Tiny Clanger

If you search in the box (top right ) for 'nikon d3200' , well over 400 results come up, I'm sure one of those could lead you to an answer, or at worst to an individual who uses a d3200 and can answer from personal knowledge. Live view (LV , a simple button on the back of a d3300) locks the mirror up, but that button may not be on a 3200 .It might be accessed as a menu option though.

It might be worth mentioning that all the expired/sold/withdrawn for sale items are still here to view, just click on the 'Sold / Expired Classified Ads' link at the top of the 'for sale/swap' page.

The day I worry about the effect on my activities of changing the clocks to/from GMT will be the one after I find out where and how to reset the cat's internal breakfast timer . Until then it is pointless .

The general suggestion is a top asking price of 75% of the cost new. Obviously there is a major complication if you bought kit pre- price rise , do you go for 75% of current price, or 75% of what you paid ? That entirely depends on your personal ethics. If you put an ad. in the sell/swap area, and set a price no-one thinks is reasonable, people will simply pass over it. It is always possible to reduce the asking price after a week or two . The whole aim of the sell/swap on here (as I understand it) is a free service for members to make it easy to move on unwanted kit to other enthusiasts , an entirely different aim to the various money oriented, online general marketplaces, none of which to be honest I'd touch with a bargepole as either a buyer or seller. There's a degree of trust on here, with visible post history and reputation, which can give some extra assurance against scammers. But ... you've only owned the set up for a few months, a few cold and cloudy months at that ... are you absolutely sure you want to sell it ? I doubt a month or two more on its age would reduce the worth of the 'scope second hand , and you just know the day you part with it will be followed by a string of warm, steady, clear nights , and you'll wish you still had the 'scope ... Go on, give it a reprieve, even a strictly limited temporary one, believe me , I only bought my first 'proper''scope back in the summer of last year, and it took me at least a dozen nights of using it before I felt comfortable and able to aim/steer it reasonably efficiently and choose the least wrong eyepiece, and actually see stuff through it ... All the expensive astro kit in the world is no use without time , practice, and persistence. Oh, and ... patience .Lots of patience . If you still feel the same in, say a months time, put up an ad. Heather

The Drake Equation has been round for , what, sixty years ? It has been the subject of much discussion , academic and popular (I have a book by the SF writer Asimov on the topic, written in 1979) and the original equation includes in addition to the parameters mentioned above "L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space" It's all guesswork, and has a perhaps dubious skewed viewpoint simply because we are humans, and make unwarranted assumptions about our own importance and the single , life evolving and supporting planet we know of. Recent interesting debate around the Drake Equation has included the mediocrity principle which essentially adds the attitude 'why not ?' rather than the more strict approaches which seem to me to have echoes of , um, human exceptionalism* , rather than, say, evolution building us to fit the conditions on Earth . My training is in geology , and my view on this topic is influenced by having learned about the Cambrian explosion and read about the incredible range of fascinating and bizarre life forms discovered in the Burgess Shale . An interesting very recent publication : https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2004/2004.03968.pdf Heather * I'm carefully stepping around religion here ... philosophy is quite bad enough ...

Random thought ... I went shopping in tesco earlier this week, and noticed they had folding car windscreen shades of aluminium type material very simlilar to the reflectix (I think that's the trade name) insulating stuff but with smaller 'cells' , and a sort of bound edge. Might be an alternative to buying a roll of rad. insulation, and the bound edge might make for a neat shield if you cut it to size leaving that existing edge on one side. Unless of course you want to insulate a radiator or something too ... 🙂 Heather

Clouds, showers and blustery wind forecast for my area , so no comparative viewing likely for me either ...

There is a comprehensive guide to UK consumer rights law on this on the website, originally set up by St Martin Lewis, patron saint of thrifty folk : https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/consumer-rights-refunds-exchange/ It has given me ammunition to get refunds, demand the refund of postage for returns etc many times . as it says, mention of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in an exchange of emails can really encourage complaints dept.s to play nicely ... Heather

Yes, I've not looked it up, but have a vague recollection that once the major shaping is done with a rock used as a hammer, the more delicate edge forming is done with a pointed tool, possibly a bit of antler, using carefully targeted pressure rather than blows. I have a rather basic book covering the Palaeolithic tools (Flint implements of the Old Stone Age, by Peter Timms ) which I'm going to have to re-read now 🙂 I was lucky enough to be able to handle some museum specimens a while ago, including a strikingly beautiful , made from one piece of flint, Neolithic sickle . I think it had been found in Norfolk . Astonishing to think it was used at the dawn of settled agriculture in Europe. Heather

I've just torn myself away from the eyepiece and come indoors for a quick bowl of pasta (long time since lunch) Nice to have someone who knows their stuff confirm what I've been peering at ! The virtual Moon atlas does not show it as clearly as Stu's photo, but it does say : "Remarkable rille. Directs to the North then turn to the West. Width varying 6 to 10 km. decreasing to 500 m to its West extremity. Begins to 25 km to the North of Herodotus by a lengthened craterlet called 'the Head of Cobra'." I thought tadpole when I saw it , but yeah, why not cobra 🙂 Heather

CSI SGL ! 🙂

Try using stellarium (other sky map programs may do the same, but it's the one I know) and setting it to show satellites . You can dial the time/date back, look in the relevant part of the sky, see if a moving dot appears where yours did, and if it did, freeze the time, click on the dot and find out what exactly it was.

🙂Trouble is, sending the drone to the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter might cost a bit ... then there's no atmosphere on the Moon, so the drone won't fly and the gas giants & Venus are going to be so turbulent and inhospitable that they eat the drone in seconds . How long do the batteries on those things last ? Minutes rather than hours even on the top spec. ones . Bit difficult to recharge them in space And then there's presumably the need to retrieve the memory card ...

A geologist would describe those as conchoidal fractures . I'm reminded of prehistoric flint tools I've handled , the best person to assess exactly what sort of impact caused this pattern would be an experimental archaeologist with practical experience in flint knapping . Fascinating stuff to watch being done , I bet there are plenty of vid.s online . Heather

Hi and welcome, I've had a search for your 'scope, is it like this one ? https://www.slinee.com/products/toyerbee-telescope Before you do anything else, check that the eyepieces are 1.25" diameter, which is the standard size of most reasonably priced ones . I don't think that 'scope I linked to above has a mount which would make it easy to use for your children at higher magnifications.

Welcome ! I've a suspicion that you may be using the term 'focus' to mean aim : focus really should be used to describe bringing the view through your device to the sharpest view . I don't know that specific 'scope, but the viewfinder is probably fixed focus , but probably not great quality . so may appear blurry at the best of times, especially in daytime. Remember it is only intended for use on really distant objects too, so anything close by is going to look blurred ! The finder should have a base fixed firmly to the 'scope tube, then the two small screws or dials give small adjustments on that base so you can line the finder up with the actual telescope. Best done in daylight (but don't point it at the Sun) using a distant church spire or pylon or similar identifiable feature. The eyepiece blacking out when you move your head is not a fault, you have to train yourself to keep your eye centred over the eyepiece ! Heather

How about the Conjunctivitis Nebula ? Or the 'For goodness' sake, move that flashgun away from the camera lens' nebula

Unexpected very late (midnight to around 2:45 am) window through the clouds here last night, and I nipped out hoping to see the nova , carrying the st80 a few streets away from home because my garden's view to the north has a house in the way (my house ..) Back home, mission accomplished, I took it out in the garden for a quick look around before I got too sleepy, and managed the Great Hercules cluster with it, just a fuzzy grey cotton wool blob , but it was my first sight (this is my first year of observing, and Hercules has not swum into my early evening, lockdown visible, garden sky yet ). Saw the open cluster of NGC 6885 too . On the first night I used the st80 I tried for the Leo triplet in a gap between clouds , and managed a vague, averted vision, not entirely confident I wasn't imagining it , possible M65 , just a suspicion of something elongated ... I know I was in the right place, with Vesta, Chertan and the triplet all in the FOV of the 25mm BST at that time ! On Feb 28th I compared the view of the three open clusters in Auriga, M 36, 37, 38 with the 150 dob and the small 'frac. with about an hour window for some DSOs between sunset and moonrise, Auriga was in a good part of my sky, so looked at them first in the dob, then took out the st80 for a quick last look before the Moon rose . In the dob with a 15mm BST I had the 'tiny sprinkle of salt on black velvet' view , but with the st80 all three clusters were visible but (to quote my notes ) 'v. small tangles of fuzz' . So yes, aperture is the thing to go for for . I'd really rather like a 200mm dob too ... but for the moment, 150mm will keep me busy and stretch my beginner skills, especially if/when I can go somewhere with less accursed light pollution . It's horses for courses 🙂 : dob for DSOs and faint stuff, mak for moon & planets, st80 for short, unexpected windows of opportunity . Heather

Last night the clouds unexpectedly cleared and I went out to try and see the nova , couldn't do it from my garden (my house was in the way) , too many streetlights and city skyglow to the north , so at around 1am I picked up cheap refractor and tripod , and marched around local roads to find a good spot . Lovely and quiet, found a location and stood around to let my eyes adapt. No strange noises, no worries, it was (to me) beautifully peaceful rather than eerily quiet. I spent over an hour alone, concentrating on the view through the 'scope. I've been very well trained to think about personal safety ( studying aikido, teaching self defence) and positioned myself where I was sheltered from a street lamp by trees behind me, not just for the shadow, but also the natural debris under the trees would give me an audible warning of anyone approaching from the rear while I was concentrating on the eyepiece. I was wearing a black jacket and not using my torch or 'phone, so would not be easy to notice, stood still and silent . My only slight worry was being seen from a house window, mistaken for a dodgy person, and have the police turn up to check me out ! No one passed by, but if they had, and they had approached me, and I'd thought they might offer a danger, I'd have shone my torch (which was handy in my coat pocket, 'phone on silent in the other pocket) in their eyes, picked up the 'scope and headed off sharpish. We know how blinding a sudden light can be to dark adapted eyes, and whilst shining a powerful cree torch in someone's eyes is not nice, it could be construed as an accidental thing or an attempt to see who it is rather than an aggressive act. Carrying an item intending to use it as a weapon is illegal in England, but something like a torch, which you have a legitimate reason to have with you, is fine, If I had actually planned the dash out with the 'scope rather than done it on a whim, I'd probably have taken my big heavy 3 D cell maglite out with me instead ... The extended tripod with the cheap little st80 on top would make a pretty good long range, fending off defensive tool : close the tripod legs together, hold the mount, and sweep the tripod legs low like a scythe. The least that will do is trip an agreesor up, the most would be a sharp rap on the outside of a knee which would floor them and possibly do some damage, and if you keep their end of it low they cannot easily grab the tripod from you. None of those thoughts about where to be or what to do were worries , just automatically considered points and subconsciously prepared strategies , there's a fine balance between awareness and being neurotic 🙂 , the Japanese call the mindset zanshin . And yes.I saw the nova 🙂 Heather

Clouds all this evening round here, but I was alerted to a surprise clear sky at 1am by my helpful cat who was having a noisy stand off at the edge of her territory with the ginger moggy from down the road . My garden is south of my house, so Cassiopeia has ducked behind the roof by this time, and into the horrible sky glow of Leicester to the north of me , I tried for a while from the front doorstep , but it was hopelessly bright there. I was tempted to jump in the car and drive off to a nice dark spot with the 'scope in contravention of covid lockdown, but resisted and decided instead to take my daily exercise in the form of a short local walk at an unusually early hour .... Picked up the little st80 and extended tripod, stuck it over my shoulder, and carried it a couple of streets away to a patch of grass near a streetlamp which gets turned off around 1:30 am (as every other lamp in the area does) with some handy trees to provide shadow from the remaining lights. Half an hour later my eyes were adapted enough to just make out the relevant right angled 'V' of stars shown on Waddensky's helpful diagram, and be confident I had seen the nova, albeit very dimly, at 2:20 am. Not even a suspicion of M52 though.

A RACI over a Rigel Quickfinder actually (the one which has never , ever dewed up on me yet ... ) But yes, a RACI would be my first choice , in fact I've not installed the rigel on my dob, (it lives on the mak ) where I still make do (on the odd occasion when I want it) with the original RDF (it's on a non - standard bracket on the extending front section) in combination with the RACI. I suspect it is to do with the very sparse number of stars available to the naked eye/ non magnifying finder in my light polluted skies, too much empty, featureless, grey to navigate across . Visible stars for hopping 5 degrees or so are much more plentiful in a RACI . Another factor is that, very high alt, near overhead is the best part of the sky for anyone to observe in if they can (thinnest atmosphere to look through) , and that's especially important in high light pollution where we need to take any small advantage we can . The RACI is invaluable for this , unless I want to lie down on the grass to use a straight through finder 🙂 Heather

Stellarium's download version ticks all the boxes for me : free open source software built and updated by enthusiasts. There is an online simplified version and , I believe, a quite cheap 'phone app version, but I've not used the app. You can print pages from the desktop version to take outside if you want a quick reference. Many times I've recommended the printable PDFs of the Moore winter Marathon https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/skyatnight/moore-winter-marathon-guide-1-25.pdf and https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/skyatnight/moore-winter-marathon-guide-26-50.pdf (ignore the mentions of planets, they were specific to the year the list was made) and the Loughton list https://las-astro.org.uk/docs/Loughton_List_v2_0.pdf which has very well set out pages with small handy maps to steer you to things. Easy to just print a few pages of specific targets for an evening. You are absolutely right about experience and viewing conditions : I'm a raw beginner compared with many on here, and was surprised to find that I had to spend rather a long time actually learning how to look through the 'scope ... let alone find targets and point it at them. These are easy things to forget when they become second nature after a few years of practice I guess, a bit like changing gear when driving , now trivial, but on those first few lessons almost impossible ! Attaching a RACI to a 'scope might be very easy : best case scenario is if the RDF is on a standard base , in which case you could simply swap it for a RACI. However,if the base does not look something like this : https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/finder-mounting-shoe.html or if the RDF is held on by a couple of bolts (like the one on my 114eq was) you might be able to use something like this shoe https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/william-optics-vixen-style-finder-shoe-mounting-base.html with the existing bolt holes to mount a RACI . If neither of those applies, you would have to add a finder shoe : I wanted to test the suitability of the RACI location on my Heritage 150 , and used some 'no more nails' permanent sticky pads to glue the shoe on and to my surprise they held a 6x30 RACI on for 3 months . The sticky pad attachment started to wobble a bit recently, and a couple of days ago I summoned up the courage to take a drill to my beloved little 'scope and bolt the shoe on properly, which entailed removing the mirror cell for safety, swaddling the secondary with bubble wrap (it extends out of the solid tube on the heritage dob, so is reasonably out of the way, on a solid tube you'd need to remove it as well I suspect ...) The operation was a success , the patient has recovered and been reassembled and collimated, but it was a nerve wracking process for me. There are sort of add-on stem things which turn one shoe into 2 or three shoes, but they are expensive for what they are , and probably quite heavy https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/astro-essentials-multi-finder-adapter-for-sky-watcher.html Which brings me on to the query about weight : yes, the RACIs are quite solid little things (260 g for my 6x30) , but if your 114 is similar to the one I had, it has rings which you can loosen and rotate or slide the tube up or down within them . If a finder will be staying on the 'scope while in use, (even if not when it is packed away) just balance the the tube with the RACi (or whatever) in place. Hope that helps ! Heather

Kudos to you for patience and persistence ! Standard RDFs just appear to project a red dot on the sky, like a poundshop version of a pilot's heads - up display. They don't magnify , or do anything more useful than offer the ability to adjust that dot to line up with the view of the 'scope. They do have their uses though,especially ones like the Rigel quickfinder and the telrad which show you not a single aiming dot but target circles of known degree sizes to make it possible to do that degree moving stuff you used your family and many fingers for ! Optical finders come in many flavours and the usual sort of price range from around £40 to ....strewth, how much ?! Straight through ones ( straight tubes) have all the same astro-yoga , chiropractor business generating problems as am RDF, you still have to lay your head affectionately on the 'scope tube at whatever angle to try and line your eye up with the thing. Hence the near universal popularity of right angled finders, which have a little prism in the back, like a tiny refractor telescope (which is exactly what they are) . So you look in from the side , so much easier :not only that, but all the ones I've seen can be rotated in the collar part of the mount they come with, so you can adjust the angle of the part you look through to be convenient for your particular telescope. Some right angle finders show the view reversed, the popular RACI type does not, RACI stands for right angled correct image , i.e. it has a prism inside which corrects the image, and what you see through a RACI is a view the right way up, and the right way round , just like the view through binoculars. I know the whole 'just spend more money on this accessory' thing is not always a welcome suggestion for folk who have other calls on their income, but honestly if I was going to only ever buy one extra item to make an existing telescope more useable , it would be a 6x30 RACI. Bigger ones are better ( the 6x30 is like binocular stat.s, 6 = front lens diameter in mm, 30 = magnification ) but bigger ones cost more , £60 ish plus for a 9x50 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/astro-essentials-9x50-right-angled-erecting-finderscope.html 6x30 RACIs are around £40 https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/skywatcher-6x30-right-angled-erect-image-finder--bracket.html#SID=1693 https://www.bristolcameras.co.uk/p-sky-watcher-6x30-right-angle-erect-image-finderscope.htm Mind you, the things are as rare as rocking horse manure at the moment, out of stock everywhere, so there's no need to make a hasty choice ! Heather

Have you used the 'scope yet ? Did the 6.3mm plossl give you decent views without the telescope tube, mount or tripod vibrating , or the magnification making anything you were hoping to view either too dim , or having it scud across your view so fast by the time you saw it , it was gone ? If the 6.3mm was unsatisfactory , anything even shorter would be more unsatisfactory for the same reasons. If you've not used the existing eyepieces on a few night time targets , don't buy anything else until you have, it will avoid you wasting your money.

Bromsgrove, the Rome of the midlands ( and Bromsgrove really was an ecclesiastical centre once ... ) and Brum, the Venice ditto 🙂