badhex

Indeed! The opportunity arises for me to buy another eyepiece, which is a problem for my wallet

Amazing news Steve! Glad you're able to get back into decent shape at a reasonable cost!

Did a bit of a rejig and moved the BSTs to their rightful home (bolt cases in the travel backpack), and added my new Morpheus 4.5mm. Pluck foam getting a bit deformed but I'm sure they'll spring back eventually. The problem I see here is there is now space for another EP above the HD60 😱

Whilst I was still in the UK I picked up a Bresser AR-152S cheap that had been knocked about... I say that, by the time I took delivery it turned out it had a lot more damage than I thought - looked like it had been chucked down the stairs 😱 In the end though I managed to repair most of the damage and the only thing not easily repaired was the clamshell chip to one half of the objective, which didn't seem to cause any issues in my limited testing after repairing the lens cell. Sadly, I never really got chance to properly test and adjust any further, as I "temporarily" moved to Berlin (now been here 6 years 😂)

ZS73 is a lovely scope, I only use mine for visual but I am certain you won't be disappointed!

Good to hear you are feeling a bit more positive! Certainly worth investigating putting together your alternate setup, will only cost you an afternoon or two. Think of it as an interesting challenge! Maybe over time you can then look at either repairing one thing at a time where possible, or replacements where not.

One other thought that springs to mind which doesn't help now but useful for avoiding similar situations in the future: cable clips or labels such as the below can be a great help, especially in the dark and with cold hands.

I am sure I read somewhere that some of the startechs have overvoltage protection as well.

Thanks to almost 100% cloud cover on almost 100% of the days since my Morpheus 4.5mm arrived, I have not had chance to play properly with it yet. I did set up in the day in my ZS73 briefly and found that eye position was a bit tricky - getting blackouts when moving around. I do not really experience this with the 5mm BST in daytime which only has a 0.09mm larger exit pupil. I suspect my pupils were constricted a lot due to daylight and I need to play with the eyecup and eyecup extension (I need the extension on the 17.5mm to get the correct eye position) but I guess I'll need to wait to use it at nighttime for best effect.

Sorry to hear Steve. Sounds like warranty/repair/insurance might be ht only option then at this point. Fingers crossed then for a good outcome 🤞🤞🤞

Sorry for my duplicate questions, again various posts covering the same questions happened whilst I was writing 🙂

Apologies, you are correct, I was not thinking straight. Depends as you say if the USB has overvoltage which is much less likely, but still possible. This is what I'm thinking regarding the laptop port possibly being damaged. Given that the PPBA was however providing power, I'm not sure how this could have caused the damage unless it was connected by USB as well?

Haha both questions came while I was still writing my reply 🙂

I am surprised that the PPBA has issues as I assume it was upstream (ie providing power) to the hub, so in theory only downstream devices should be affected. Silly question, but was the laptop also connected to the USB hub at the time? Given that *nothing* seems to work, could be that the actual laptop USB port is damaged? Perhaps you could try a different USB device that you know definitely works and which was not part of the kit in e.g. a USB thumb drive or similar in the same laptop USB port you have been using. Might be worth testing with something you're not too worried about just in case! If the laptop has more than one port (which I guess it does) or even better if you have a other laptop, I would certainly try your devices there as well.

Worth mentioning that the USB standard suggests that all ports should have overcurrent protection built in. Although it is part of the standard, it does depend somewhat on the manufacturer, as not all manufacturers will follow said standards to save money. Might be worth posting your model of USB hub here too, potentially we could find out if it contains overcurrent protection.

Hello @teoria_del_big_bang sorry to hear of your issues. To clarify, are you saying that the USB hub is fried or that it seems to have fried everything that was already connected as well? As mentioned above, have you tried each individual device without the USB hub in the chain?

Just saw this after replying to your PM @jetstream - thanks for setting this up! I did actually find Bortle 4 a bit overwhelming at first on a recent trip, as I'm so used to Bortle 8!

Wonderful. I have the ZS61's sibling, the ZS73, and a lot of the fittings etc look very similar. There's something strangely satisfying about using widefield 2" accessories in a compact but very capable scope like this!

Indeed! Although I try to stay positive - I guess we just have to take advantage of opportunities to visit darker skies when they come up!

Lovely report John. I must join the ranks of the envious with my Bortle 8+ skies!

Astronomik OIII filter on the advice of @jetstream @Stu and plenty of others (thanks all!) ahead of my upcoming holiday with dark skies, plus I finally caved and got another Morpheus at the other end of the range - 4.5mm to go with my existing 17.5mm. Now to update the eyepiece case thread...

Lovely! Does the ZS61 take 2" EPs? Or will you primarily be using it for AP?

Cripes that was quick! Astronomik filter ordered at the same time yesterday from TS-Optics.

I imagine the experience with your ZS66 will be very similar to my ZS73 - I will report back once I've tested it out!

Well, after thinking about it for quite a while, I took the plunge on the 4.5mm yesterday. I figured getting quality glass with decent eye relief for the best possible higher power view (within reasonable budget) is a good match for the quality glass in my ZS73, and for high power in the C5 I'll stick with the BCO 6mm. Hopefully should arrive in the next few days.