Ags

That's the Berlebach Uni extension, made to a custom length for me. Tonight I was actualy trying the carbon fibre extension that came with the Artcise tripod. The Berlebach is much more stable, no surprise there.

I went for the Talentcell battery in the end. It's not the greenest option, but it should last me a very long time with my level of usage, and a rechargeable battery of any type has to be greener than disposable AAs, right? Issue with the Talentcell is that it is not 12V regulated, so I would like to get a regulator if possible... Can anyone recommend one? Can I use the power cord that comes with the Talentcell or do I need to get a special cable?

What's in the well-camoflaged observatory?

No idea about the red star, but it was the reddest star I have ever seen! I have just about split the Double Double with the ZS66 at over 100x. No color in the ring though I did glimpse green once in another telescope far far away, a long time ago. I jsut realised I typed Delta Cygni when I meant Delta Cephei. Three times.

I'm rather worried I might in contrast be a Seben Big Boss... 😃 Congrats John! You're not a chatbot are you? 🤣

If we are talking Plosslike eyepieces, let's not forget the Vixen SLVs. Super sharp, great eye relief, nice eye guard. The view is only 50° but is as good as anything else on the market.

The Double Cluster was spectacular tonight in my 13.4 mm. Despite the small aperture the stars seemed to be on fire. M31 in the same eyepiece was just a smudge, but there were hints of "wings" either side. Maybe one day under darker skies... Moving on to the planets with my 6.7 mm eyepiece (58x). Jupiter looked suprisingly large with one cloud belt and hints of other detail. Three satellites were showing and they looked like little discs for a change. Saturn looked surprisingly small but very sharp. The Ring nebula was a ring, a palpable ring. Zeta and Epsilon Lyrae were well split in the RACI finder and were a lovely sight together with Vega in the same view. The ZS66 couldn't however split the Double Double into four at 58x. Almach and Delta Cephei rounded off the evening. Almach is usually strongly colored but it was just white dots tonight. Delta Cephei was an eye poppingly beautiful yellow-blue combination. I normally struggle to see blues, only really seeing a cold white, but this star was vividly blue. Also, while scanning the sky around Delta Cephei, I stumbled across a bright really really red star.

Currently using this one a lot. Zenithstar 66, RACI 50mm, TS AZT6 and artcise carbon fibre tripod. It's an easy one handed lift, but two hands means less bumps. This is my heavier setup, still an easy carry (C6, AZ-GTi, wooden tripod).

I hear the Svbony 62° 10mm is surprisingly good, even if it uses a plastic aspherical lens. Never tried it though.

I started out thinking that bacause I can't get away from light pollution, I needed GOTO to help me find stuff, but when GOTO works it simply takes me straight to a dim object that's often not very impressive because of the light pollution. I now prefer completely manual setups with a big right angle, correct image finder for visual sessions, and take pleasure from finding the objects. The struggle to find them also makes me appreciate the objects more!

Was just out with my 66mm ED scope. Nice dark night but clouds came along. I was impressed by the views of Saturn and Jupiter, M31 and some doubles.

I am a great believer in small telescopes. That's why I own the biggest small telescope you can get - a C6 SCT! At only 3.3 kgs the tube is light but 150 mm aperture is pretty good. That's enough aperture for many deep sky objects and also enough for decent magnification on the Moon and planets. I have an AZ-GTi that can handle the weight pretty well. I can also do some fun stuff with photography with the AZ-GTi - planetary and lunar imaging and even DSOs.

Going back to the original photo, back in those days it seems visual observers could go a lot deeper than the best photographs, at least for solar system objects. I've had sharper views with Mak 102!

Boogyman or Bogeyman? Not sure whether to invite it to my next house party 🤣 Great capture!

Those things are not my cup of tea. I would be so divorced from the process of observing (or even from the process of imaging) I might as well look at APODs on my laptop. They might be the future, but not my future anyway!

That fan looks much too powerful, and if replaced with a smaller and better fan would easily clear up the vibrations for not too much money. Doesn't matter if the fan screws dont match - happy to mess up the heat sink as long as the ASI stays pristine. The heat sink is too big for me, but you have me thinking. If the fan makes a 15°C difference, set point cooling can be achieved by regulating the fan...

Well, in an F4 scope a 30mm eyepiece is giving a 7.5mm exit pupil, so the F4 scope would be stopped down by the eye. So the Nagler advantage in fast scopes evaporates at long EP focal lengths...

The Tracer ones look good. Now the leading contender. Also found this: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/TalentCell-Rechargeable-82-88Wh-22400mAh-Charger/dp/B082WR26ZT/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=TalentCell&qid=1627677577&sr=8-2

Although a vid would be fun to watch a written tutorial is much better in my opinion (ok, I am a technical writer...).

@powerlord I am very interested in cooling my ASI178MM and I would be intrigued to to see how you did it. @vlaiv I don't think there is much point getting too theoretical about this - a camera is fantastically complex and there is plenty of room for confounding variables not accounted for in the unadorned mathematics. If it costs 20 euros to do this, I would rather just do it and see the results for myself. Worst case scenario: I have done a fun project and learned a bit about my camera. Best case scenario? APODs for all of us 😀

That's a good point. @Malpi12 you're right, the Bresser is practically unobtainable!

The price is amazing, I would love to hear your findings. It does look a bit small to carry a C6 though?

I wanted to spend some time with the new eyepieces before subjecting them to a more nitpicking analysis so that I could form a general opinion of them before finding faults. So far I love the SW13.4, but my general impression of the SW4.9 is that the image sometimes feels a bit soft. Tonight I approached the eyepieces more forensically using a Zenithstar 66 to test them and using Deneb as a test star. Starting with the ES 6.7 mm and Speers WALER 10 mm I have had for years: these are both on a par with SW10 slightly edging it. There is a slight degree of false color at the edge of the field as well as astigmatism (a star focuses to a radial line inside focus and a tangential line outside focus, and is a cross at focus). The ES6.7 has less astigmatism, but very strong false color at the edge. The SW13.4 is very similar to the SW10, perhaps slightly better, showing less lateral color. The main difference is the wider true field of the SW13.4 shows more of the field curvature of the Zenithstar 66. The SW4.9 is another matter. Lateral color is much stronger (perhaps because of the greater magnification) but the edge is simply not sharp. While the other SWs focus stars at the edge to a sharp line/cross, the SW4.9 never gets sharper than a blur. Of course, this only covers performance off-axis and you have to look for these defects to find them. The SW4.9 is a bit of an exception, as the full solar or lunar disk fills the eyepiece, so I do find myself looking off-axis more with the SW4.9 than the others. On axis, all the eyepieces perform faultlessly, like any other modern eyepiece that hasn't been hit with a hammer.

Looking at these two - Bresser 155 Wh Bresser Mobile Power Station, or Celestron Power Tank Lithium LiFePO4 (84 Wh). Tending towards the Bresser as it is cheaper, has more capacity and has a mains outlet to keep my laptop running. Also I hear the Celestron can only power the USB ports OR the 12V outlet, not both simultaneously. On the other hand I think only the Celestron option uses LFP battery technology which is safer and has much longer life. Does anyone have experience of either? https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p9075_Celestron-Powertank-Lithium-LiFePO4---12-V---3-A---nur-1-kg-leicht.html https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p12444_Bresser-Mobile-Power-Station-100-Watt.html

Glad you got there in the end!