Ags

I think I will try the SA GTi, although to be honest I really only need the tracking and polar scope. I would never under any circumstances use goto, too stressful!

Sweating the small stuff... I made the symbol for DSOs more fuzzy, and changed star labels to a smaller size and deep grey to make them less in-your-face. Still pushing labels around on the pages. I am also adding a few pages on the brightest clusters and the doubles in them.

I spent some time in a sun lounger scanning for Perseids, I only saw one through the light pollution and moonlight, but it was a good one, very fast with subzero magnitude. I stopped for my first view of Jupiter for the year. Seeing and contrast was very poor (viewing with a C6), but Io was showing a strong yellow color. Nice to think that little dot is yellow with sulphur frost and marked with huge seas of lava!

Very happy with my ES 20/68 too.

@Stu1smartcookie That is really good for a phonecam! Which phone was that?

Had a quick session with my visiting daughter. My granddaughter was tiktokking however, and couldn't be interrupted in her important work. 😀 We started with the ET cluster which got a gasp when the pattern came into focus. The Double Cluster was next and it seemed to make less impression, although the red stars scattered through the cluster did earn a Like. We moved down to Almach, but the C6 was too close to the grape-clad pergola - the finders could see over the leaves but the main scope was just too low. I picked up the whole setup and moved it back two meters. Almach was still dead center in the RDF. My astronomy-fu is stronger than anyones! Finally up to M31/32, but it was a bit underwhelming, the audience preferred the rendition of this DSO in the Zenithstar 66 last night.

I do kind of like this... No electronics! If I can get that to work for me, I could get the Zero and the Omegon MiniTrack Quattro.

I don't think I would go bigger than my C6 to be honest. But I was surprised the stated max load was 7 kg.

Sadly the AZ-GTi and SkyHunter (and maybe the harmonic mounts) are the only mounts that are in the right weight/size range for me. An EQ5 is not coming on Holiday to La Palma... But the more I look, the more I see there is no portable mount with tracking with a good reputation. Seriously considering just getting the Mount Zero for the Mars season. For photography I might indeed get an EQ-3. It's not like I am aiming for 5-minute subs. Can a Zero really take 7 kgs load?

My AZ GTi seems to be giving up the ghost, it seems like something is catching in the azimuth axis leading to continuous vibrations. I'm not too sad as the GTi has been a constant source of headaches interspersed with the odd magical session. I use the mount for photography and a little visual (solar, lunar and planetary). I had been thinking of getting a bigger refractor next, sometime in October, but now it looks like I need a mount. But what? Reading on CN about Star Adventurer GTi and the Ioptron Skyhunter make my blood run cold. Are these new mounts really that bad? A harmonic drive mount capable of AZ and running off an app or preferrably hand controller would be a contender, but the cost is insane. Also I would be doing short 5-20 second subs unguided. Not sure that's possible with a harmonic drive mount. The other option is to give up on photography for now and get ScopeTech Mount Zero. That will allow the fine tracking and intuitive controls that would work for sharing the views with my family. Or maybe an EQM35? I don't know! I don't know! 🤣

Oh, AZ GTi Why oh why Do you make me cry? My AZ GTi seems to have picked up a "tock" in the AZ axis. Every second the scope snaps left slighty causing half a second of vibrations. This makes it pretty useless for tracking photographically or visual, and I am using it without tracking. Tell me there is an easy fix!

APOD.

Well done on M33! It must have been pretty dark.

Saturn with the ZS66 tonight, a more satisfying view than with the C6 last night. I was using a barlowed SLV 6 - nice! Glimpses of the Cassini Division. Had a quick look at Almach afterwards, so orange! The blue companion is a bit too small in the ZS66 to show color however. Lovely pinpoint stars.

I have added an info box on the DSOs shown per page. We are currently working through the book tweaking the label positions.

Took out the C6 for a look at Saturn - first time this year. The seeing was not great, I settled on 140x with a light yellow filter to reduce atmospheric dispersion. I couldn't make out the Cassini Division or any surface detail, but Titan was an easy spot and Rhea was also barely visible. I should have put the ZS66 out too, I suspect it would have handled the seeing better.

@johninderby just wondering how the evolux is bedding in?

Superb!

What's Step 12? Buy a zoom and cut up the credit card? Now I'm thinking I can get a zoom in there...

My back to basics eyepiece case works out well in the field. It's easier to select the right eyepiece in the dark, and easier to keep track of the lens caps. I am not entirely free of eyepiece acquisition syndrome. I still have a nagging thought that the Speers WALER 13.4 might be better replaced by an ES11 and Nirvana 16, or that could squeeze in a couple more SLVs. But I am hopeful for a full recovery!

Hey! That's a good night over here!

I was looking at M31 and M32 tonight. I could make out traces of the big galaxy's disk, but couldn't find M110. Also spent some time on Polaris with my Speers WALER 4.9 mm, rotating the eyepiece to see if it was miscollimated but tonight it was giving concentric diffraction rings consistently... ET Cluster and Double Cluster too.

My proudest mathematical moment was generating diffraction patterns using this principle despite my inability to comprehend grown up maths like Fourier transforms. Here is an animation I generated of spider vanes growing thicker. Animation doesn't play on SGL 🙄

Experimenting with adding DSOs to the charts. This is a debugging view with the charts monochrome and the new elements (DSOs) highlighted in green. I might cut down the objects to only Messiers and Caldwells. In addition, the DSOs are only included where they do not crowd the double finder circles.

I discovered today that the 1.25" nosepiece from the otherwise worthless TS diagonal fits in the Skywatcher diagonal, so now I have a Skywatcher freebie diagonal with a brass compression ring!