badhex

God no 😂 barely at all, but at the time it was my biggest mount and I need to get the 152 set up on something to do some daytime testing after I did some work fixing it up. Never even got to do a proper star test though. When I am eventually reunited with it after 8 long years, it will go on either the Skytee-2 if it copes, and/or and EQ6-R Pro.

Just following up to say thanks for the hints @vlaiv, assignment now submitted!

Very cool!

Okay, so thanks to your answer Vlaiv as well as re-reading various bits, I've realised that where I was getting confused was that I was thinking of the binary as a special case, when in fact all I'm doing is comparing two magnitudes, which is something I'm fairly comfortable with. It doesn't actually matter that one of the magnitudes for comparison is a binary, the calculation is the same, and once I know the Flux ratio, I can then just divide 1/(flux ratio) to find the percentage.

Thanks Vlaiv, this is very helpful. Actually I should have written that my very first assumption was that whilst fully eclipsed, the light we see is just from star B, which gives me something to go on, but then I started to doubt if I was correct with that assumption and got myself in a bit of a muddle. I'm just re-reading the chapter on magnitudes, luminosity etc. and then I'm going to sit down and work through your equations on my own and make sure I understand exactly what's happening, then have a crack at the actual question in the assignment. There are a bunch of other parts to the question relating to the luminosities and mass of the stars, but I think now that I have a place to start I should be able to figure that out. Thanks again!

Hello all, I'm working through an assignment for my astronomy studies and I'm struggling to figure out what method I need to use to understand the flux contributed by each star. I'm not looking for someone to solve the actual question for me obviously so I've changed the numbers below anyway, I'm just a bit stumped on what method I need to use. Any ideas gratefully received! An eclipsing binary varies in apparent magnitude from mag. 6 out of eclipse to mag. 7 when star B is fully eclipsing star A. What fraction of the total flux from the binary is emitted by star B?

The Morpheus range is awesome, and I particularly like the 17.5mm. I also tend to jump often from lowest power (usually 35mm or 40mm) straight to the 17.5mm because the difference in mags is very small, but there are some moments when the 24mm wins out (it's also a slightly better EP than the lowest power ones I own. I have only come across Myriad range as a different brand actually, TS-Optics amongst other do versions of them but hadn't realised SW did them too. I quite like the 64-75 deg.-ish AFOV so never really played with EPs much wider than that.

Nice comparison. I have the 24mm UFF and it is a fantastic EP, so your findings with the 30mm don't surprise me at all. If you are looking at supplementing your EP collection with any of the others in the range, FLO have recently launched their own StellaLyra branding of the UFF range which are identical to the original APMs.

Cheers Mark, bit of an ordeal actually getting the thing and they randomly charged me 5 eur more than quoted - I only realised afterwards and it felt like more trouble than it was worth to quibble as I was already messaging them for updates on the delivery situation - but the quality is really great. Anodised aluminium and engraved with the adapter size etc., fits really well. I meant to mention the weight! The whole scope set up (modified dovetail/rings, scope, M53 adapter, T2 5mm extension, T2 low profile EP holder, T2 prism diagonal diagonal, nosepiece and T2 focusing EP holder) comes to 985g so I'm pretty pleased with that outcome. I could probably even shave off a few more grams by replacing the low profile EP holder, 5mm extension tube and diagonal nose piece with just a slightly longer extension, and I may do this once I'm definitely happy with the optical path length, but for now this works well and gives me a bit of flexibility.

Hello all, After aeons of waiting for the adapter, it has finally arrived! It took ages to be manufactured, then was sent and made as far as Germany only to be returned to sender for reasons unknown, and finally resent. Not thrilled with the speed of manufacture and communication could have been better, but the product itself is great: The adaptor fits the tube perfectly, so I've put everything together and done a bit of testing on the most distant object I can (a chimney) so I think this will be the final config: No dark skies test yet as it's obviously been 100% cloud cover, but with this arrangement there is plenty of inward travel available for infinity focus so I'm fairly sure this should work. Here it is with the APM 24mm UFF, AZT6 mount and Gitzo Series 2 Traveller: All in all I'm pretty pleased so far but need a proper test!

A bit of a bumper couple of days after a fairly long dry spell of purchases. Hardcase from TS for my 102 ED to protect it in my upcoming house move: A clicklock for the 102 as well, cost supplemented by family Christmas contributions: ... and FINALLY after 2 months of waiting, failed deliveries and not so great communication from the vendor, a custom-made adaptor to replace the focuser on my Evoguide 50ED and allow me to use T2 components: Despite the delivery issues with the adaptor, of the three I'm not too impressed with the TS hardcase to be honest. As you might be able to see in the picture, some pretty significant manufacturing issues and it has certainly had a scope stored in it prior, as there are marks from the tube rings etc. More to come on this later maybe.

Glad you got it sorted. It's not bad for the price, although obviously you have the added cost of a longer bar. Added bonus is that you're future proof... future proven?.. if you want to change the configuration or add any other accessories to that scope and setup.

So, as mentioned above the hole distance for the small WO handle is 120mm which is too wide for your rings. Your only options that I'm aware of would be to buy a handle with only a single mount point (I don't fancy that for my 102 but your scope may be lighter?), use a vixen dovetail bolted to the top of the rings (one with a slot) as a handle, or have someone fabricate a custom sized handle for you. Last option would be to buy a larger losmandy plate, and then other existing handles would be available to you.

I think you might struggle to get a handle that short if you want it to mount to both rings, mostly because it's not very ergonomic (too small for the hand) - but the only one I know of that might work is the William Optics short handle which is 120mm. Actually, I have one floating about so I can measure the holes later. Your other option is to get a slightly longer losmandy bar which would give you more options - that one is very short. Any particular reason why you've used a losmandy vs vixen?

15 counts of the word handle in this thread so far. Now 16.

Hi John, Broadly it copes well enough, especially in combination with the Gitzo but I would say it's at the upper end of what the mount can handle happily. It is very sensitive to balance but that's true for whatever scope you use within reason. Ideally you do not want too much variance in EP weights or you'll have to rebalance the scope. My main EPs are all around 350g-450g and it deals well enough with that variance, especially if you very slightly front load when balancing (i.e. objective end slightly heavier). One of the main advantages is portability which this mount/tripod combination excels at and allows very quick set up etc. At high powers there is a small amount of vibration but the damping time is very short. At lower powers it is basically unnoticeable.

@starhiker @k_martensen just a quick update that I've actually created a templated version of my Notion site, but still not finished annotation on each of the sections.so it's clear which bits interact and how. I'm currently recovering from shoulder surgery which has delayed me a bit! Hopefully will have the notes done in the next week once I'm feeling a bit better, will keep you updated here.

For some more case inspiration there is this 176 page thread which has been going for 12 years!

Or dinosaurs!

Glad you went for the 102 - an absolutely fantastic scope!

I have had this upgrade on my radar to do for ages as I find the existing twist lock a bit of a pain, but I usually leave the Baader BBHS in my scope so it's not been urgent. That said @Mr Spock and you posting your upgrades has 'upgraded' my urgency somewhat!

@starhiker @k_martensen I've made a duplicate but initially it has kept al the relations to my original database. I'm trying another way, will test and let you know once it's ready. I could also do with writing up how it works, which I'll put on the top level pages.

I'm looking into making a duplicate of my notion site for @starhiker, I'm more than happy to make a duplicate for you too. One of the things I have found with existing software is that there are tens of thousands of things in the object database which, whilst very thorough, doesn't really make it easy to plan a session without excessive amounts of filtering. If I'm looking for objects in a given constellation, I don't want hundreds of objects most of which I can't view with a small scope anyway, I want more in the region of tens of objects all of which are within reach of a small-medium telescope.

Have to put my hand up to not personally enjoying the questar design so much, but can totally understand why I'm in the minority here! Slightly off topic but I'm also not really a fan of Berlebach (aesthetically). May my head be struck from my shoulders for such treachery! 😱😅 As mentioned above though beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, and I'm not sure if it matters whether we describe things as pretty, well-designed or elegant - reading between the lines, aesthetics is the topic here. I for one am thoroughly enjoying all the various shapes, sizes and designs of scopes people are posting, whether they confirm to my ideas of beauty or not, or whether posts contain multiple telescopes. The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned!

Second time in a month for me unfortunately. It was out for a week which is basically unacceptable given that both my partner and I work remotely, then was subsequently fixed, and three weeks later has gone down again. It turns out that a new neighbour in our building has been having issues getting the internet up and running, and on both occasions the technician somehow managed to knock out our DSL connection whilst attempting to fix theirs 🙄 At least one of the two flats has Internet I suppose. I said to my neighbour today "Internet für Sie oder Internet für Uns - aber nicht beides!"