doublevodka

Some really useful info here which helped me when I had a 4SE - https://www.nexstarsite.com/AlignmentFAQ.htm

Time, date and co-ordinates are massively important during the set-up, can't stress that enough, if you get one of those wrong, the alignment will be off so make sure they are all accurate 👍

On 25/08/2022 at 13:50, LaurenceT said:

Anybody else seen this:

Sky-Watcher | Advertisement (skywatcher.com)

They stole my idea! 😂 

14 hours ago, muletopia said:

Hello,
The Mesu mount 200 Mk 1 in my ob is controlled by Sitech with which I am quite happy.I recently acquired a new, to me, fixed mirror scope and last night I built a mount model.
Looking at the error display it is apparent that I need a time server.
Sitech sell one, it has an GPS receiver and thus does not need an internet connection.
But at about $350US it does seem expensive and there is a long delay for delivery.


My ob does not have mains power, it is all 12 volt battery powered, and has no internet connection.
Has anyone have suggestion for a different time server?
Chris

May be worth having a poke around in this thread - 

15 hours ago, Louis D said:

The problems with Dioptrx are

• It won't fit all eyepieces
• Still requires about 15mm of usable eye relief, so not a panacea for astigmatism sufferers
• Prevents view swapping unless you both have the same amount of astigmatism (you can simply adjust the angle by rotating it if it differs between observers)
• Requires one per eyepiece unless you like messing about in the dark swapping it across eyepieces
• Still leaves you blind when looking up to the sky from the eyepiece
• The correction angle changes depending on the altitude of the object when using a Dob requiring retuning between objects.

Using long eye relief eyepieces with eyeglasses pretty much eliminates these issues except that eyepiece choice becomes a bit more limited due to needing 17mm to 18mm of usable eye relief.

Fair play, you have definitely done your research there 👍 It certainly limits things a bit, using a barlow instead of shorter focal length eyepieces would help keep the costs down a little, or there's EEVA but I suspect like me you like to see things for yourself

5 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I guess I'll have to give it a bit more effort now that I know it should go downward.

I've pulled the rubber eye cup off before.  I'll have to try using a lens spanner/wrench to undo that top ring to see if the whole assembly drops off downward.

I'm trying to make these things eyeglass friendly for me and my daughter.  The both of us have a lot of eye astigmatism.  I much prefer the Meade HD-60 line for this reason.  There's basically no eye lens recession once you flip down the rubber eye cup and fully twist down the extendable eye guard.  She's got both sets at her house right now, so uncloaking experimentation will have to wait.

I believe the top ring allows removal of the twist up piece, I seem to remember seeing that somewhere.

It'll make your wallet hurt a bit, but as you both have astigmatism it may be worth looking at this https://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=54

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

I can unscrew the printed ring and then the colored beauty ring slips off, but the big upper part won't unscrew or slip either direction.

However, I was trying to get rid of the eye cup because it eats up 4mm of eye relief, causing the eyepiece to go from 16mm to 12m of ER, making it appear more like a Plossl with eyeglasses.  It appears the eye cup is still solidly attached when done with your decloaking.

Thanks for the clear photos and explanation, though.

Eyecup peels off upwards, hopefully these two shots help

As for the body, once you have the eyecup off and the top fully extended, the body unscrews the other way. Grip tight with both hands and twist in opposite directions worked for me. It was tight the first time but no threadlock as far as I can see

13 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

wow you have to wonder what that extra bodywork adds to the price, does it actually add any functional benefit rather than just aesthetics?

Just aesthetics as far as I can tell, many manufacturers do the same, I guess the extra weight makes it feel more "premium" to some people 🤷‍♂️

So as I couldn't find a thread anywhere explaining the process here it is for future reference. We start here.

Then, unscrew the nosepiece as it has a flange that locks the body in place

Then raise the twist up eyecup as it make it easier to grip

Then you can unscrew the body of the eyepiece

Then reconnect the nosepiece and you are finished

You can also remove the rubber eyecup if you wish, just peel it upwards, I've left mine in place because I like it, and the cap fits to it.

Hopefully this is useful to someone 👍

15 hours ago, Louis D said:

This is where I got stuck by that middle section not unscrewing up or down.  Perhaps mine is theadlocked.

So I've now had chance to check it again and I'd missed a step 🤦

Also no need to remove the eyecup at all

First, unscrew the nosepiece from the eyepiece (it has a small flange that stops you unscrewing the body, hence feeling like it's threadlocked

Raise the eyecup to the top

Unscrew the body from the eyepiece

Reconnect the nosepiece, now you have a decloaked eyepiece 👍

Have documented the process with pictures here - 

19 hours ago, Louis D said:

I tried with my AT Paradigms (BST Starguiders), but I couldn't get the upper metal assembly to come off.  Is the trick using a lens spanner/wrench to remove the upper ring of the twist-up eye cup?

I believe it went like this, although I didn't document it at the time

1- Put twist up eyecup into the top position and remove rubber guard (peeling it upwards will pop it off)

2 - Unscrew the retaining ring at the bottom, it rotates the opposite way to the twist up eyecup

3 - Unscrew the bulky body of the eyepiece

If wanted you can then refit the rubber eyeguard

Pretty sure that's how it went anyway, not at home currently to reassemble and check

1 hour ago, Ratlet said:

I've got the 8mm BST and also an 8-24mm zoom.  What you had sounds very similar to what I saw the other day doing white light solar.  Just felt like the best wouldn't focus well.  That being said neither would the zoom.  But I could get focus at about 16mm on the zoom.

Probably is down to seeing then?

I really like the Starguiders, although I think it is better to say I really like twist up eyecups.  They work well with my neanderthal brow and piggy eyes.  Feels like I can really lock in the sweet spot for looking through the eyepiece.

Seeing is definitely a factor, atmospheric conditions have been challenging to say the least over the last year! When you can see the star shimmering overhead before you start you know it's going to be difficult.

Hopefully when Jupiter and Saturn appear in the evenings again things will have settled down because I really want to see what the 127 can do 🤞

Oh and yes, I like the twist up eyecup too, although I've decloaked the eyepiece because it's just a bit to chunky for my liking

On 16/07/2022 at 13:28, Paul_Sussex said:

A late update...

Real life got in the way a bit and, along with extra clouds from FLO, just starting to get out more.

On 10th June set up quickly in the garden for some lunar observation - a bit early and no visible stars to align. Almost (?) full moon and a filter made a huge difference. Finding my way around but managed to identify Tycho, Schiller, Gassendi, Gassendi A, Copernicus and Kepler. Must get a decent lunar map.

On 7th July out with the local club. With a bit of help, found out I can centre the moon and then just set too lunar tracking. Worked well without doing a proper alignment. Had a nice chat with a lady and her son also getting started with a similar scope - Celestron Astro Fi 6? Similar problems to those I had, so maybe it's just getting used to the mount?

And this morning, up early to view Saturn and Jupiter. Again, couldn't find any stars to align on - sky too light. Nice low power view of Saturn and rings - no cloud or ring definition. The supplied 25mm is fine, but I think I definitely need a replacement for the 10mm. Didn't bother with the Barlow, although maybe should have tried it with the 25mm? Found Jupiter but very blurry - unfortunately, where I was set up Jupiter was right over the conservatory, so plenty of hot air! 🙄 I'll know better in future.

So...things are looking up. Just need more practise! Watch this space...

Definitely worth trying the barlow, and as a bonus you keep the nice eye relief of the 25mm eyepiece, example on Jupiter here http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=70|67|||1||&fov[]=70|67|||2||&solar_system=jupiter

Before the 127 I got myself an 8mm BST, but it seems it and the 127 don't get on very well. Likely to do with the seeing conditions when I've tried it, but it certainly hasn't come to a crisp focus so far annoyingly

20 hours ago, Laurieast said:

 

 

To get to the grub screws, unscrew the silver thumbscrew mark here with unlock this one turn, pop your allen key through that hole and turn the axis, you'll feel the holes

There's a full strip-down here which will help if you still want to adjust it. Unfortunately due to the lack of actual bearings it's not the easiest mount to get running smoothly

Defo have a look at the AZ-GTi owners thread, but some simple things to try, before starting the alignment make sure it's pointed north and roughly level then press reset alignment, just in case, that'll clear out old alignments and start you from scratch.

7 hours ago, sonicninja said:

Hi everyone,

I made a very spur of the moment purchase of a very cheap Syncscan AZ Goto Mount and Mak 127 Telescope. I had been wanting a system like this but hadnt planned on buying one until I came across a cheap listing.

Anyway, Ive looked through the manual and watched a couple of videos but Im having trouble aligning it correctly, I wondered if someone could look through the information Im entering into the handset as I suspect Im doing something fairly fundamentally wrong. Currently when going through the 2-Star Alignment the telescope is way off when moving itself to the second star, probably 40 or 50º off when looking by eye and not something I can make minute changes to address.

Using the compass app on my iphone I get the follwing Long/Lat -

52º4'38" N

0º35'10" E

50m Elevation

 

What Im inputting on the Syncscan Handset-

E 000º 35'

N 52º 04'

Timezone +00:00

Elevation +0050m

 

Does this all look correct? The syncscan version is 04.37.03

My other query is that the gear/mechanism that moves the telescope left to right sounds fairly .......sick compared to the up/down movement. Is there anything I can do to ease this or is it a fairly complicated dissasembley?

 

Many Thanks

Keith

Edit: I also havent paid much attention to polar aligning the scope before I turn everything on. The manual doesnt address this procedure but Ive seen a few videos online explaining the process. Is this something I should do? I've not had to do it before as Ive only ever used a manual AZ mount before.

 

I've had similar noise issues with a couple of Celestron mounts. It is fairly complicated but if you take your time and are competent with a screwdriver and spanner it's not too difficult.

Mine had a combination of issues, but if you do get it apart it's worth removing all of the Chinese glue-grease and replacing it with sparingly applied white lithium grease / super lube / add grease of your choice. The Chinese stuff makes the mount work harder than it needs to.

This video may help? 

@Mandy DMay be useful for parts etc for your renovation project? https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=187010

13 hours ago, Priesters said:

Ta dah - and for once, no additional purchases necessary.  Bolt attaching mount to dovetail (and serving as a safety bolt) has been pinched from the tripod extension that I’m not using.  The green dovetail came with the Evoguide and the silver dovetail with my WO GT81 and I’ve already upgraded that to Losmandy so it was spare.  Using a short 1/4 - 20 bolt that I had in stock for the safety on the green dovetail.  You can probably tell I’m quite pleased with tonight’s efforts.  Thanks for the advice all 👍

Always a bonus when you don't have to spend more 😉 Did the shift in center of gravity help with the adjustments? 

1 hour ago, Priesters said:

Here’s my new light weight, portable but definitely not cheap set up, ready for first light 🤞.  See what people mean about the altitude adjustment for polar aligning being heavy on the finder tips but I reckon I’ll manage.  There’s also no more telescope money left in the piggy bank for an ASI Air so I’ll be sticking with the cable spaghetti for a while 😂. All fits in to a tripod bag and a small oklop eye piece bag too so I’m chuffed with that.

What I've read elsewhere is it is good to get a longer dovetail bar to sit between the wedge and AZ-GTi (blue arrow), as roughly marked below the center of gravity is where the red line is. A longer dovetail allows you to shift the center of gravity over the wedge, making adjustments easier and the whole thing a little more stable 👍

8 minutes ago, KP82 said:

I doubt they could lower it by that much. Otherwise they could have done it now. At £50 - 100 they would massively boost the sales of Celestron scopes among the new starters.

For clarity, I'm only talking about the cradle and the app, for example, you can buy this whole budget setup for £169 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-starsense-explorer-series/celestron-starsense-explorer-lt-70-az-refractor-telescope.html

If you take out the cost of the mount, OTA, eyepieces, red dot finder, diagonal etc I think it's perfectly reasonable for a stand-alone version to be sub £100. Plenty of people have bought that whole scope and then DIY'd the cradle onto another scope so there certainly a market for it 👍

16 minutes ago, KP82 said:

Whatever Starsense does can easily be accomplished by RPi4 + Pi HQ camera + a cheap 50mm finder + INDI + some python scripts + Sky Safari (works out a lot cheaper than Starsense). For the INDI + python part, using astroberry can save a lot of work on scripting (only a couple of more additional scripts will be enough. This is what I've got for myself).

The stargazing community is small and the majority of us won't spend more than £400 - 500 total on the gears. Starsense alone can easily account for more than half of this budget, so it's unlikely to sell thousands of them. It's actually a better strategy for Celestron to use it to promote their own products (Same strategy used by ZWO with their ASIAIR).

I totally get that it's possible other ways, there are many very good DIY projects out there for all sorts of Astro things.

My point was more if they released it stand alone at a reasonable price, say between £50 - £100 it would sell by the boatload. I understand it's Celestron trying to push their own optics etc but it seems a little bit of a short-sighted strategy.

It is very much an estimate even with the satellite data, the thing to remember is the measurements are only taken at specific times, are not sensitive to all wavelengths, and are often out of date. Plus satellites only look down at large areas whereas you are looking up from a very specific one. Personally, I don't take much notice of it anymore. My house and my friends' farm 10 minutes away are both Bortle 4 areas, very different when you look up at the sky from the farm!

45 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Maybe when I win the lottery!  

 

Go bigger for a lottery win, this will be mine 😂 https://vaonis.com/hyperia/en/

19 minutes ago, alecras2345 said:

Thanks for your replies.  Let me tell you a little about myself,  my name is Ash, im 44 and live in the united kingdom.   I'm disabled and use a wheelchair.   I like astronomy as i used to go out with a friend at night to look at the stars but that was 20 years ago.   Since then i have watched astronomy documentaries on youtube but in recent years i've not been able to go outside at night to stargaze because the cold weather gets to me and makes my disability worse.    I looked at online telescopes but the prices are stupid.  I looked at slooh.com and that site just confused me, now their prices have gone up since last year so i havent rejoined.   How else can i look at the night sky live online?    I have stellarium but that isn't live.

Hi Ash, sorry to hear about the cold weather issue, that certainly complicates it a little.

There are occasionally live streams on youtube which could be worth a look so maybe start here - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=astronomy+live+stream+&sp=CAISBBABQAE%3D

The only other thing I can think of is one of the new breed of automated scopes but they aren't cheap either https://vaonis.com/vespera However no mass of cables or complicated setup which may make it possible with your mobility issues and you can observe "live" on your phone etc whilst somewhere warmer

I would also suggest getting in touch with organisations such as the Royal Astronomical Society https://ras.ac.uk/about-the-ras/contacts as they may be aware of outreach programs for astronomers with mobility issues, it certainly wouldn't hurt to ask as I'm sure they'd have contacts in the right places 👍

26 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

My advice, read everything you can that interests you. Also watch as many documentaries you can as well.

Plus, like I have, learn from the incredible minds on this forum. 

(Mine not included)😁

This really sums it up, space and astronomy have many, many different paths you can take so focus on what interests you.

There's a wealth of information just on this forum, from basics about equipment to as far as you want to dig.

Sky at Night Magazine is great too, it's the only interesting thing I get through the post 😂 There's a broad range in there from basics to the latest scientific discoveries, and the same goes for the TV Show.

Also, youtube is really great, included some links below for the ones I like, some of the guys are around on the forum too

https://www.youtube.com/c/AstroLaVista

https://www.youtube.com/c/Astrobiscuit

https://www.youtube.com/c/AstroBackyard

https://www.youtube.com/user/edting

If it's like the above then you should be good, as mentioned get a longer dovetail bar if you can. It'll help with positioning and also stop the tube from flexing so much. I've got an old cheap achro with a dovetail bar screwed to the OTA and it takes ages to settle, not because of the mount, but because of the flex in the tube.

Also if it is on an EQ1 mount as above, you may be able to salvage and sell the counterweight and bar, I understand it's the right type for people doing the eq mod on AZ-GTI mounts, might help pay for the dovetail