Deadlake

Interesting, never knew GAS met up there. I thought GAS used Pewley Downs. Someone mentioned Painshill Park, Hatchlands maybe another option? Newlamds corner is a little limiting if you want to look north.

The other option is Albury Health car park https://goo.gl/maps/pQxVkMQoSdzTnJNh9 Around 20.5 SQM and 22 minutes from Esher Common. Final site I’ll check is here Thursley Common Main Car Park https://goo.gl/maps/BNonT7uPxm1sLhf76 SQM 20.89 however I suspect the views will be obscured with trees. Abouth 30 minutes from Esher Common, however I don’t believe the estimate in this case.

APM has increased it prices in Europe even without the additional 25% charge to the US. Still not the scale production outside of china to produce these products, still a cottage industry. For example in the US only Astro Physics and Stellarvue have the CNC machines for producing lens, I believe there are 6 manufactures in the Far East who have CNC plant for producing lens.

I thought there was a global semiconductor drought going on??? Maybe over productions, you can always get a good deal on last years model for sure...

Also known as band shift in narrowband filters. 

 The narrow band filters consist of dozens to hundreds of 1/4 wave thick medium of different refractive indexes. When light passes normally (90º) through the filter each refractive layer is seen by the passing light as a 1/4 wave. When the light is non normal (less than 90º) each layer appears to be thicker and this added thickness changes the spectral band admitted by the filter. This thickening red shifts the admitted spectrum. At any given focal ratio, sine(theta) = (D/2F) = 1/2f#, where theta is the maximum ray angle, D is the entrance pupil diameter and F is the system effective focal length. The lower the focal ratio, the steeper the rim ray angle and the greater the wavelength. Low f/# lenses are not compatible with narrow bandpass filters. @PeterW Thanks you pressed enter while I was formatting...

I did read this thread a couple of months ago. I did get the impression that the word electronic precludes NV picture being published in the DSO section. I suspect that the people in question might have push to or go to electronic mounts but of course this is over looked in this case. If I'd spent my budget on a 24" dob and then NV came along then I would be pretty miffed as for the same cost I could see a lot more using new technology and a more lightweight scope like a C9.25 as commonly used in the USA. I also get the impression that this was imposed by non NV users on the small NV community here and I do see more UK NV users posting on cloudy nights then SGL, so if that was the purpose it has been a great success. This is interesting so for the smaller number of objects that are served by the image scale of the fsq-85 (really its focal length?) is a better option. Noise I presume is more of an issue with your London 18.5 SQM you need the faster scope to rude the intensifiers gain. At the same F5 APO scopes are rare, if you where in SQM 20 skies whats the lower speed for a scope before noise becomes an issue, F6 which are more common?

Excellent pictures as usual @GavStar. Buried in EEVA I didn’t see them till today. Obviously some discussion before I joined but why not post in DSO section where more accessible? The intensifier is just like an eye piece in use, i.e. it walks talks and quacks like one. Putting NV in EEVA is a classification similar to making all pics taken with an OIII filter in a separate section, it’s just another tool for visual observation. NV is different to EEVA as not stacking taking place. Rant over. @GavStar Where did you observe, London? How so you feel the viewing would be using your FSQ-85 versus the AP stowaway I guess you used here? Do you feel the slower speed of the AP was lead to more frequency shift in the image? All the best Martin

You need a weather machine to control seeing and since atmosphere is also correlated with the sun activity you need to control that too. 😀 I think a 4-5" scope is the one that gets used most nights and then on amazing nights with good transparency and seeing get the mirrored scope out.

This would a recession in the OPEC countries and end user countries, I don't really follow.

Why do you think they come down???

Isn't OPEC meant to set quota's to balance price and over/under supply. If the oil producing states charge too much they will cause a recession in the end user countries and not enough uneconomic to extract. Interesting that the UK is not part of OPEC. Petrol prices at the pump in the UK are largely made up by the largest duty charge levied on the planet. This is obviously set by the UK government which for the vast majority of my life has been conservative. Any slight change in the refined petrol price will be magnified by this levy. At the same time I would like it explained that why do petrol prices go up in school holidays, very correlated.

Where do you hide a 24" dob Gerry? 😀 I have a theory why new EP's must be the most bought piece of astro kit, they just turn up in a small box, need to talk to FLO about putting "May Contain Clouds Inside" as give away.

I was thinking poly strehl is not reported/tested, nor RMS and PV. Sensitivity of lens cell to temperature, the premium makers know but you have to contact them to find out. At present field testing is only guarantee or buying premium.

My thoughts we are discussing reports on QA process of Sharpstar who OEM for TS, thats on topic??? One question (which I would agree is increasing scope) is how much we should trust a test report by TS or FLO for a scope as I'm sure not all the metrics are being considered in such test. For Sharpstar, APM not any more. KUO -> APM

I'm told the 140 and 152 are KUO produced and have lens cells which are derived from Zeiss (where Markus worked) to fix various initial design issues. So really a Chinese made Zeiss designed scope with blanks from Japan. I'd of bought one if I didn't need a fast scope. It's the Sharpstar optics which have become unpredictable over the years which is a shame as APM transferred a lot of knowledge to help them with this.

The transport handling charge has gone up from €20 to €100 as well as the cost of air freight which is 8x more expensive. I bought an LZOS before Brexit so avoided this new tax being introduced.

The QA quality from Sharpstar means for APM FPL scopes are now made by Long Perng and or KUO. You can speak to Rupert at Astrograph. Also OEM scopes are made to different specs, so not all the same..

Flat but you have to walk some way to getaway from the trees, shame as 20.89 Blocked off at present: This one looks promising, SQM 20.99, just a five minute walk, still need to see if any views are any good, ran out of time when visited: Not visited the site yet, might be easier access:

Has @GavStargot that one or the TTS 160?

If I was going for a C14 then the price for a goto mount is around there due to its weight. My current mount an SXP2 can carry a C11 or GSO 10" RC (17 kg) within the limit of 22 kg for visual. It's Japanese who are conservative with the load. Being an SCT wouldn't you have more tolerance as what the mount carries is really a measure of torque it can produce and thats proportional to the length of the scope. A goto premium DOB (Lockwood, SV) would cost around the same as a C14 with a goto mount however the eye price would be at the right end of the scope.

Also Crux harmonic drives might work as well, this one has a 40 kg capacity. https://astrograph.net/epages/www_astrograph_net.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/www_astrograph_net/Products/AGCRUX200HD2

Usually around 10 metric tons is allowed to fall back to earth in an uncontrolled manner. The Chinese are allowing 20 tons to re-enter in an uncontrollable manner, last time they did he created a mess all over Africa.

No, it's getting as long as: "How much strehl difference is actually detectable?" on CN It's quite common I'm told by dealers if they sell a scope for 0.98 and it gets reported on CN they get a return because another scope they sold of the same model tests at 0.96. For instance Vixens usual test at 0.96 whereas Takahashi will be higher 0.97 ish. I'm sure the differences being reported are other lens metrics.

How much for the AZ100 goto kit then…

I was hoping someone would do push to encoders.