Spile

Hi from Bromsgrove

You can get a shoe mount adapter for the Telrad but the double sided tape it comes with works fine for me.

I create target lists for DSOs and binaries in SkySafari that display in the main screen.

The last 16 months have been poor in terms of cloud cover for me.

The flexibility and convenience of a zoom eyepiece combined with a low power, wide angle eyepiece works for me. I get great views from the Baader Hyperion IV but the Svbony gets good user reviews too. My user review .

I experimented with fitting the Barlow directly to the eyepiece but when you turn the zoom, it also turns the Barlow. I eventually came to the conclusion that the best aka most convenient way was to attach the 1.25” adapter and use the 2” sleeve. The Barlow attaches to the adapter so no rotation. Explained with diagrams here https://astro.catshill.com/the-zoom-eyepiece/

An interesting survey that took me about 8 minutes to complete. Hello everyone, I’m Dr Chris Barnes, a researcher from the University of Derby, UK and would like to ask for your help. I am advertising a study about how people feel towards the night sky & whether they feel a connection to it. The study involves completing a brief survey and takes 10-12 minutes to complete once you have provided consent. Some people may want to take slightly longer. Anyone can take part no matter where you are in the world or how often you look at the night sky. Taking part is voluntary and there is of course no pressure if you’d prefer not to. If this sounds like something of interest to you then the survey link is here – https://derby.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4UQuldSgKsiZElU or you can also find the link on my Twitter profile (@DrChrisBarnes). many thanks, Chris

The dark reflection 2 of the secondary should be offset.

Top one is correct. The dark reflectionx2 of the secondary should be offset. As per https://astro.catshill.com/through-the-eyepiece-tube/

Yes no reason not to change them as long as you get the right thread and length. For my Skywatcher I used 30mm M4

If the focus tube is at ten o’clock then your secondary looks good to me. See step 2 of https://astro.catshill.com/collimation-guide/. A piece of coloured paper behind the focuser (see the guide) will help. For the secondary alignment use your Cheshire eyepiece and sight tube combination tool. Once that is sorted use the cap to check your primary.

For visual astronomy I like a Dobsonian.

Just the one for me Mrs Webley. I’m assuming binoculars don’t count as an extra.

Is shipping from the Uk a possibility? I would have a word with Zoltan at 365.

I fitted the 2” adapter to my zoom for convenience. My other eyepiece is a 2” wide angle so it saves me having to use a converter.

I caught that group of four this morning. My nephew and the rest of of the family came over and I was able to show them the view through the eyepiece.

Deal with with the offset and rotation error and get the secondary centred under the cross hairs. Then you can use the mirror clips as a valid check. Otherwise you risk doing the collimation hokey-cokey

The Lacerta kit is a quality upgrade and it’s straightforward to install. It’s not cheap but I find it much easier to tweak focus than before. https://astro.catshill.com/lacerta/

Sadly for me, the great ruddy clouds stopped me seeing the GRS. I totally agree about the similarity with a binary star though.

With a wide angle I like a zoom eyepiece and Barlow combination. You’ll read lots of comments and opinions about them if you search the forum but as you can tell I’m in the pro camp.

Excellent review. I’ve had to upgrade my Skywatcher 200P to get to an (almost) equivalent of the StellaLyra. I’m happy enough with it but I now recommend the StellaLyra over the SW.

A few weeks ago I had excellent seeing and the light pollution was not as bad. M31 presented much better than usual in my 42mm eyepiece.

A few minutes of cloud break tonight provided a brief but worthwhile opportunity to observe Jupiter with Europa and Ganymede very close to one another.

I use a spreadsheet in Google Drive with separate tabs for binaries and DSOs. There’s another tab for anything else like planets and comets. The nice thing about cloud is that I can access it from my desktop, tablet or phone. At tonight’s astronomy club we were comparing favourite coloured double stars as I shared the sheet with another member of the club.

Thank you.