doublevodka

I recently sold my 4SE, and whilst I had fun with it it certainly had its quirks. The nexstar system is great once you get the hang of it, but aperture wise it's a bit small, the flip mirror mechanism is a compromise, the electricals can be a bit hit and miss (stripped that mount and soldered more than once) and it needs a dew shield or heater. All that said, it really was what got me back into the hobby, and the ability to lift the whole thing out of the shed and be observing in less than 5 mins is definitely missed The 130 PDS is well loved in these parts, defo have a look at some of the threads on the forum about it, people are achieving a lot with that little scope. I've got a newtonian with a single speed focuser and spend a lot of time wishing it was a dual speed. Fine focus at higher magnification with single speed is, lets just say a challenge sometimes!

I feel your pain I really do, I've a fairly limited budget and have been looking at my next "upgrade" and been going round and round in circles for months Definitely worth getting some hands on experience if possible and your not in a rush, and really worth checking out the second hand market to make the pennies go further, there are still bargains around if you are patient and willing to travel

That tripod looks very strong and stable, what is it? I'm assuming the mount head itself is custom built?

Also one thing I don't think any of us have mentioned so far is you don't HAVE to buy new, your money can go a lot further by buying used equipment and it's usually well looked after Once your post count is high enough, you'll be able to see the buy and sell sections on the forum, there is also https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/index.php and for the daring among us, facebook marketplace and gumtree (although this is a bit more like the wild west, I've personally had some success) There is also eBay, although again can be a bit iffy and the pricing on there has been a bit nuts since the first lockdown It's also likely that your local astro society has some sort of buy and sell, always worth a check as there may be a bargain on your doorstep so to speak

Totally usable out of the box as is, in time you'll probably want to upgrade the eyepieces, we all do shows what it comes with here https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-az-gti-wifi/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az-gti.html#in_the_box Also worth reading the reviews there to get an idea of what other people think of it

Sorry I'm going to be "that guy" here and make a different suggestion - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az-gti.html The 127 is a very well thought of scope, has more light gathering power and is good for a range of targets that benefit from higher magnification such as planets, lunar details etc Huge thread on the az-gti mount here, it can also be modded to run in eq mode should you so wish - If you really get into the hobby, resale values are usually pretty decent if you want to upgrade the mount later, or you could even add different OTA's to that mount if you decided you also wanted to go widefield for example with a fast refractor

As a slight off piste option, may be worth you looking into something like these - https://www.photobox.co.uk/shop/photo-books For example, how nice would this look on a coffee table - https://www.photobox.co.uk/shop/photo-books/silver-halide-book They're also doing 40% photo books till the end of the day

Pretty sure there are plenty of visual observers out there, you've only got to look at the popularity of dobs like the 200p, eyepiece resales etc. As above much easier to share imaging content, there are probably less people into the traditional observing reports though. Personally I just got out with the scopes for a quick look at a few objects because time is limited, I think logging things, writing observation reports etc. would detract from that enjoyment but maybe that's just me 🤷‍♂️ Plus not everyone has the budget for a full imaging rig so there must be a fair few of us left doing just visual, we're just a bit less vocal maybe?

If you look at the two side by side they are identical apart from branding and the one from FLO comes with a RACI finder From what I've seen on the forum they are very well thought of and have some nice upgrades compared to the Skywatcher 8 inch, so looks a good buy to me! To add the RACI and Dual speed crayford alone would put a significant dent in the wallet

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I recently purchased a used 8mm with a rattle with a vague memory of this thread. Quick inspection twisting up the eyecup I could see the retaining ring and the two holes, one cocktail stick later (aka diy anti mark lens spanner), now no more rattles! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread 👍

Defo try this first, had the same problem with my secondary

100 quid! well now we need details, I think I could even get that past the boss at that price 🤣

This is one thing that really niggles me, see so many pics with dovetails chewed to pieces on high end kit too, why oh why don't manufacturers put a better clamp in place 🤷‍♂️ Even svbony make their clamps with a brass block, so it can't be that expensive to do? https://www.svbony.com/categories/Dovetail/

Looks interesting, but it wasn't the first thing I noticed in the photo, that would be the broken power supply fixed with blue tape and the daisy chained extension leads 🤣

Yeah when you consider it is less than a hundred quid more than the skywatcher it really makes sense to upgrade, the included accessories would cost a lot more to add later

For now I've peeled mine off and replaced it with sticky backed felt which seems ok, certainly no worse than it was but I do need to get round to using PTFE tape. You can just about see the cause in your 5th photo, the white plastic bearing surfaces have ridges in them that leave the marks behind, although they rubbed away fairly easily

Looks good to me 👍 Tight enough so it doesn't wiggle around is usually fine and the replacement grease always makes a nice difference I just need to getting round to finding some suitable PTFE tape myself now to redo mine, if anyone ready has any recommendations I'm all ears 👍 It really niggles me the hard plastic used as bearing surfaces that leaves marks on the draw tube as it has on yours and mine

May I suggest an alternative https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-telescopes/stellalyra-8-f6-dobsonian.html It's has all the usual upgrades people would do to a Skywatcher, although I really really like the look of the goto 150 too

Foam camping mats do seem to be the weapon of choice for this although they can be made from all sorts, I made one for my Nexstar 4SE from an old tin of SMA baby milk Dew heaters are also available for secondaries, for example https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dew-prevention/4tronix-secondary-mirror-heater-for-8-12-inch-newtonian-telescopes.html

Yeah the PTFE does not need greasing, in my case I removed all the old sticky glue grease that the manufacturers like to use and then used some white lithium grease on the moving parts apart from the draw tube

As Vlaiv rightly pointed it it's probably worth a strip and regrease anyway But in the majority of cheaper focusers (and probably more expensive too but I haven't taken any of them apart) there are some fairly easy adjustments you can do without a total strip down (although it's worth it if you are confident enough) Most focusers I've played with have three points of contact with the draw tube, two non adjustable ones at the bottom and one at the top that can be adjusted On the top edge of the focuser you will see the locking knob, in front and behind that (looking from the rear of the scope) you'll see two small holes, these are grub screws with a small allen head which adjust the angle and pressure of the top adjustable contact plate Firstly give the draw tube a little wiggle to give yourself a baseline as the idea is to improve on the amount of play and not make it worse Then start adjusting the grub screws a quarter turn at a time, wiggle the draw tube in between and make sure you can rack the focuser in and out If you have more play pushing down adjust the furthest away grub screw, more play up the closest one and rinse and repeat The important note here is with a standard focuser you are unlikely to remove all play from it completely as it'll be too tight to move the focuser at all, but don't worry if that happens, just gradually back off both grubscrews a bit at a time until it moves nicely again Hopefully the explanation helps, I'm a bit of a tinkerer and this is what worked for me 👍

https://phys.org/news/2021-11-simple-silicon-coating-long-standing-optical.html Interesting article and has the potential to make some improvements in telescope optics if the coating process can be replicated on a large scale.

Since your price is in dollars I'm going to assume you are in the US? EQ5 will be slightly helpful, although different countries have different manufacturers who give the mounts different names just to make things confusing, although they are all pretty much made by the same chinese company. The Celestron CG-5 for example was the same as an EQ5 I'm sure someone will chime in with the right mount names for the US In regards to your aims for the scope, I'd suggest starting to look at ways to mount your old C8 tube via tube rings or similar, it's ideal for lunar and planetary, saves spending extra money and you could always add another scope later if you get the bug and want to do some wider field stuff

So I fixed this on mine a while ago, but figured a thread would be handy for someone in future. A few months back my mount suddenly wouldn't power on, after much prodding and poking with a multimeter I found it was the power switch itself (apparently a common fault reading further later on). The good news is this can easily be repaired at home for free if you have a soldering iron and some solder. Simply bridge the two connections as marked below and it will make the mount effectively permanently on, hopefully this helps someone in future 👍

Lovely looking bit of kit you've put together there! I keep thinking about it but time and skill are lacking 🤣 Love the old school black and decker workmate, many a nice thing was built on my grandad's, I will have to get my hands on one eventually... As you said mount heads only are limited, the only one I know of is https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/sky-watcher-eq8-r-astronomy-mount.html although I'd be confident your tripod could handle it, probably better off getting a full setup and just popping the existing tripod in the attic. Or you could make your own...