GrumpiusMaximus

The rings are there because to focus the camera, I need more travel than the built-in focuser can provide. This isn't an issue with visual observing because the diagonal, etc. add to the length of the light path. Without the diagonal, I need to add a bit more length into the light path to achieve focus. If I had a field flattener, these may not be necessary. This will depend on your scope, etc. You'll need a wedge if you're going to do anything that needs tracking, as it's necessary to polar align. I'm at the beginning of this hobby and I'm having issues getting my polar alignment routine to work in software. I know what I need to do but there always seems to be a technical issue and I can't quite get it to work. I've got plate solving working at least! Really would recommend watching as many videos on the principles of astrophotography as possible, it'll really help if you understand why you're doing things!

I can't say I've tried it but I don't see a situation where that's helpful. Bear in mind that the amount of light that's coming into your scope is the same regardless of the eyepiece you put in - so each eyepiece is dealing with the same image but just changing its size. I have three eyepieces that I use regularly but looking at Jupiter this season but have often found that my image is actually sharper and I can get more detail in a less magnifying eyepiece and it's more comfortable for me to use due to the longer eye relief. My advice for now is to go out on a decent night and look at M42 (the Orion Nebula) with your 25mm and the 10mm. Don't worry about Barlows and the other eyepieces - just get a feel for what you can see with those two. There are plenty of nights where I observe with only my 20mm eyepiece and get plenty of fun out of that. Keep it simple until you get a better idea of what you're doing and looking at. Ask me how I know...

Welcome! The longer the focal length on the eyepiece, the lower the magnification and the wide the field of view (FOV). The barlow just doubles the magnification. Magnification only makes the image larger, the amount of light is limited by the aperture of the telescope - so don't assume that you'll get a better image at higher magnification. For general observing, I would start with your 25mm eyepiece. The 10mm is also reasonable. The others are better eyepiece designs (probably) but are high magnifications and you might find them harder to use, as you'll need to have your eye closer to the eyepiece and your mount needs to be more stable. The 6mm should be good on the Moon and planets (only Jupiter is realistically viewable right now). The 4mms are probably pushing it. I wouldn't use the Barlow with anything other than the 25mm, adding a Barlow to 10mm is analogous to 5mm (but dimmer) and a Barlow on 6mm and 4mm is unnecessary and the exit pupil will be tiny, plus your mount will be nowhere near stable enough. I really wouldn't bother with the 5x Barlow. That's excessive and I can't think of any situations where that is useful. The 2x Omni Barlow is fairly decent (I have one). Your setup should be Scope - Diagonal - Barlow (if using) - Eyepiece Hope that's helpful.

I have an AZ-GTI an am branching out into astrophotography with it. I picked mine up second-hand with the counterweight and counterweight bar, along with a better vixen dovetail clamp. I had the EQ wedge for it (I also own a Star Adventurer, which I'm going to sell soon) but picked up another wedge from a member of this forum that's a homebrew design and much better than the Skywatcher one. I'm using a Raspberry Pi 4 with Astroberry for control of the mount and camera (remotely logging in using a laptop) but there's no need for it really and you'll get away with an intervalometer with a DSLR. The only tricky part is getting a polar alignment. You'll either need to buy a bracket and polar scope or do the polar alignment in software with the camera attached to the scope. I'm not guiding mine at the moment, which would make it much easier. I haven't done much, only a couple of attempts so far and I've got a long way to go getting an accurate polar alignment. An accurate polar alignment is an absolute must if you're just tracking - if you're guiding it's a bit less important but the better the alignment, the better the results either way. Here's my setup as of yesterday: The total equipment list here: Altair Starwave Ascent 70ED Telescope. (70mm at F6 - 420mm focal length) Altair Hypercam 183C (was gifted to me) AZ-GTI with counterweight and bar Second-hand homebrew EQ wedge Old Manfrotto aluminium tripod (second-hand eBay find) Talentcell 6000 mAh battery pack Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB cable Lynx Astro Silicone Power Cable 2.1mm DC Jack to 2.1mm DC Jack USB A to USB C cable Raspberry Pi4 8GB Neewer generic spacing rings (you may not need these, depends on the scope and camera) Neewer generic vixen bar (again, not 100% necessary, depends on the scope) Golden Retriever x Labrador (4 1/2 years, moral support and assistance) The Talentcell battery powers the AZ-GTI and the Raspberry Pi 4 (which subsequently powers the camera). This is a complete grab-and-go, with no need for a mains power connection. I have a dew heater too but that needs an additional power source as it pulls too much current to plug into the Pi. The only additions I'd need to make for a 'full' setup is a guide camera and scope. This setup can be converted to visual in under a minute by just removing the camera and cable and attaching a star diagonal. For EQ mode with a setup like this, I'd definitely recommend a counterweight bar and weight. It takes a significant amount of strain off the mount. The better the balance, the better the tracking.

Had a quick go with the photography setup but couldn't get PHD2 to read the FITS files and polar align. So I roughed it in and took some wide shots of Ursa Major as an experiment. It didn't track properly (probably tripod levelling) but I got a few frames at 10 seconds. Still loads to learn but bit by bit I'm getting there. With a few clear nights I'll crack it. I then took out the camera, put in the diagonal and had about ten minutes on the moon and a bit of a scan around Cassiopeia. Sky was clear but the Moon is very bright and the seeing is only moderate, with a lot of turbulence up high - which was very evident on the Moon. Decent views though. Nice to be able to do it so quickly and convert the setup.

It means that all of this: Runs off a battery pack, that is also secured to the tripod. And it can all be reset for visual in about 2 minutes by just removing the camera and a couple of cables. The battery pack connects directly to the AZ-GTI mount to power it and the Raspberry Pi to power that. The camera is powered from the USB 3 port of the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is attached to the tripod leg. It puts out its own WiFi hotspot, so all I need to do is connect a laptop to the Raspberry Pi's WiFi network and log in to get full control over everything. I do have a dew heater but that draws too much current if I try to run it out of the Pi and the camera shuts down. Next thing is a guide scope and guide camera but I haven't even tried this setup out in anger yet. I'll stop posting about this now because this a visual thread - but I wanted to make a setup I could convert in less than five minutes and take outside with one hand. We'll see how effective it is soon... DISCLAIMER. The dog does not run off the battery pack and generally runs off lamb, potato and sardines.

We've had thick, unrelenting cloud here for the last few days. Instead of going out to look at stars, I've been fiddling with Astroberry, 70ED, Hypercam 183c and my AZ-GTI and got them all talking to each other, set up a real-time clock in the Astroberry and set up a VNC profile to access it from an old laptop. All working nicely now. I've also calculated and measured the focus point and written it on a little sticker for my tripod so I can get it roughed in quickly and as I've got the Raspberry Pi running off the same battery pack that's powering the AZ-GTI, there's no need for a mains connection and I can attach it all to the tripod and take it out with one hand. A grab-and-go astrophotography setup. Which, of course, means I can strip it all down and go to visual in under 2 minutes. So when I stop learning about the different varieties of thick, grey cloud visual observation isn't inconvenient...

I work in IT (specifically for an MSP) and am yet to find a single consumer-grade inkjet printer that I think is worth buying long-term. Others may disagree but I believe that all printers are inherently evil and should be burned, buried, exhumed, exorcised by an old priest and a young priest, burned again, buried at sea, excavated from the sea floor, thrown from a third-storey window and then nuked from orbit. Just to be sure. With that said, other experiences are valid...

My partner's Dad has been over today so after work, I got my little scope out and pointed it at Jupiter and the Moon for him. He's in his 60s and has never looked through a half-decent scope. He was still talking about the terminator details on the Moon about two hours later. So it obviously made an impact. Decent transparency but a lot of moisture in the air and very cold. Emptied a bucket of water that had filled up over the last month in the garden the top of it was a solid inch of ice! I did start thinking about the diffraction qualities of ice and then realised the cold had got to me and I'd better go and warm up...

This will entirely co-incide with me being single!

So. Have you bought a small refractor yet?

You've reminded me that I have a BBC Micro in the loft. Clean installs don't take long anyway. Best of luck!

Restart File Explorer. If you Ctrl+Alt+Del, select 'Task Manager' and under the 'Processes' tab, find 'Explorer.exe'. Right-click and restart it. Regrettably, a large part of my job is IT support and was all I did until a few months ago so I've seen this quite a few times!

Put my refractor out at around 5.30PM and had a quick look at the moon at 21X. Wow. Incredible details along the terminator. Left the scope out and finally got outside again at around 10.15 for a short session. Moved my setup onto the (now frozen) lawn which gave me a slightly better North Westerly view and I had a look at the Pleiades. Absolutely glorious, with still conditions. My AZ-GTI decided that it didn't want to work properly with my phone (probably a function of the cold and the battery pack probably needs charging, there was frost on the mount) so went looking around for M31. As a beginner, it still takes me a bit of time. Found it, had a good look for a few minutes and then decided that I wanted to look at a double star. I'm not a double star viewer. I know nothing about them and am completely ignorant - so I went for Mizar because it's an easy one. That was really good fun. I might do more of that. Really good seeing tonight. My only regrets are that I had household things to attend to so couldn't get out earlier and that I didn't wear bigger socks.

I bought this RDF and was highly amused to receive the instructions for zeroing a rifle included in the box. This is a really good idea...

Owner of a NexStar mount here (with a C5). I wouldn't recommend it for a Newtonian as you'll find that it'll run into the base of the NexStar mount once you're over a fairly small altitude. The C5 works well with it because it's a short scope that won't run into it. I would be looking to upgrade to a beefier Equatorial. I don't own any personally, so I'm not able to specifically advise. Technicially an EQM-35 Pro GOTO would be beefy enough but may not be ideal if you want to move into imaging. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-eqm-35-pro-synscan-goto-modular-mount.html So would an EQ-5, although that may be a little more marginal. If you really do want to go all-in and get a properly beefy mount, an HEQ5 PRO would do the job without an issue: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-heq5-pro-synscan.html But that does significantly increase the costs. Newtonians are a pain to mount, which is why the Dobsonian design is so popular for visual. Others will have more informed opinions and real-World use of these mounts but I hope that gives you some kind of starting point.

Would explain why I'm over the weight limit for one of those Berlebach astronomy chairs...

This thread is making me feel funny on the inside.

This is the scope that I own: https://www.altairastro.com/altair-starwave-ascent-70ed-telescope---visual-and-astrophotography-bundle-464-p.asp The 72s that @Stu has posted are slightly more premium, with better glass. Mine does exhibit some CA around 100x on Jupiter (on a very clear night, with a passing wind) but nothing unacceptable. I'd be tempted to go for the 100 Starfield but my mount is only an AZ-GTI. Which also brings up the question of mounting. I like a setup I can grab with one hand and put on my patio if I get a ten minute break in the clouds. But that's my priority, which may not match your priority.

I'm not going to try and persuade you against a 4" apo...

I have a little bit of recent experience here - although I do not pretend for a single second that I have anything like the experience of many in this thread as I am a relative beginner to the hobby. I've owned a C5 for a couple of years and really like the scope. It gives good views of DSOs and planets but I've always found it a little lacking on stars. It's the scope I bring out for looking at Messier objects, etc. I'm very fond of it, I like it and I use it (I've had it out this evening, in fact). Recently a 70mm ED refractor came up for sale on the forum and I purchased it. It's ostensibly Altair but is also branded as TS and a few other models. It's a quality little scope, with a 2" Crayford focuser, integrated dew shield and is well built. The first night I got it out - and every night since - I have been absolutely thrilled with its widefield performance. It's fair to say that I didn't 'get' refractors before buying the scope. After all, why would I not want the extra aperture that my C5 affords me? Well, the contrast is better and although it doesn't pick up the DSOs in the same way, the views are sharp and clear. At just 42X I was able to pick up IO ending its transit of Jupiter last week (a slight elongation) and with higher magnification I've managed to get the GRS. Easily done in the C5 - but the 70ED punches well above its weight by the nature of the optical system. I have also made a 2" eyepiece out of a couple of old pairs of 10x50 binoculars (loads of tutorials online on how to do this - look up Red Henry) and whilst the eyepiece is actually too wide for the scope to really take advantage of, I can scan at 8X. I picked up loads of satellites and a meteorite with that ridiculous eyepiece. I do not regret buying my 70ED for a moment and having a C5 that I can also bring out and stick on the same mount is great. I can change OTAs in less than a minute. Now the only challenge is holding back the desire to source a 4" refractor...

I've just come in from a session. We had an absolutely clear night last night but, naturally, I wasn't able to take advantage of it due to other matters. It's not as good tonight but I did get a good view of M45 and M42 with my 70ED. Had a scan around the Milky Way at Cassiopeia as well - always a fun exercise just drinking in the star field. Then I decided that I wanted to have a look at some DSOs so swapped my OTA out to my C5 and went to the classic M81/M82 double threat and spent about 15 minutes gazing at each in turn. M82 was much easier to spot than M81 for me - but both were very clear. I couldn't make out any particular structure in M82 - probably as a function of high cloud, the capability of the C5 and (as ever) my ineptitude but M81/M82 are two of my favourite objects. Unfortunately I have a bit of a galaxy fascination. Fortunately I don't have the funds for a round of aperture fever but I would absolutely own a 16" Obsession given half the chance (and being booted out of the house).

0C here and looking promising. I've got my C5 and my 70ED out ready to go. That's bound to attract clouds. Sorry, local members.

I have an Altair Ascent 70ED (F6) which provides decent visual performance although it is small aperture. It's around 300mm long and weighs practically nothing. It's a good widefield scope if you're not looking for something with a longer focal length. I bought it from this forum a few weeks ago and have been using it since. Because it's a 420mm focal length, it doesn't require a large mount so I've been using an AZ-GTI and that's been more than adequate. All you'd need is a decent tripod. A couple of eyepieces, diagonal and barlow and you'd be up-and-running. I also have a Sky-Watcher Heritage 100p and the OTA weighs a lot less but you'd have to disassemble the table-top mount. If you're happy with doing that non-destructively then that could also work. You could potentially mount it on an AZ-GTI as above, too and it would be lower weight, with a slightly larger aperture and is probably about equivalent in terms of performance. A Celestron C5 doesn't weigh much either and is a very short tube. For visual use, I have gotten away with using an AZ-GTI for that too but it is more marginal due to the much longer focal length. Lightweight and reasonable for the brighter visual DSOs. The much more expensive option of the three, though.

Even more fun when you have no idea what you're doing!