LaurenceT

I did wonder why I was connecting the handset..........

Hi Paolo Please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to do, I'm an absolute newbie to this astro business. However I do have the same mount as you and I've been setting it up this morning to try and solve your problem and learn something myself. Normally I don't use the hand controller, I use an Asiair instead so this is a learning curve for me too. Firstly you have to connect the hand controller to the mount via the hand control port on the the left of the controller. Secondly ditch the cable that you have connected to the auto guide port, it's not required. The USB port on the Synscan handset is a USB 2.0 type B. You must connect the hand controller to your laptop via the USB port on the hand controller using one of these cables: USB C Printer Cable, USB C to USB B 2.0 Cable, Compatible with Printers, Scanners and other accessories (1m) : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories I have been following this video this morning: https://youtu.be/nWoTr6CcFb4 It helped me and may help you.

We had been visiting some friends in a village in Oxfordshire and we came out of the house in the middle of the evening to get the family into the car. We had a great view of the sky as the village was quire high up. I remarked that I was puzzled why so many car headlamps appeared to be playing across the sky. Someone suggested that maybe there were searchlights or even a massive laser show. Suddenly we realised that we were looking at an amazing display of the Aurora Borealis with very intense lights and colours. As we drove back to West London I kept looking in the wing mirror and could see the lights almost all the way to Windsor. It was almost certainly the years you mentioned as that would fit perfectly.

The one you saw in Berkshire all those years ago, was it on a very frosty clear night do you recall?

Thanks for that Steve, I'll have a look at them. It seems that the real issue here is will I get enough improvement over the stock Skywatcher 28mm 2" EP by buying a sub £100 EP to justify the expenditure.

Thanks, increasing the budget sufficiently is unlikely given the current economic situation. Interesting about the coma corrector, I hadn't thought about that, I have a Baader coma corrector lurking in a drawer. I'll have a play with that.

Now there is slightly more darkness I've dug out my stock 2" eyepiece that came with the 200p Dob and I've been truly amazed by the view offered. Up till now I've been using my Baader zoom but the 28mm 2" eyepiece is a different experience. I am however conscious of it's limitations, star sharpness falls off very quickly moving away from the centre so I'm looking for an effective upgrade. As ever there are financial constraints so I'd be looking to buy used with a budget of around £70, any comments gratefully received.

That's a superb modification but as soon as I saw the words "woodwork shop" my enthusiasm drained away😄

Another thing to consider is the size of the chair seat relative to....how can I put it....the size of your anatomical seat. I've just bought the relatively cheap Geoptik Nadira chair and the seat area is hardly massive in area. I've added some padding of my own and it's just about comfortable with my size rear end. If you are having to shift your position to get comfortable on the hard seat then you could be straining the chair structure and potentially making it unstable. If I had any woodworking skills at all I'd have made one to fit my personal physical specifications but if you can find one that you think would match the size of your rear end then that would be great.

Thanks Lee, I should have updated this thread. I have followed your advice and I'm now using the outdoor kit just as you describe and it works very well.

I hope you enjoy that zoom eyepiece as much as I do, it's one of the best things I've bought.

Solved the problem of the hard seat, found a foam seat cover from a childs bike in the garage. Looks a bit, erm, weird, but quite comfy.

I found it surprisingly stable, it's not as if your feet are swinging in the air as I imagined it would be. I've only tried it out on the concrete patio, I suspect it could be a bit wobbly on the "lawn".

Cheapest observing chair I could find, unfortunately not sold by FLO. I know some people have padded the seat, I might have a go, otherwise it seems stable. light enough to easily carry and easy to adjust.

Having decided to keep my Evoguide 50ED and use it as a guidescope rather than sell it I was not happy with mounting it on the little finder stalk that came with the 50ED. I had a search around and the best solution for me was the WO 50mm guide rings setup. Arrived this morning and now the ED50 is firmly secured. The rings the ED50 came with are being mounted on my 130PDS.

Has anybody used the AZ GTi in alt az mode combined with an Asiair for EAA?

For my home based grab and go I mount an Orion 80ED on my AZ5 mount. The total weight of the scope with all the bits on comes to 3.65 kg. The mount handles the scope perfectly although there is some backlash that I can't seem to cure. I have used it on both on the Skywatcher tripod : Sky-Watcher Tripod for Star Adventurer | First Light Optics which is the tripod sold with the AZ5 and also my Manfrotto 055CXPRO3: Manfrotto 055CXPRO3 | Cameralabs which I have had many years and used for photography with both I noticed a degree of shake when viewing through the eyepiece which I found unacceptable. However I didn't feel that either of them felt unstable with the mount in place unless I raised the central column which I would advise against. In order to make them both more stable for viewing I bought one of these: Neewer® Black Heavy Duty Photographic Studio Video SandBag for Gitzo, Manfrotto, Didea and Benro Series Stands and Other Universal Light Stands, Boom Stand and Tripod (2): Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo which are out of stock at Amazon but may be available elsewhere, together with this: Amazon Basics cast-iron kettlebell 4kg : Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors which made a huge difference, I appreciate that is not an option for travel.

I bought one of these to help me carry my 8" Dob. https://amzn.eu/d/56km9Cm Whilst not exactly heavy I was always worried about the slippery tube rotating in my arms and falling to the ground.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to this forum

The ISS passing over Camberley at about 23.30 with the naked eye. Never seen it before in the UK, once before in Florida about 10 years ago.

I really enjoyed it, the trouble was I followed the BBC suggestion to then watch Brian Cox 7 days on Mars and fell soundly asleep 😄

Lovely description, about what time was your observation?

Actually, thinking back I only saw 4 moons so I'll edit my post!

Dog woke me at 3.30 barking in the garden, went downstairs to see him sitting outside locked back door! How the hell did he get out there? Suddenly realised that I hadn't closed the lounge sliding door last night...thanks for waking me Archie! Standing looking outside I suddenly realised there was Jupiter brilliant in a perfectly clear dawn sky. The only scope at hand was the venerable Orion 80ED on an AZ5 in the kitchen. Grabbed it and took it outside and had a perfect view with the Baader zoom at 8mm. North and south equatorial belts very clear and 4 moons. I then realised that I only had a pair of shorts on and was feeling a bit chilly. I should really have dug the 127 Mak out of the garage, maybe tomorrow.