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chris-star

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Everything posted by chris-star

  1. Thank you Steve for the welcome and advice, I really appreciate it. was it this case you got? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Large-Hard-Aluminium-Flight-Case-Telescope-Tool-Box-Grab-Handle-Storage-Foam/293802742670?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20180816085401%26meid%3Dad085aa248a64cb2a8f628354339c63a%26pid%3D100970%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D8%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D183786823676%26itm%3D293802742670%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100970.m5481&_trkparms=pageci%3A8a25f753-7d33-11eb-9970-e2643627788f|parentrq%3Aff37dffb1770a77da3ce9108ffed23fb|iid%3A1 I was hoping for something a bit more waterproof in case it rained while I left it outside to cool.
  2. Can anyone recommend a good case for my 5" AstroFi Scmidt-Cassegrain, really struggling to find anything that can take the tube with its red dot finder installed. I don't want to put the scope in on its side as I don't want to move the rdf off alignment. looks like I need the following min internal dimensions 15 cm wide 28 cm tall inc guide 41 cm long thanks for any advice
  3. That is so totally true! As literally no one has any telescopes for sale I found an astro fi 5" sct on amazon for £500 with delivery in mid feb so put in an order as a banker. Yesterday morning i saw they had the same scope for next day delivery but at £550. i changed my delivery method and it said i'd get it today (Thursday) instead with no extra cost!! Super cloudy here in Farnborough early evening tonight so after assembly and checking the mount worked with my app etc i parked the OTA in the shed. Need to have a look out my windows tomorrow to find a suitable thing to align the red dot against ~9pm the skies had cleared so i had a play in the garden. The app is fiddly but i managed to point the telescope at the Moon. Seeing the moon in the detail i saw tonight was simply amazing, I tried aligning on Mars but gave up, saw plenty of stars between the Moon and Mars though. Now need to find a good powerbank, am i best off paying the £70 for the celestron tank or one of the cheaper things on amazon?
  4. so thinking about it, losing out on a celestron astro fi 102 mak and thinking/researching some more i think i understand more now about the great advice i have received re the AZ GTI. I can't find a wedge for the astro fi & even if 1 existed i've not seen any mention of operating the astrofi mount in eq mode. I see the nextstar looks similar & has a wedge but they start at £349 as opposed to the £51 for the sky watcher GTi wedge. I do wonder if the skywatcher wedge could be used with nextstar but appreciate given the price difference the GTi wedge is likely very little comparison to the celestron wedge for some technical reason. If i want an app controlled GoTo mount that i can potentially do some EQ Astro Photography with a cost effective wedge then the SkyWatcher gets me the best bang per pound. Obviously bearing in mind this is all entry level kit to wet my appetite and i should expect to pay far more if i get into it. The cost of the nextstar wedge alone (if i went down the nextstar route) would buy me the skywatcher wedge, better tripod, camera adapter, filters, battery pack & a some other stuff i don't even know i need yet if i went sky watcher, and of course if i want to take photo's i'll likely get a new scope or camera lens's to go with the eq modded mount Now if only someone had a AZ-GTi with 127mm mak for sale! its looking like at least march before the next shipment arrives, i wonder if there is a reason they don't air freight them in this time of high demand.
  5. those photos look amazing. I do have a lot to learn about this but then that is half the fun!!
  6. Thanks johninderby, Riccochet, really great info. i'm not expecting a Hubble like experience & i fully expect i'll need to buy additional scopes etc but first i need to get into it, hence the app controlled scope so i can at least get it to show me stuff & maybe astrophotography was a bit of a stretch, but i'm expecting to take snaps of stuff for my own reference and perhaps comparison as i develop and buy new kit. i've been looking at the skywatcher stuff and wondered how capable it is. being able to reuse mounts when buying a new OTA will help spread the cost of upgrades
  7. Thanks Peter, any advice on an app controlled Dobson? Would dobson's be better at viewing DSO's? i was thinking for DSO the Cat's would let me at least see some and that would perhaps generate interest in me to look at more capable scopes for DSO and then onwards to AP. saving space and portability is a consideration at the moment.
  8. Another newbie here, i've found myself here after spending weeks trying to understand what scope to get. I've been promising to show my daughter and nephew Mars and the other planets but also want to see deep space objects and would like to do so astrophotography. I'd also like a mount that will point the scope in the right direction controlled from my iphone. I'm still researching but understand that some scopes are better at DSO, others at solar system objects and i could spend thousands on stuff. i'm thinking a Catadioptric Cassegrains would be a good choice to start, key attributes being the shorter lengths and performance. The Celestron Astro Fi range appears to fulfil my "control by iPhone" requirement, so i've been looking at a couple of their scopes, specifically: Celestron Astro Fi 125mm (5") Schmidt-Cassegrain (SCT) Celestron Astro Fi 127mm (5") Maksutov would i get away with this? Celestron Astro Fi 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain I'm hoping that if i get into this more seriously i can upgrade the OTA with a more capable unit, reusing the iPhone controlled mount. Is this a sensible approach? field of view calculator shows me this comparison to what is i believe the closest specs of the scopes i've chosen https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=1945|283|||1||&fov[]=4562|283|||1||&fov[]=70|283|||1||&messier=31 Any advice and help welcome.
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