Ian McCallum

I was actually thinking of getting the enhance kit, but FLO is out of stock. RVO and a few other retailers have them in stock, but I prefer to deal with FLO. I may take a chance...

Courtesy of @callisto, this 2" diagonal arrived this morning, just after 8am. It was very well packaged and is in very good condition. 👍

It may take them sometime to realise that the full moon doesn't come that close to their windows!🤣

Does the SynScan goto kit make the EQ5 mount suitable for imaging? 🤔

You'd think with the planets being up higher than earlier in the year, we'd have less atmospheric dispersion.🙄

I've had that with my 8" Dobsonian, in the past. A filter like this is supposed to help... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-accessories/zwo-125-atmospheric-dispersion-corrector-adc.html

I think it will be quite a while before I'd go for another telescope, as I need to let the bank balance recover. 🙄

I used the full BST range of eyepieces from 25mm to 3.2mm. I'm almost certain it was atmospheric dispersion. With an aperture of just 52mm, it was just too dim (even at low magnification) to be pleasant to observe. It's certainly dissuaded me from buying one of the ScopeTech range...

I tried stopping the telescope down to about f19, but was still getting some colour fringing around Jupiter. It may have been CA or atmospheric dispersion. 🤔

Like this? 🤔🤣

I'm going back to circa 1981 or so! 😮

Does anyone remember the old Paterson darkroom light? It was a nice red colour, not too bright.

I recognise that OTA, especially the wee vertical scratch just above and to the right of the letter "r" in Sky-Watcher.🤣

Jupiter and Saturn, earlier this evening. I tried for Neptune, but I can't be sure if I found it or not - the nearby stars were being dimmed by light pollution.🤬 I did get some views of the Sun this morning, through a solar filter - no signs of any sunspots though.

It looks like for a few extra quid, the kit with the enhanced controller would be the much better option!😉

I eventually want motorise the EQ5 Deluxe mount that I have, but would welcome suggestions on how to proceed. This is mostly for visual observing...

Who says I'm suffering from that malady? 🤔😂

By getting this second hand SW Evostar 120, I hope to have cured my refractor itch! 🤞🤐😄

I was looking for the Baader 495 filter, but there doesn't appear to be any available at the moment. I'll wait till @FLOgets them back in stock.

It's aluminium, which is a soft and lightweight metal - I doubt there's anything that can be done about that.🙄

Wow! 😱❄️

I found that the rack was a bit loose, as the small screws holding it needed tightening. I ended up removing the pressure plate cover that holds down the focuser knob, removed the draw tube and degreased the rack and pinion, away from the tube. It was the usual Chinese glue grease affair. 🙄 Once I had cleaned them up, I put the rack back on the draw tube and screwed it back on. I regreased the rack and pinion, with small amounts of grease, wiping off the excess. I put it all back together and it seems to be okay, but I'm unsure how much to retighten the pressure plate too. At the moment, it's just a light pressure, making sure all the screws aren't too loose, incase they fall out.

I was just going to say that my focuser is no where near as bad as his is, in the video.

I'm dubious of putting any type of grease on Teflon (PTFE), as it's already very slippery. It doesn't look anymore difficult that when I did the Crayford style focuser on my SW 200P.