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Beginners' Evening On Monday evening, we have a chance to learn more about observing the Sun with Andy Devey, a member of Mexborough & Swinton AS. He is an expert on the subject and has appeared in Astronomy Now magazine. He will tell us how to get the best out of the equipment the society owns and show us what is possible when imaging the Sun. The second half of the evening will be the usual latest astronomy and space updates plus Monthly Notes and APODOM.

Celestron and SkyWatcher are both owned by Synta, so they'll probably be identical, with a premium added to the price for the Celestron brand. I know these things are also sold and rebranded for lots of other vendors, so my thinking is that if the housing looks identical to the SkyWatcher (other than some screen printing), they're the same thing, and any small differences in spec are down to the marketing masseuse ...

Good luck with that ... I wouldn't touch anything by Seben with a bargepole.

I like the look of that ... I ordered one!

Without the smythe lens, they are comarrific at anything faster than f/6!

I make it 237mm

Thank'ee kindly sir!

These look really nice! Any word on a mask for a 200mm f/4? newt?

The plastic helical focuser is a bit pants - can be made better by wrapping some PTFE tape around the threads to get rid of the slop. Single vane spider can make collimation difficult. Other than that, it's a fine little scope with great optics that collapses down to a space just over a foot square. It's really good value IMO. You will need a table or something to set it on.

They're for comfort. They just clip into the base that comes with the Telrad, so if you're not comfortable, you can add the riser later. I have the 4" one on my 12" dob and it's great.

Also ... Astronomy Shed UK Astronomy Forum • View topic - Complete Setup From A to Z ... video tutorial for EQ5 and EQ6.

Fa-aaa-aaa-ntastic! I'm going to be picking up an NEQ6 when some money arrives next week. Really looking forward to first light with mine now ...

That is totally outrageous.

Dead easy - I did mine one at a time, but made sure the OTA was at an angle ... just in case. Just ensure you don't get them crossthreaded.

Ordered! I'll be pulling the trigger on an NEQ6 when the pay cheque arrives at the end of the month, the rest of the kit is already in place, although the camera will be an old school Nikon D100 for now.

When you do a search, use: -("first thing you want to avoid","second thing you want to avoid")You can add as many things in the brackets as you like, for instance my saved astro search looks like: -(spotting,opticron,dynasun,seben,software)searched under "Photography - Binoculars & Telescopes - Telescopes", which knocks out most of the rubbish quite nicely.

fleaBay.

Don't touch it with a bargepole. I had an 8" seben - spherical primary, inadequate mount, total waste of money.

... and here it is!

I have the 100mm ones from Modern Astronomy which I bought after watching the video on AstronomyShed. They are a bit narrow, but there's more than enough room left for considerable adjustment.

You'll need to go to 2" for anything sensible. See if you can find a GSO SuperView 30mm - they're surprisingly good at longer focal lengths. You'll find them branded as "Revelation SuperView" in the UK, plus maybe a few other names as well ... 72° AFoV, 22mm eye relief, 5 lens elements, 2" barrel - I think the design is a modified Erfle. Looks like this: I have the 42mm version and it's a great eyepiece for the money (I paid about £45 new for it).

Indeed! Welcome aboard!

Seconded. He's a great guy to deal with. Be sure to check his "BST Explorer" eyepieces as well.

When I had the 13mm Nagler, that was always my most used eyepiece. Now, it's the 14mm ES.

Well the maximum useful magnification you're likely to get out of that scope is 225x, so the 10mm with a 2x barlow isn't that far short of the limit at 200x. You don't want anything stronger than a 2x barlowed 9mm. Have a look at Sky's the Limit - Alan does some nice stuff at very good prices. Specifically, check the BST Explorer, and the "TMB Designed" wide-angle planetary eyepieces.