M40

Welcome to the site and what a great first image 👌 

Welcome to the site and welcome back to the hobby 👍

Welcome to the site 👍 my guess is that once you have seen M31 in your binoculars you will be hooked like the rest of us 

All the best for the build, look forward to following it 👍

With the costs of wood materials going through the roof (sorry 🤦‍♂️) how does the price of plastic cladding compare? Some great colours out there now.

Don't forget the lady wife's patio, covered walkway, lounger, smidge netting, drink cooler...... have I missed anything?    

Hello Jimbo64, quite a challenge. I can't offer anything near the experience of others and I can't beat your FOV selection, so all I can add are my thoughts. You live in a bortle 7 area, so the more sensitive the camera the better, which would be a mono camera. Also, I realised that one telescope is not ideal for both DSO and solar system, so if your plan is to use the one telescope get the best camera you can for solar system and a second for DSO. Initially choose your target and get the best you can for that target. For DSO, I think I would struggle to choose between the 174MM and the 178MM.

All the best.

10 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

A small request from my wife to put decking in front of the obsy as somewhere to sit, as it's in full Sun in the Summer.

Hmmm 🤔 I wonder if the obsy roof will make a nice sun shade 😜 A great build, thanks for sharing and thanks for the info about "Smidge" 

Welcome to the site.

Echo what Knighty and Cosmic said, get out of that menu and move on. This will not be the only challenge you have with synscan, one of my doh moments is always the "rate", if it doesn't seem to be moving check the rate and speed it up/down as needed. All the best.

A great build and some fantastic views 👌 Quick question for you though, nothing whatsoever to do with obs, but we are staying near Aberfeldy in about a month or so's time, what do you use to "smidge up" as I do tend to be a mosquito magnet and I fully intend to get out weather permitting to enjoy the bortle 2.

Well it survived the thunderstorms and rather a lot of rain 👌 but I have changed tack slightly in that I am going to go for quick release removeable panels front and back. After the recent hot weather, I either have to have greater ventilation at the top (for my own piece of mind) or a removable top section. I found that inside the enclosure got to a max of about 4'c above ambient and simply removing the side panel dropped it within a few minutes, so sold  

Ok, how about this ... Focal length of a telescope is the distance between lens and eyepiece where the image is focused. If you change the shape of the lens, to focus, the distance will change so the focal length changes. Using the same lens but with a different focal point will mean the length of the tube has changed, because the length of tube has changed the field of view must change. Time for a cup of tea 😅

Hopefully a couple of calculations will help explain...

Field of view (Degrees) = field of view of the eyepiece/magnification

Magnification = focal length of the telescope/focal length of the eyepiece.

Hopefully that will put you out of your misery, but if all I have done is muddy the waters further, I will be equally pleased

Hello Zippy_McSpeed and welcome to the site 👍

Impressive shopping list, but as you mentioned what else to consider and there is nothing better than spending other peoples money......

One thing I would have a second look at is the mount. I can't make any comments on your chosen mount as such but the first thing I looked at was the load capacity. For your initial setup it looks great but you mentioned that you will also be looking at solar system stuff in the future? This will likely mean a larger, heavier, telescope plus with bits and bobs bolted onto it, it may put that mount onto it's limits. When I use an 85mm refractor plus bits and bobs on my mount with a stated max imaging weight of 13Kgs, it copes very well, but with a Skymax180 plus bits and bobs I know it's just about managing. So I think, budget allowing, I would jump up a size in mount.

All the best and enjoy your journey.

The pier has moved on slightly so I thought I would update the thread.

Both my wife and I like the look of the pier and mount so I challenged myself with creating an enclosure that was partially shaded but enabled the pier and mount to be seen.

This is the result so far....

I have quick release clamps for the base, but it's a trifle warm at the moment so that can wait for a few days. The plan is for a removeable nearly full length door on the right side and a similar length fixed panel on the left side. The fixed panel will be created from something lightweight like correx or plastic paneling. The frame is painted in as near as I could get it, Disney's go away green so it becomes invisible so you may not be able to see that...😜 I have just slapped a couple of pieces of hardboard on at the moment to provide a bit of weather protection.

Temperatures are obviously pertinent, currently ambient is 34'c and the mount is 36'c so keeping a close eye out for any grease or mechanical challenges.

I have been creating a bit of a partially see through enclosure for the pier and mount so I have been keeping a close eye on temperatures so quite a pertinent topic. Just checked and ambient is currently 34'c and the mount is 36'c. The enclosure has plenty of natural ventilation but the temperature is not helped as there is not a breath of air movement. It seems to be keeping a steady 2'c above ambient. Mount worked fine last night so it's had a fair few warm ones so far as it's been surviving like this for about 4 weeks.

Hello Gem85 and welcome to the site 👍 

Can I point you in the direction of this post on the site.... it's an oldie but goldie and well worth a read. 

It's been mentioned before but telescopes can be rather big, the Dobsonian 200P for example has a 200mm diameter tube and will come in a box that will just go through your front door so look carefully at sizes, weights etc as you will have to move it and store it somewhere.

Trying hard not to recommend anything but the Skywatcher Heritage range seems to have achieved some excellent reviews and results, whether they are child friendly or not, I have no idea, but hopefully someone will advise there. All the best.

On 03/08/2022 at 17:01, jm3 said:

Latest DIY project, a cup of concrete to help stabilize the Tupperware tripod my Explore Scientific refractor came with... 

Welcome to the site, I see the glorious art of bodgemanship strikes again 👌 In the immortal words of Clint "Adapt, Improvise and overcome... that is definitely my sort of improvisation

A joy to behold

I haven't yet managed to start with a dark background, there is always a level of noise.

I am still very much in the baby steps stage which is why I tend to select one target and then keep playing with the settings. Like you, I downloaded sharpcap plus other software and realised that I need to learn one of them so at the moment I am sticking with ASIlive but I can see me switching to sharpcap later because of the other tools within it.

There is a fair amount of noise in the background of my pictures which I try and minimise through the settings but my next step is to start taking dark and flat frames and incorporate them, this action will, as I understand it, help to remove noise from the camera. Have a look through some of the others pictures and in particular, look at the info around which pictures include darks/flats/bias frames and which do not. All the best.

Just a thought in that have you looked at the field of view with your telescope and camera combination?

The only thing I have wide field enough to view M42 is a DSLR. Hope it helps.

I think thats a great picture 👌 200 seconds later and you have a galaxy in the bag. Can you let us know what software you are using as we could then give you a few pointers as to settings.

I use ASIlive and then play with the settings until I am happy. Picture below gives you an indication of settings in ASIlive but I tend to go for one target and then just keep playing until I get the best I can, that picture is a simple screenshot I think about 210 seconds similar to yours.

. 

Another thing to consider is light and how it is affecting your picture. On your telescope I think you can get a sock that encloses the open section of the tube?? not sure but may be worth a search or two in the section on the site.

During the winter months when it's dark from early evening, it will be a long wait for that streetlight to dim so I think I would go for the darkest location and then try and find some way of making it aesthetically pleasing for the lady wife so it becomes acceptable.

At our last house, I created a concrete pier and then made it such that when the mount was removed, I could put a base with a sundial on top which made it wholly acceptable to SWMBO. All the best.

Hello Ewee and welcome to the site 👍 I can't help with the Celestron but I am sure someone who can will be along soon. It does sound like the classic challenge that I and many others have at the start of things, mine was down to setting the location and time correctly and I found the mount mechanical home position was the one causing my challenges. All the best.

I went with a slab and then flanged steel pier bolted on top. An absolute doddle to level and once level not needed to touch it again. I also like the look of it so my next step is a semi-see through enclosure of sorts.

One thing, I used individual 20Kgs bags and hand mixed and poured each in turn, it was far easier than I expected. For my build I used 200Kgs in the pier base at about 500mm deep.

Keep us up to speed

A great build, thanks for sharing👌