on various proposals on the way forward, so can I suggest that before you rip the rest of the slabs up, have a think in case it could be a concern for the neighbours. All the best.

+1 for the tg cover. I bought a very large cover, far too big for purpose but I wanted the cover to more of less cover everything down to the floor which worked a treat. One thing though is that the telescope could sweat under the cover, so I used a large plastic builders bucket over the telescope which provided an air gap and subsequently no more sweating. The only irritating thing about this is being somewhat clumsy, I nearly always managed to hit the finder with the bucket. Under the cover and bucket, I would be confident in saying the mount can stay out all year round but in my case, I only left the telescope out when I planned to use it. I have now upgraded with a sentry box type arrangement over the lot and being fortunate enough to be able to have power at the mount 24/7 I leave the dew heaters on removing the need for the bucket and I use a smaller tg cover. Hope it helps.

+1 for startech 👌