Tiny Clanger

I must be a s cynical as lukebl 😀 Most people don't care for the reasons folk on here do. However I suspect that the best chance of some sort of action is down to cost (excellent idea to make every C.T payer aware of the cost Scoot ! ) or to the rising awareness of the way all kinds of waste and pollution impacting the natural world as a whole. Oceanic plastic pollution, 'dirty' energy, habitat loss, climate change, light pollution , etc etc, all parts of the rising eco consciousness , we need Saint D. Attenborough to make a popular TV series, 'Life in the Dark' maybe !

Don't take this as gospel , I'm just going on what FLO's reply was to my email a while back asking something similar . I had a couple of items in the same order, one in stock, one not. "If you add other items that are in stock to the same order then we will wait till all items are in stock before shipping as we only charge you for the one delivery. If you wanted other items that are showing as in stock quickly then please place a separate order for these items." I'd imagine they would be flexible and obliging enough to split an order and send whatever was in stock as long as you paid for the extra cost of the split delivery. Can't hurt to ask them directly . Heather

Shame the between-cloud window was so small and short If ( if ! ) the forecast holds true the solstice / conjunction itself will be a soggy wipeout, but Sunday looks like it might be OK. We shall see . Or we shall not see ! ☁️ Heather

I want to keep the existing shoe for my RACI, (as the OP does) so will be using the stick on base. And the only printer I have uses ink ...

Flippin' clouds rolling in again as the Sun set after a bright sunny afternoon here in the East Midlands, , but I'd optimistically parked the mak outside anyway while I started to cook dinner, and at about 4:45 a gap showed me the crescent Moon, nothing else. Checked again at 4:55 and there the two planets were, too low and fuzzy for any detail, but whereas on Tuesday 15th I needed to use the 32mm cheapie plossl to see both in the same field of view, tonight the 25mm BST comfortably contained both, and they even just squeezed in to the view through my 17mm plossl. Just one Galilean moon managed to struggle through the twilight and cloud, think it may have been Callisto. And then in came the serious clouds and all was lost, I must have had a whole four minutes view !

I'll be watching this thread with interest, as I have a rigel quickfinder sat on the shelf, awaiting me spending an hour or two faffing around with blutack , masking tape or possibly elastic trying it out in various spots on the 127mak . Be good to have someone with experience narrow the possibilities down a bit ! Heather

All we need to do is break in and steal their supplies of bowler hats and witches hats, and everything will be clear henceforth ! Don't forget your towel though, there may be some residual water to mop up ...

An excellent evenings observing , you've ticked off a whole bunch , I'm sure you will be returning to some of those finds with your 'scope soon , as well as hitting the second 25 ! Your problem with bins/scope/map relating are why I decided I had to buy a RACI , the 6x30 one I got has a similar FOV to the binoculars, and with both images right way up and L/R correct it really helps. To confirm I'm in the right area I generally use the ocular plugin in stellarium (with night vision red enabled) which is handy as you can set it up with scope type and statistics, same for EPs/barlows, and it will show you exactly what you should see in the EP if you are in the right area. Does the app you use have something similar ? It's been a major help when I've looked at things I have become familiar with in the dob (inverted view) and then struggled with when trying for a quick look at with the mak (right way up but L/R reversed ! I went the wrong way from the belt to the Orion Nebula , doh !) I have a cheapo 32mm skywatcher plossl and often use that for establishing star patterns with the ocular plugin to locate stuff . I've not had time to establish where on the 'scopes the Rigel quickfinder will be best placed yet (handily it comes with two bases, so I can install one on each tube) but I'm hoping that will help with star hopping too , it's just at the mo. I'm concentrating on planets when the occasional gap in the gloomy clouds happens, and they are easy finds ! Heather

Sounds like a lovely idea, but I'd be worried the council might not be able to cope with the idea of such novelty. Presumably they are responsible for the library insurance etc still, (even if your council like ours, try to run it on a shoestring with volunteers) and you can bet some 'elf 'n safety jobsworth will come up with a highly unlikely horror scenario where an idiot looks at the Sun contrary to the obvious sticker, a child swallows an eyepiece, or a twerp cuts a finger on a smashed mirror , and the no win no fee lawyers start to circle . Good luck though, and if the library doesn't go for it, maybe local cubs/guides/scouts, woodcraft folk or after school clubs might appreciate, say, a month's loan in the winter when they might make use of it in the evenings. Even better if you could arrange to do a brief talk to the group at the start of the loan to pique interest. Heather

Bowline on a light ?

Were you hoping I'd say ... afraid not ?

Nah , I'll manage with the repurposed old solitaire in the accessory box, and easily to hand my £1 cree headtorch from poundland. It has more red acetate stuck on the front , and a velcro patch on the back (the headstrap has been removed) which means I can have it stuck on the velcro on the front of the waist bag I use for EPs while observing. It works fine. After many years of searching, I've found my ideal keyring torch, and it's a Fenix E05, it has all the features I want: runs on one AAA, is even shorter than the solitaire, twist switch so it doesn't illuminate my pocket and run the cell down , can be stood on its cap to gently illuminate the tent roof if needed (altho' you can't take the front off and make it into a bare bulb tiny electric candle as you can with the solitaire !). Comes on at the lowest of 3 brightness settings, medium and bright achieved by twisting the front bezel. The single AAA lasts an amazingly long time on the low power setting. I'm worried about my LED Lenser P3 though, it appears to be a Jones-bird design, with a convex lens in the optical train, which may make collimation difficult ...

Here's the heritage 150 extended , first pic. no dew shield in place, just the shroud (which I stuck together as you can see with duct tape, when it eventually tears I'll make a neater one now I know what glue to use to make the tube) Then on the right, with dew shield added. It looks a bit lumpy and out of circular because the front ring has moulded protrusions to hold the ends of the rods that do the sliding open/closed thing. Quite possibly overkill, but while I was playing with bits of foam and glue, I made a tiny dew shield for the finderscope , here it is stored slid back along the tube for storage, then deployed by my beautiful assistant :

So, my heavily astro modded solitaire (red finish, original bulb model) seems collimated , but reckon the lumpy PVA glue that holds the layers of red acetate to each other and the front glass may be affecting the smoothness of the light pool somewhat. Anyone know the refractive index of dried PVA glue ? By the way, for any tactical flashlight fans out there, yes, that thumb loop is glow in the dark paracord .

Just pointing out I believe you left out the word 'Tactical' in that remarkable instrument's name, It would be priced at least 50% cheaper without it ... Otherwise a helpful review, thanks. Did you get the torch free from the importer in exchange for an honest review on Amazon ? 😀

Can't help with that, sorry, my solitaire (bulb, not the newfangled LED) is heavily astro modded. I don't want to disturb the stacked circles of red acetate, or the PVA glue that holds 'em on the lens ... What worries me more is I've checked all my cylindrical form torches, and every single one only has the one spring in the battery compartment , and no locking screw(s). How on earth can the cells be accurately aligned ?

I'm trying to take a photo of my 3D to check its collimation, if it's way out I may have to search the interwebs for some ... 😀

😀 I'd strongly suggest you upgrade to something with more aperture and power , maybe a maglite 3D ? Only £50, so if you are serious about torches it's a wise investment ... 😀

And then there's brexit ... Considering all this is precisely why I splurged some of my 'rainy day savings account' on acquiring 'scope #2 last month rather than sensibly saving up to buy it, probably sometime in February, I believe prices of new equipment will climb in the new year. Secondhand kit though, that may be cheaper if there is a flood of folk trying to raise some cash ...

I endorse what the other three say. The guitar analogy is not a very useful one I think, better to think this is the equivalent of asking 'What string instrument should I buy ?' without the questioner knowing if they want to play in an orchestra, or a heavy metal band, or a string quartet, or play solo folk tunes ... So, Viola da gamba ? Double bass ? Lute ? Pedal harp ? Ukulele ? 😀 Telescopes really are that diverse, because their uses are that diverse, and no single telescope, however much you pay for it can possibly do it all. I first bought a dobsonian, spent several months using it, love it's simplicity, portability and light gathering , but found I'd like more magnification for the Moon and planets which do not require the same light gathering as distant objects, so I bought a Maksutov, not instead of the dob, but to supplement it for that specific purpose. The right tool for the right job. It's not easy to predict what you will most enjoy observing until you do some observing, and folk recommend dob.s because they give us beginners a simple flexible way in, and maximize the aperture you get at a particular price point. Heather

I'm one of those pleased heritage 150 owners. I suspect that my capabilities will be exhausted well before the telescope's are ! To start with I stood it on a small heavy garden table (about 50cm tall) which has cast iron sides and whilst a very stable table 😀 it was a weighty pain to shift around the garden when I wanted to avoid a tree obscuring something. I have since made it a 30cm tall three legged triangular table of its own from some scrap wood. Heather

Tiny Clanger says : buy chocolate ! Admittedly my financial advisor is a Soup Dragon .

I've printed that whole thing out 😀, I like the way it gives a difficulty rating for binoculars / 'scopes , and the space for writing notes in . I've been through with a highlighter and picked out the easy ones to start on . If you've not got a planisphere (and even if you have !) your little 'un might enjoy one of these https://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/starwheels/NorthStarwheel.pdf I used to hand them out for my pupils to make and take home, they were very popular ! We just cut them out of photocopier paper, but you could make a more durable version with some card glued on the back of both parts , or maybe laminated if you have the facility . Heather

Managed a brief view from the back garden this evening, both planets visible together in the mak127 with a 32mm plossl, too low to get any sort of detail beyond the Galilean Moons and the rings, all soon lost to sight behind houses. A layer of cloud was drifting in too, but I hoped Jupiter was visible through it, so jumped in the car and drove off to investigate whereabouts near home might have a clearer line of sight while I could still sort of see Jupiter playing hide and seek through the cloud . Found a not too muddy or pot holed pull in with a good view, and a bridleway joins the road there , so I can go into the farmer's field and set the 'scope up if and when the chance of a clear view presents itself. And it's an arable field too, so no nosy cattle to contend with 😀

Glad that, like me, you found it a useful guide ! What I like about it is that there is a wide range of objects, so you get a taste of various types rather than, for instance, diving right in and hunting the Messier catalogue . Mind you, I found a free download observing list PDF of those as well ... http://astrowolf.at/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Objektkatalog_Messier.pdf Another interesting pdf http://www.las-astro.org.uk/docs/Loughton_List_v2_0.pdf which is a similar idea to the Moore winter marathon, and obviously has some overlap, but includes more objects, and extends to other seasons. Then there's free charts and DSO pdf guides to download here : https://www.deepskywatch.com/deepsky-atlas.html Plenty more like these out there too, I like the PDF format, easily viewable online, or you can download and use it on a tablet or 'phone without needing to be connected , and print out any parts you want.