Ed the Fox

You could always do what I did and fill the legs with kiln dried sand.

74

I have the same scope mounted on a az gti. I purchased an 8mm and 15mm BST eyepieces and am made up with them. My 15mm is my goto eyepiece and I may get a 12mm in the future. I'm also going to buy a 32mm plossl for low mag objects like open clusters.

The first time the scope has been out this year and I only got an hour tonight unfortunately. 

I had to look at The Pleiades first and they looked fantastic but I need a 32mm eyepiece to fully appreciate them. The Beehive looked good too but not the best I've seen it. However the Orion Nebula did look impressive tonight with the nebulosity looking very clear.

Just an hour but a productive one non the less.

I have a 130m and apart from the standard eyepieces I have an 8mm and 15mm BST Starguider eyepieces. They are an amazing addition for your 130m.

My next purchases will be a 32mm plossl for wide angle open cluster viewing and a 6mm planetary eyepiece. I personally would not go any less than 6mm as you'd really be pushing the 130m to its limits unless you are in bortle 1 skies.

Welcome to SGL from a fellow astronomer from the other side of Billinge Lump.

(Chuckled at the people who don't understand the pie eater thing)

Well after having my scope for over a year and promising to let my daughter look at the planets this evening especially as her two girls of 6 and 3 where with her I took the opportunity to get the scope out as it was perfectly clear.

Looked at Saturn first and they where blown away especially my 6 year old granddaughter who had recently had a discussion at school about the planets. We then moved on to Jupiter clearly showing the 4 Galilean moons. And again everyone was in awe. My daughter was moved to tears as she was so amazed at what she had seen.

Finally the moon had risen to an altitude where we could have a look at it but being almost full it was extremely bright. My daughter was in awe of the detail she coul see and again was moved to tears 

I think they'll be all asking again for a look through the scope.

 Wanted a dual focuser in my 130m.  Im not sure if the focuser on the 150 has a thread on the very end of it as my 130m has but I purchased one of these to solve my problem. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-125-to-364mm-helical-focuser-fits-vixen-thread.html

I hope this helps.

I have the very same scope that used to be on the same mount and yes the RDF us a bit onthe useless side. I now have the scope on a Skywatcher GTI mount and only use the RDF for scope alinement. 

For the first time in weeks I took the scope out into the back garden at about 9pm. Allined the GTI mount but from my vantage point nothing was available so let the scope cool down for a bit. Seeing was 4 but I'm in Bortle 7 skies here in St. Helens so the GTI mount is very much needed. 

Once back out, Saturn was my first target and I was not disappointed even though it looked a bit "soft".  Using the 8mm BST eyepiece  it really looked impressive, much better than last year. Jupiter was up next and it was bright. Could easily make out the banding through my 130m with all four Galilayan moons all lined up nicely.

Had a brief look at M31 before moving onto a target I know would be pushing my scope and that was Uranus. The GTI put it right in the middle of the field of view and seeing an extremely small pale blue dot I knew instantly it was one off my list. It looked better through the 10mm that came with the scope rather than the 8mm BST as the skies in the East where not good this evening. 

All in all a productive and rewarding 90 minutes and mount and scope both performed well,

Cheers @Louis D I'll look around for those eyepieces. 

@Louis D The 32mm plossl is a great idea as I do go hunting open clusters a lot and the 25mm just doesn't quite cut it.

I thought the 5mm BST may be pushing it a bit with my scope but you think it's OK?

I have a Skywatcher 130m  and have purchased the BST 8mm and 15mm and both are excellent eyepieces. I will be buying the 12mm and 18mm in due course. I still use the 25mm eyepiece that came with the scope as that's more than adequate. 

For me the BST eyepieces where one of the best purchases I ever made.

I swap from one eye to the other every couple of minutes or so to give the viewing eye a bit of a rest. 

2 hours ago, Ratlet said:

Can you image with the 130pds on the az-gti?

I'm just planning out potential upgrade routes and was thinking about getting a 130pds down the line.

I have a 130m  on my gti and it's fine with that. The 130pds is shorter so should be OK. 

As always had a look at some open clusters NGC 2301 NGC 2264  M46 M50 M47 then decided to have a go at M3 which I could just see but was disappointing. 

I too noticed something about the atmosphere at dusk and yes the moon is reddish from here too.

I have a Skywatcher 130m on an az gti mount and have a relatively restricted view of the sky.  If I want to look at a certain part of the sky be it North or South  I have to reposition the scope as I have trees and houses around me.

I'd like to push the scope and look for stuff I would not normally go for iike hard to separate doubles and the like.

Some suggestions please.

Just a thought..

What percentage of people here use the mount purely for visual rather than AP?

After my second attempt to recollimate my scope I thought I'd give it a go between 7.30 and 9pm until the moon intervened. I was not disappointed. Started on Sirius to see how sharp it and it was crisp. Mission accomplished. 

I think i have a thing for open clusters as I never tire looking at them. So off I went looking at M44, M35, and M48 all looking really nice.

Also looked at some doubles. Kappa boo, Mizar, Iota Cancer to name a few.

I then stepped back from the scope , gazed at the sky and realised I was "Back in the game" after fixing my scope. Happy days.

Firstly thanks to @wulfrun for suggesting I loosen one of the Alan key sockets first. Worked a treat.

So having faffed around for a couple of days I tried out my collimation skills only to be disappointed in my attempts. Stars where blurry and not at all crisp as before. Collimation is not easy !

Now having tried again I realised the secondary mirror was not in the middle of the FOV so having re adjusted that I realigned the primary with tge following results.

Please let me know if its satisfactory or not. Many thanks all.

1 hour ago, wulfrun said:

Try slackening the three allen-headed screws a fraction, that should take the pressure off the centre screw.

Cheers wilf I'll give that a go.

Hi all, I wonder if anyone could help.

Today I removed the focuser on my 130m and installed some ptfe to take up the slop. This worked just fine but needed recollimating as the secondary mirror did not line up any more.

I don't know who tightened the cross headed screw in the middle of the splines but it will not turn at all. It's stupidly tight.

Does anyone have any ideas at all to get this undone? Otherwise I cannot collimate the scope. 

Cheers in advance. 

50 minutes ago, Elp said:

If you're using EQ mode please read page 12 of this thread where I've detailed a step by step workflow for setting the home position. It'll save you a lot of headache, I haven't had an issue since doing this though I tend to platesolve now.

No mate I'm just using alt az mode.

9 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

I think in the alignment screen somewhere is says to clear previous alignment I think, on this page in manual says alignment - reset alignment. I've included the manual to download too 👍

enmanual_20200721 (1).pdf 465.66 kB · 0 downloads

Read "most" of manual..........just not that part.

(Facepalms self, wanders off muttering something about being an idiot)

47 minutes ago, Elp said:

Is it however in the same position it was in the last time you used it as you left it before you switched the power off? I believe it remembers where it was pointing prior so if you don't return it to a "home or zero" position, any following session will seem off.

Ah interesting. The penny drops....

Just had it out within the last 15 minutes and tried 3 times to get the alinement right on the first star. 3rd time I asked it to goto Rigel. Its RA was about 30 degrees off and Dec was about 10 degrees off. So I lined it up on Rigel and then went to Castor and it was bang on, right in the middle of the FOV. In fact everything I asked it to look at was smack in the middle of the FOV.

Now when I'd finished doing this test I just switched off. According to @Elp not the right thing to do at all, so noted sir. I do however move the ota into a different position hence why is was so far out in the first place. 

So may I ask, when I next use it, what do I have to do to "clear the cache" as it where?