GrumpiusMaximus

Some pictures of the completed eyepiece. I actually used three pairs of binoculars for this for various reasons but one of them didn't have a metal lens cell, so the top lens is just the lens without a surrounding, secured with a metal collimation ring.

Looks like the abominable snowman has broken into your observatory there. Better act quick.

A slightly rubbish picture of the setup I took about 20 minutes ago, after getting too cold. I'll get a better one tomorrow. The eyepiece is too big for this scope really and needs something with a longer focal length and larger aperture. But scanning the Milky Way with it is great fun.

I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this stage.

I was up at 4.15AM as my partner had an interview several hours away this morning and apparently I'm a nice guy that made tea and coffee to take with her. Then the dog kept me up because she's a dog and doesn't understand that it's too early. I work full-time from home so decided that I'd go to my office at around 7.15AM (where I keep my scope) and have a look at Venus. Absolutely lovely. Managed to get a DIY 2" 50mm eyepiece (made from old binoculars - the Red Henry type) made up after work and have just been out to give it a spin. Wonderful widefield views of the Pleiades! I'm really pleased with it, despite its incredibly crude appearance it's actually a decent performer. The deity status must be subsiding as we've now had two clear nights in a row. I'll try and go out again a bit later if I don't fall asleep in my chair...

Made up an eyepiece this afternoon. It's a bit crude but I've just been giving it a go through my 70ED. It's ridiculously oversized and the exit pupil at 8.3mm is bigger than I can take full advantage of but first impressions are good. I've made an eyecup out of some thin foam to stop stray light as the eye relief is quite long. I have to have my eye fairly well centered on the eyepiece and with a long eye relief, having the eyecup lets me gently rest my face in the right place. I've got some lovely widefield views of M42 and the Pleiades, with the whole of the Pleiades fitting into the FOV nicely. I can confirm that the diagram that astronomy.tools produces is fairly accurate: I'm really quite impressed and for the sake of about 30 GBP, it's worth a go. No issues with CA or astigmatism, sharp views across most of the FOV, etc. and definitely confirms that I like 2" eyepieces in general. Will be trying this with some smaller binoculars in the future!

Had a look at Jupiter just now. First clear night in weeks but sadly (and as is typical) various things to do tonight so may not get another chance. Saw a slight elongation on Jupiter and then realised that must be Io at the end of its transit. That was cool, considering I was only at 42x.

I'll have a look. I'm aware of the Facebook group but haven't been on that site since 2010. There are various things about. Might give me an excuse to buy a 3D printer to make housings...

A RASA on an Alt-Az mount strikes me as something of a contradiction.

I'm in the process of acquiring the parts for an eyepiece constructed from two pairs of 10x50 binoculars. I've only had one pair delivered so far but on a quick dry assembly I cannot believe how simple it is. It will take me about 10 minutes to assemble the whole thing once I've got all the bits! If you are thinking of giving this a go, you'll need 50mm internal diameter steel tubing, not the 50.8mm, as a 2" focusser/diagonal is 50.8, so the barrel needs to be undersized. I've bought some mild steel tube from eBay and it fits perfectly and I'll paint it for corrosion protection and preventing internal reflections. I also took one of the smaller lenses from the binocular and converted it as it all just fits with a cheap 1.25" barrel from a spare (cheap) eyepiece. I'll test it properly when I next get my small telescope out but daytime testing has demonstrated that it's not bad. Not as good as my WO 20mm Swan - but usable in daytime. I'm surprised to see so few people trying this! The donor binoculars cost less than 10GBP each (including shipping) and the 50mm tube was around 13GBP for a length that will do ten eyepieces. Some paint and epoxy (or superglue) and LX tape are fairly nominal costs too, so for around 35GBP I can apparently have a decent 50mm. Will report back on performance of both the 1.25" eyepiece and 2" eyepiece when fully constructed and tested under a decent sky!

I really think I must be some kind of cloud deity. We now have snow falling. Maybe I should become a meterologist and give up this astronomy malarkey. I suspect the Venn diagram of 'astronomers' and 'meterologists' has a significant co-incidental section...

My Dad was running a session with his mate with a 20" reflector at an observatory local to him. I'll have to ask him what he saw but I am incredibly jealous. I left my scope outside after my earlier 10 minutes or so on Jupiter, optimistically thinking it might clear up. Came back outside an hour later to discover that leaving my scope out had angered the cloud Gods and it had rained. No damage done fortunately. Checked every half hour for a break or so but no luck. No doubt the minute I'm asleep my town will magically become a Bortle 1 zone with perfect seeing and I'll also miss a bolide. Or something.

Dreadful view here by-and-large but it's poking out between the clouds occasionally. I've got the 70ED on it but I might break out the C5 if the cloud situation improves. I think if I see the GRS it's going to be a case of wishful thinking with the 70, although I did catch it a little while ago.

Apologies, misunderstood your original query in that case: https://skywatcher.com/download/software/ascom-driver/

The SynScan Pro app is easy to use. The AZ-GTi broadcasts its own hotspot and you just connect to that, open the app and connect to the mount. I've had mine for a few weeks now and the AA batteries work OK for a bit but I've bought a talentcell battery pack (as recommended by others) and it does the job seamlessly. After a while, I started experiencing intermittent responsiveness when using the app and it was because the AA batteries had started to become marginal. For the first use though, I don't think there's an issue with using them at all - just make sure they're new ones. The alignment from the app is really easy and even the single-star alignment is reasonable. Make sure you've got the scope on the right way. If you've aligned the mount and leave the power on you can still take the clutches off and use it manually and it should remember where you are as it has encoders. I haven't tested the reliability of it on mine. There's a big AZ-GTi owners thread on here which I read most of before purchasing. It's a really versatile little mount and I'm thoroughly impressed with mine.

Stunning photographs, absolutely stunning. Your Pleiades is amongst the best I've seen! They're all wonderful.

I do. I bought some flexible foam from a local craft shop, rolled it into a tube, glued with superglue and secured with duct tape. Then cut out for the vixen rail so that I could get it over the scope. Minimal cost and seems to work well enough. Took about 10 minutes to actually make.

Canterbury/Dover area. Not been great here.

I observed my neighbour's bin store lid in my garden tonight, having flown over the 6 foot fence and then (presumably) right over my 10-foot high garden office to land next to the damson tree. I don't think there will be much observing happening today...

What you're failing to take into account is my enormous ineptitude and the fact that yes, it is completely disassembled.

Look to the South this week at around 6.30AM and that enormously bright object is Venus. Have a look at that, you won't make out any surface detail (you can't, it's permanently covered in cloud) but you can't miss it.

I have a Nexstar mount that I've entirely eschewed for my AZ-GTi. The only reason I'd get it out again is if I wanted to have two scopes set up at the same time and it was clear. I know the Nexstar isn't exactly arduous as many setups go but that 15 minutes of faffing around getting it set up and aligned is about 12 minutes longer than I need than with the same OTA (or one of my other OTAs) on the AZ-GTi. I have an outdoor office and the setup is just by the door. The tripod now also has a couple of pouches attached to it which contain my Barlow lens, another eyepiece, a soft glasses case and a battery pack for the AZ-GTi, so I can grab the full setup with one hand and my adjustable plastic stool with the other and plonk it down on the patio. I can be up and ready with a rough alignment in under 3 minutes using GOTO or in under a minute if I'm going manual. It's really changed the amount of observing I do. Previously I'd wait days and days for perfect conditions to justify getting the Nexstar mount out, the big Celestron Power Tank, setting it all up and aligning it because it was a hassle. Most of my sessions are short and opportunistic at the moment (stop sniggering at the back!) but because I have a lightweight, quick setup I have done more observing in the last month than I had in the year previous. Perhaps the 'awkward middle ground' between having a permanent observatory and a grab-and-go setup is where many that rarely use their equipment are?

I found the double cluster for the first time this way. I was looking for something else (cannot remember what!) and desperately sweeping. Suddenly it came into my FOV and took my breath away. One of the reasons I want to learn to star hop, the journey is the point - not necessarily the intended destination...

The best telescope for you is the telescope that you are going to use. If that's the SCT, then go for it. There aren't any real 'dealbreakers', so I think you've made the right choice in your circumstances. It may be undermounted on that tripod but I don't have any experience with it - I just know that at 1250mm focal length, it's quite demanding on your tripod. With bigger SCTs, the advantage you gain by having a smaller optical tube is often offset by needing a bigger mount but with the 5", this is a bit less of a concern. I own a C5, which is the same tube (different colour as it was supplied as part of a different range) and it's a very handy little telescope. A few years back I did a Messier Marathon with it and a C6 (slightly bigger brother) and between us we managed to clock over 90 objects from a reasonably dark-sky location, so in my experience, DSOs are not an issue. A Messier Marathon isn't necessarily the strictest test of a scope but it demonstrates that you'll be able to see a lot with it. Just last night I took my C5 out and pointed it at Jupiter and had some excellent views - albeit brief due to our UK weather. Many good things have been said about the Starsense system and its accuracy, which should definitely help. Also - props to your wife. On paper and all else being equal the 130AZ does make more sense as a first telescope in most circumstances (portability notwithstanding) so I can absolutely see how she got there.

Oh no. Now I have refractor envy.