AL1

Beautiful image.

Oklop 100/900 bag fits my Vixen ED103 nicely.

Lovely images, I can feel a tug on my credit card looking at these.

Very nicely done.

Observing the moon may be uncomfortably bright so a moon filter might be a good purchase. You can always try without first to get a feel for what works for you. I use a 0.9 neutral density moon filter on my 8 sct

A beginners perspective. I started out in this hobby in Jan 2020 buying a vixen ED103 refractor on a EQ6 goto mount. Being slightly compulsive I soon after purchased a SCT 8 on a AVX mount and not so later a 10" Schmidt Newton on a Dob mount. All second hand. I love using each for different reasons. I find it slow to find targets with the Dob but for something bright and easy to locate it is ideal. The Goto mounts took me 3-4 attempts before I could setup reliably. If I have a spare hour I can setup a GOTO mount in 15 minutes then easily observe a dozen or so targets. Using the sky safari app to control the telescope has worked well for me but the phone invariably is not good for dark adaptation. With the manual dob I can plonk it outside and be observing in a few minutes. In an hour with the dob and my poor skills I can only observe 4-6 targets due to the time it takes me to find stuff with the manual mount. At f4 the dob is not designed for planets but has given me the best view of Jupiter so far. I had a great session recently. I had no idea about the shadow transit of Jupiter's moons. I thought it was a problem with my optics right on the edge of Jupiter until I had a a-ha moment and sure enough it was a moon shadow transit on the terminator (is that the right term?). I spent all of the session just watching the shadow progress to the middle of the planet. The goto mount requires a power supply and take time to set up but is fast to find targets. My Dob is supper quick to setup but takes time to find targets, at 10" it is also a but heavy and cumbersome.

It really does look good👍

Great report. I find reports like this very motivating to get out again

Sadly I have never had a view of the milky way from the northern hemisphere! Need to change that

Nice problem to have. I prefer B

I have had a starsense auto align that I got second hand with a complete setup. I have had it over a year but never used it. It seems the starsense explorer is something different.

Impressive

Welcome to SGL

I have astigmatism of 2.5 in my dominant right eye so are keen to try dioptrx. I don't get on using glasses.

My kids wanted to spend some of their Christmas money on Lego which I ordered from Europe. That took two months to deliver. This might be the new norm

Good point, I will oil the inside as well as the outside that has already been done. Certainly fire risk needs to be considered. I have everything fused but I need to look for some insulation for the main battery terminals. I don't keep lithium batteries in the house due to fire risk. Keeping them in the garage is not ideal either as the winter cold does permanent damage to the lithium battery chemistry. lead acid is ok in the cold so I can store it in the garage.

I have recently completed my power box with 24Ahr lead acid battery, fused power distribution board, dew heater controls and Bluetooth interface to control my mount from SkySafari. I am pleased with how it worked out. The bluetooth module has a R232 cable to connect to the handset then I can bluetooth SkySafari on my android device to control the mount. For what ever reason the mount star alignment does not always work while my android device is connected by bluetooth but I have a procedure that works. 1) Turn on the mount then connect SkySafari by bluetooth. Connecting causes the mount to take the location and time from Android. 2) Turn off bluetooth on my phone then use the hand controller to run the star alignment procedure. 3) Turn bluetooth back on and run the mount from SkySafari. The bluetooth connection does drop out occasionally but not enough to be problem. I just need to reconnect SkySafari to the mount and it is back in business. It works with both my Celestron AVX and SkyWatcher EQ6, just need correct RS232 cable for each mount. The power connectors are Anderson PowerPole. The various LEDs are a bit bright so I just close the lid over the cables. Bluetooth interface components Blue tooth module: SparkFun Bluetooth Mate Silver (Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) modules do not work, I tired!) RS232 to TTL logic level converter: SparkFun MAX3232 Breakout Voltage regulator for the Bluetooth module: 5V, I used this one https://thepihut.com/products/dcdc-5v) Al

I got the cross hairs off by gentling heating the eyepiece which softened the cement sufficiently . I bought the eyepiece as a bundle with an AVX SCT8 about a year ago and it had the fungus since then, I just did not realize what it was. Thankfully it has not spread to anything else. I always leave my cases open for a day after every session to dry so maybe that helped. Also the optics on the eyepiece in question look to be fine. It is just the flat glass with the crosshair that has the fungus on the internal surface. The glass flat looks to me like uncoated glass, maybe that prevented the fungus growth from accelerating.

Yes it is the 20mm 70 degree. The second picture is looking from the bottom of the eyepiece with the aluminum donut that holds the illuminator removed (like you suggest). It gives good access to the exposed surface of the cross hair glass but the fungus looks to be on the internal side of the glass. The top picture is looking through the eyepiece, can anyone confirm that this is what fungus can looks like?

I have an Orion 20mm crosshair eyepiece with what looks like fungus on the underside of the crosshair glass. Does anyone know how to soften the cement to remove the glass and what cement to use to fix it back on after cleaning? In the attached photo the cement can be seen as the black lines on the edge of the glass. Excess cement on the metal body scrapped off easily but did not soft when rubbed with isopropanol. The cross hair glass is only cemented at two points. I may just leave it be .

Did you have any luck with the measurement. I currently have a SN10 that I wish to keep hold of but maybe I can help with reference measurements, having said that I am new to astronomy so might not be much help. I got mine just under a year ago and have seen two others on eBay since.