LaurenceT

14 hours ago, markse68 said:

Looks more of a perch than a seat- you’d need to keep feet on ground or rig up a footrest?

Your use of the word "perch" is relevant in terms of safety. I use an all wood observing chair by Geoptik and take the view to regard it as a perch rather than a chair.

The chair is very useful and makes my time at the eyepiece more comfortable and rewarding but I'm very aware of the inherent lateral instability and not to pitch myself backwards if I fail to ensure that the rear leg is positioned correctly when moving the chair to a new position.

Maybe try reinstalling the app?

You may find it easier to replace the Allen key bolts with Bob's Knobs. I'm not brilliant at collimation but using these bolts on the primary and secondary mirrors alleviates my stress! Sorry if you've already heard of them.

Bob's Knobs StellaLyra / Celestron / Sky-Watcher Newtonian Collimation Knobs | First Light Optics

I'm having trouble navigating the booking form, can't add a second person or choose a particular pitch, my elderly brain! I'll try again in the morning.

15 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

The etiquette guide:

https://www.astrocamp.awesomeastronomy.com/information/etiquette-guide.

Well behaved dogs are allowed. 😀

 

The dog's well behaved, not so sure about the wife.............🤣

Thanks for the replies, wife and dog want to come, is this suitable?

I'm new to this Astrocamp idea, id appreciate a link to this Autumn camp please.

57 minutes ago, Ags said:

Oh no I  just bought the AZ-GTI! I wonder if this can do EQ?

I could see no mention of EQ for this mount on their site, they just talked about encoders.

12 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Ahh daydreaming about astro gear, it's the only way we can afford it. I think a zwo AM5 would be a really nice mount to own. 

Lee 

That would be my ideal mount too because of it's weight and load capacity however it will only exist in my dreams😆

12 minutes ago, adyj1 said:

Laurance,

You may want to tidy your link up to just:

https://skywatcher.com/post/advertisement/AZ-GTiX/

as the current link goes through Facebook first...

(and it gives people an idea as to what they are clicking on)

HTH

Ady

Thanks for pointing that out Ady, all changed now.

Anybody else seen this:

Sky-Watcher | Advertisement (skywatcher.com)

2 hours ago, Cosmic23 said:

Yes I am

Which file are you trying to download?

47 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Yep I agree it is heavier but still more manageable than I thought 😊

It's been a game changer for me, done away with vibrations when observing even on the Mak127.

I thought that I'd have problems carting it around being somewhat advanced in years but it's manageable.

41 minutes ago, Cosmic23 said:

Hello, I have a MacBook (one of the newer ones), and I was trying to download oaCapture because I recently got a SVBONY SV105 camera for my telescope. When I click the download button, it doesn't even attempt to download. If any one knows what is wrong please tell me

Are you trying to download from this page?

Downloads | Open Astro Project

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

I have one of the heated USB body warmers on that page that was bought for me and I love mine when I use it in the winter. 

When I connect a power tank it'll keep me warm all during my imaging session that I stay out with my equipment. Even when I don't use a power tank the silver material reflects all my body heat back in so only put the power on intermittently but so toasty.  The power draw can be low well with my power tank so the talentcell power pack should cope and not switch off or any power tank that stays on with low power draw. 

Lee

 

Thanks for the heads up Lee, should keep my old bones warm in the unlikely event of clear winter night skies but also a hedge against spiralling energy costs during the day 😆.

33 minutes ago, malc-c said:

You have a new revision synscan board as identified by the USB -B port.  You're best bet it to use a standard USB - A to B cable (active if longer than 3m).  Connect it to the mount and then the PC and power up.  Windows should detect the new hardware and place a virtual com port in device manager.  If it shows a yellow exclamation mark you may need to download the Prolific driver for a USB to TTL serial driver from either SW website or Prolific website.  Once this is installed and the COM port is no longer showing any warnings, open the properties and set the transition speed to 115200 baud.

You don't need to connect any cables to the handset.  In fact the handset can be removed completely as you should not use it when using a PC to control the mount.

You will also need ASCOM platform installed to allow all applications to communicate through it, and I recommend using EQMOD as the "driver" for telescope control.  - Configuring EQMOD has been covers time and time again on the forum, so no pint in repeating things here, just use the search function to throw up previous posts.

 

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

14 hours ago, Paulo Campeone said:

Hi, I’m about 8 months into owning a Skywatcher 200p and the EQ5-Pro mount and feel brave enough to move onto connecting to my laptop and exploring Stellarium. Anyone got any tips on the hard wiring? No matter what variety of cables and connection outlets I combine my mount doesn’t show in Stellarium, ASCOM or EQMOD. 
As the mount has no direct outlet to connect too I have tried using the ports on both the Synscan hand set and the hand control system that it plugs into but neither have given me any joy.I know this has probably been asked a million times before, I apologise in advance but would appreciate any advice at all.

thanks.

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.

5 hours ago, Heids said:

I remember that the sky got too cloudy to see anything and I was upset. It was in the winter I am sure. 

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.

6 hours ago, Heids said:

I’ve seen aurora twice. Once was in Newbury, West Berks during what was clearly a very very strong solar storm. I think it would have been around 1986-87ish? 

Second time was much more satisfying - around 7 hours of it from the window of a plane coming back from Vegas, beautiful dark purple and green hues. 

Definitely possible this far down south, but I think it was very much a fluke seeing it when I did in Newbury. 

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

11 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Hi Lawrence, have you looked at the Kitakaru eyepiece.

StellaLyra 30mm 2" KITAKARU RPL Eyepiece | First Light Optics

Now it might not have a fantastic FOV at 62 degree but I have not heard anything bad about these.

The reviews I found refer to extremely flat and colour free results at the eyepiece. And your DOB at F6 will be a perfect match giving 1.5 degrees at mag 40. Slightly over budget but you might struggle getting one 2nd hand. 

There is also the superview eyepiece also by stella lyra but I believe this is a copy of the GSO although should still work well in an F6 and better still, under budget. However I am not able to offer any more info about it but might be worth pursuing further.

StellaLyra 30mm 2" SuperView Eyepiece | First Light Optics

I would like and may yet get a Kitakaru 18mm for the DOB for use on smaller targets. I love my 102 eyepiece but sometimes smaller objects look better framed in a smaller fov. 

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.

21 minutes ago, Louis D said:

There's not much in that price range, new or used, that will vastly improve the view in the outer reaches of the FOV at f/6.

If you doubled your budget, I'd recommend the 40mm Lacerta ED as a decent step up that gets you pretty close to 40mm Pentax XW level correction.  At 30mm, the APM UFF and it's other brandings is exceptional while not being TV priced.

You'll probably want to invest in a coma corrector at some point to clean up the edges and flatten the field a bit once you get eyepiece astigmatism under control (but not before).  The GSO CC is probably the best bang for the buck out there.  It's sold under many different brand names worldwide.

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.

20 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

Some members have adapted commercial chairs to make them sturdier and more stable:

 

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.