badhex

Camera rig cheese plate, mini magic arm and adapters for mounting a dew heater controller on my tripod.

Hello all, Despite owning dew heater bands and a controller since I got back into astro a few years ago, I've been remarkably lucky and never really needed to use them, but I fear that luck my run out soon and probably on my next visit to darker skies! I've never really liked the idea of using hard to undo fixtures like velcro tape on my scopes/mounts etc., so with that in mind I came up with a plan which should be adaptable for use with most mounts/tripods using commonly available camera rig parts. I bought a small cheese plate, a mini magic arm plus a set of ⅜" / ¼“ adapters for about €45. The largest part of that was the cheese plate (€25) and I could have probably found the one adapter I needed for less but I figured the bag of bits may come in handy for other projects. The Gitzo 5 series which is my main tripod has a ⅜" mount point for accessories like many other photographic tripods, so essentially I just utilised that to attach the mini magic arm and cheese plate. I did use velcro tape on the cheese plate but depending on your dew heater, or even power unit, you might be able to bolt it directly onto the cheese plate. I tried the setup with both my powered AZ-GTi and unpowered Scopetech Mount Zero. Cables need a bit more tidying but once I've used it in earnest I'll know more about the best routing. If your mount/tripod setup does not have any suitable ⅜" or ¼" mount points, most camera magic arms come with a clamp which should open wide enough to fit on a SW EQ6-R pro sized tripod leg

Hello @Pixies, is this a specific telescope shop or a large well known online retailer? I've considered buying stuff from Japan before as I sometimes buy anime products there and it's always been relatively smooth.

Welcome back Baz!

Haha yes it's a very good question 😅 Actually, I originally wanted the 40mm ED, but couldn't find it anywhere even second hand as most folks tend to keep HD of them, so I bought a Panoptic 41mm. Later, I got the 35mm ED when I realised that I can't feasibly travel with the 41mm (it's 1kg!). Then, very recently, I discovered another source for the 40mm ED and I decided to snap it up in case it disappears forever, so I've ended up with an odd selection of very close together EPs 😂 All of this said, the 40mm does serve another use, which is that again it's much lighter than the Panoptic so it's useful when using my scopetech mount zero which is super sensitive to balance. This means all my EPs except the panoptic and orthos are roughly in the 350g - 450g range so I don't have to rebalance just to get maximum FOV. At this point, I imagine the 35mm will see least use, although I'm yet to try the 40mm with my ZS73, and the exit pupil might just be too large. I like the idea with the nebula filters though!

Posted this scope before but was trying out the APM 24mm UFF in my 50mm finder in the day recently to see how it performs. The answer is very well!

Realised I didn't post an update to my 2" case since getting the Lacerta 40mm ED. Considering that the space it occupies had a 2" diagonal in it for like ten years the foam has sprung back surprisingly well, although there's an OCD-inducing offset to the layout now!

Sorry Victor, I meant to reply here and forgot. Glad you got it figured out but a bit annoying about the 1. 25" issue. Maybe you'll have to get the GSO after all 😜

Nice. I feel like astro is a great application for 3D printing given all the odd bits and bobs we often need.

I can answer this question! The 4.5mm is great, works very well in both my TS102 F7 ED and ZS73 despite the sub-1mm exit pupil size, giving 159x and 96x respectively. I had it on the moon in the TS102 and it was looking so good I decided to Barlow it with a 2.5x GSO giving 397x and was absolutely shocked at how well it performed. Still incredibly crisp - shaky phone picture below, views through the EP were even better, though.

Nice! Work related or just for fun? Do they all have different use cases?

Thanks John. Great to hear that the EvoLux is testing well so far both optically and build quality wise. Seems like this line is a great addition to the SW catalogue!

Thanks @Ags, really appreciate your hard work!

Gave in to curiosity (and travelling to darker, but still middling skies soon) and bought an Astronomik CLS to see if I can improve LP even just a tiny bit.

Nice scope - plus some very interesting looking gear in the background!

I have used both AAs and the smaller of the two Celestron LiFePO4 battery packs. The AAs are super helpful for being away and now wanting to take a heavy battery pack, but obviously great to have the extra capacity and features of the battery pack. The Red light is very helpful for setting up. It's got a pretty finicky port cover that can easily break - although mine hasn't as I've been super careful - and it stupidly doesn't allow charging from USB at the same time as powering the mount. That said if you have some sort of unit like a dew heater controller or similar that may not be an issue for you.

Great image Lee! Really captivating 😊

Good news. Actually yesterday when I was doing those measurements I repeated some of them a couple of times because they seemed unusual, and I could swear that my eye was doing some of the focusing as well - i.e. I was able to move focus in or out by ~1mm and my eye seemed to adjust to keep it in focus. Not something I've experienced before consciously, but then I've never sat and measured focus so intently before either. Maybe it was just the shimmer playing tricks on me? Or, maybe your eye can make up the difference.

Seriously though, and more constructively than my last post 🙂 Lichtenknecker is a new name to me although seems to have been very active in producing quality optics, so I'm sure there are many SGL members who already know about them. For anyone like myself who does not, I have been looking through various threads about the EvoLux on the other forum but as mentioned there was very little real info, mostly a lot of posts flaming other posts, and a lot of posts openly bashing Skywatcher for their policies and even bashing Kevin, the SW spokesperson who posts there, which I find to be a shame. Please be aware however I'm not slating anyone, and certainly not the forum itself, I just find it difficult to read posts containing endless vitriol. Regardless, I eventually did find the below info on Lichtenknecker Optics in a post from about ten years ago on one of the Esprits. I've also found a PDF biography of the founder and company with lots of pictures and diagrams (in German). Oddly, the Lichtenknecker Optics website referred to various places now redirects to Astroshop. lichtenknecker.pdf

Situation normal

That's the badger. I knew I'd read something like that but couldn't remember.

+1 for removing the call out lines. Could perhaps small in-situ lines be implemented for the crowded areas?

I read somewhere on CN that the OL stood for something else - L???? Optics or Optical but I can't find the thread again to confirm.

In the grand scheme of things, with the Baader BBHS you're probably really only paying +250eur for the click lock and a fancy sounding mirror, the actual optical gains over the GSO will likely be marginal. But it's nice to have no compromises!

I strongly suspect the WO is the same as the Synta in terms of the body construction. Possibly the mirror is better in the WO. (I say Synta, I have no proof of this except that SW provide it with their scopes and sell them separately as well). Re the GSO, I have the none-quartz version as consensus seems it's probably marketing more than optically significant. It's a well built unit and only about 100g heavier than the Synta, only had a couple of outings but very good optically from my experiences so far. A couple of very minor issues: the placement of the 2" screw and the recessed 1.25" adapter means tiny EPs like BCOs are a bit of a nightmare as I'm left eyed so I have to press my nose into the screw somewhat! I also find that the machined fit is very close with the adaptor, and once or twice in the dark the adapter has become momentarily stuck in the 2" fitting due to me not inserting/removing it squarely. I suspect this is partly because it's new and will get better with use, and also that I had rather chunky EPs in the adapter at the time. Honestly, I'd love a Baader BBHS clicklock and will probably eventually get one, but you can get two of these and a 1.25" version for the same cost as the BBHS 😱