badhex

Amazing stuff! When do you estimate it will be available for purchase?

Had another look tonight. Sky not great to start with, but obviously started to clear up once Regardless I did spend a while with the nova, at first the haze made it almost too hard to pick out. Once it cleared a bit it was visible, but clearly dimmer again than Sunday night/Monday AM.

Thanks John! If I manage to get out tonight I will take a look. I noted mentions of it in this thread and had been wondering if it was still around.

I have to say this is all fascinating. This is also my first nova, so all the better for how unusual it is! I may have to have another go tonight if it's clear, full cloud here at the moment.

Great video. I like Astrobiscuit's stuff. He's @rorymultistorey on here. When I was still in London I actually used to be part of the mirror makers group so it was great to see a few faces I know. I was halfway through a 10“ when I moved to Berlin. The foucault knife edge test kit looks the same as it did then, I think Terry has had the same one for quite a few years. The look on everyone's face when Rory revealed he'd cut down the tube was gold 😂

Glad to see from everyone's comments that it got a lot dimmer! I missed the original post (I was out with my new Zenithstar 73 for first light as well!) but was out again last night/this morning. Around 0200 I was manually searching very low power (only figured out later that night how to enter manual coords with my AZ-GTi!) and was looking for something very bright. In the end I did find it without shadow of a doubt using the images and star charts on this thread, but it was way dimmer than Stu's iPhone image and the other reports so I spent a while not trusting my own judgement! Glad to have got it and to witness something so unusual. Thanks everyone for the great instructions and images.

This might be a bit late as I'm guessing you'd planned to use this setup for the eclipse, but FWIW I used my AZ-GTi with a one-star alignment and it was totally fine. Needed a bit of slewing in the AZ initially, but once manually centred it only needed two very minor adjustments over about 2+ hours.

Great review as always Louis, thanks. I have been wondering about the various SVBONY EPs flying about.

As posted in the 'frac thread my setup for yesterday - the main upgrade being that the scope is new, plus I'm temporarily observing under a Bortle 4 sky from a beautiful garden, not my usual rubbish Bortle 8 city sky and shared roof terrace!

I also use a solar foil (Baader) and noticed some occasional 'rippling' of brightness when the breeze blew, as well as some stray light artifacts at times. I don't really do solar observing much but I thought maybe for next time I'll invest in a solar wedge of some kind.

The AZ-GTi is the first goto mount I have owned too, and although I think for learning it's great to do things manually, sometimes you just want to get up and running without any faff. The mount is available in two options: one with the tripod and extension pillar shown below which also fits the star adventurer and AZ5 mounts (and your AZT6), or just the mount head itself. The main connection to the tripod is a 3/8“ photo thread on the base so will also fit any typical photo tripod e.g. Manfrotto. I bought the version with the tripod and find it to be pretty sturdy, definitely enough for the size of payloads we're talking about. FYI the tripod packs down to about 70-75cm, I carry mine in a manfrotto 75cm bag with the extension pillar wrapped in bubble wrap and nestled between the legs. Very manageable. One last thing worth noting is that the mount is obviously an ALT-AZ but with a wedge and a counterweight (I think the same as the star adventurer) it can be switched to EQ mode. I read that it works well although I have not done that myself. Good luck with your graduation!

Thanks Victor! Yes it's quite a nice little setup, very pleased with it. BTW - really enjoy your videos on YouTube, you have come a long way in a short time and more advanced than many others, myself included! But I guess we are all still learning 🙂 So the first test the other day when I posted this was just manual tracking with the app keypad, but today I took the time to get set up and aligned. I read a tutorial I think over on CN that suggested you could turn on the solar viewing option in the app's advanced settings (which requires you to do some maths to prove you're an adult and reeeallly sure you want to turn it on!) and then use North Level, which is what is normally use in the night. The North Level however requires two stars, and not only that, it did not allow me to select the sun anyway. All of that said, from the north level position I just tried the one-star alignment, wherein the Sun was available. It was off initially by some degrees in the azimuth but I suspect that was actually my North being off. Once I'd centered the sun and confirmed, it tracked really well for the whole time, and I only had to adjust for a small amount of drift twice in the whole two+ hour session. In general I love the mount as it's so portable and very quick to set up, and alignment very forgiving. Finally the dual encoders are super useful if you want to manually slew and although they technically reduce accuracy when turned on, it's really not noticeable for visual. My setup today is below (btw @paulastro note the additional extra-thick rubber band)

I thought at first the view trough my scope was just suffering from heat haze, but after studying closely I also came to the conclusion that it must be the craters and valleys of the moon. Glad I wasn't imagining it!

Sure it wasn't the super giant power flower blood eclipse moon? 😂

Would love to see some too. And those big 132 and 156 giants!

🤐😂

For a minute I though this was a tiny WO scope thus far unknown to me! I have never owned a DSLR but strongly considering it now I have the Z73.

Looks like a great little setup Stu! I can see why you miss it.

Despite being forecast for 60% cloud cover, there's thankfully not a one to be seen. Also managed a reasonably good phone/EP shot

Not the right kind of grab and go then I guess John! 😂

True, it probably makes most sense to use what you've got... That said the AZ-GTi and Z73 combo is very portable! Mount is in the upper right pocket.

It's not clear from the picture but it's on an AZ-GTi. Had this up to about 130x in daytime which is around the sensible limit anyway, and vibrations settled very quickly. RE the GT81 imaging rig, yes please post pics - would love to see it!

Hello all, Having long looked at William Optics scopes as being "serious" purchases and perhaps with a twinge of envy, I have finally taken the plunge with a Zenithstar 73 III, and I am very glad I did. While doing research I looked for dedicated WO scope owner's threads but couldn't seem to find any, so now the scope is with me I thought perhaps it was time to start one 🙂 Still waiting for a proper first light which looks like it will now be in my upcoming trip to Bortle 4 skies - no bad thing given my usual bortle 8!

Oh no, that is terrible news. Has the owner been able to shed any light on what happened?

Fantastic. I'd never thought about it until now but I suppose that with solar if you want to image multiple wavelengths, you need to be able to image on more than one scope simultaneously due to the rapid changes on the sun's surface?