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LongJohn54

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Everything posted by LongJohn54

  1. There are PDF manuals for all Meade Kit here - https://www.meade.com/content/product-resources/ and the latest software for everything too. Hopefully you'll get it up and running smoothly in no time. Good luck.
  2. Sorry to hear this Malcolm. Your obsy was a major inspiration for me when I was researching ideas for mine. Your black and purple pier* swung it for my other half which enabled me to go ahead with the build. 👍 * even though my pier didn't end up quite the same. Best wishes for the future and I hope that includes a new obsy.
  3. I heard the DPD van pull up and went to open the front door. The driver slid the parcel from the front to the back of the van then hoiked it onto his shoulder and strolled down the path. He placed the box carefully at my feet and exclaimed 'That was a bit heavy, glad I didn't have to walk too far.' A small packet was taped to one end and unsuprisingly contained FLO's clouds along with a dew strap! But it was the big box that held the exciting stuff. And finally a family group. On the left is an Ian King Ikorus 102ED, then a TS 127 Achro next to the Askar 130PHQ. The Askar almost weighs the same as both the other two put together. My two old scopes will be sold as I cannot see the Askar ever being removed once it has been mounted.
  4. My Aurora Alert app started pinging mid afternoon and by evening it was going mental with numbers way off the normal scale. Looks like there might be something good to watch, if only it wasn't raining here! This aurora was visible from the whole of the UK with images appearing on Facebook from Cornwall (what's this funny light in the sky?). Naturally, I resorted to my standby when it's raining, the Shetland Webcams. https://www.shetlandwebcams.com/ Normally Cliff Cam 3 points north over Sumburgh Airport but not this time. Andy Steven (who runs the service) manually controlled the camera all evening following the aurora as it swirled around overhead. The phone screenshots below cannot really convey the sight of vast green and purple curtains of light swirling around. It was mesmerising!
  5. Not quite heart stopping since I've never encountered them directly. But in the obsy with the door closed I've occasionally heard scrabbling sounds and low whining noises which is always a bit unsettling. I put in a wildlife camera to see what was happening and was quite astounded at the result. I can see foxes passing through the garden most nights, usually one, sometimes two and on this night a mum and two cubs.
  6. The six year old getting a closeup of a late afternoon Moon. Very exciting! The three hours spent cleaning the obsy, firing up Windows and getting the latest updates (it's been how long?!) for this moment was totally worth it.
  7. I keep mine at 60% You can see from the chart where it was off the first summer and on during the winter. It's on all the time now as the humidity can be high all year round. This is my data monitor. It's been totally reliable for the last two years. No ongoing costs after buying it apart from 2 aa batteries every 4 months.
  8. I forgot to post the end of this little saga. After letting the dehumidifier run for several hours it slowly began to bring the RH down but stuck at 80%. I watched a few youtube videos showing dehumidifier repairs and discovered that they have two drains. The primary drain for the water from the condenser and another smaller drain from the heating element chamber which lead to the thought that maybe this was blocked. Having switched off and unplugged it I turned the dehumidifier on its side. About half a cupfull of water came out so I returned it the right way up. Shortly after switching on warmer air was being vented and water was appearing in the main drain. The RH dropped to 65% quickly and then down to the normal 60%. Success! I can only assume that when the dehumidifier thawed out a certain amount of water became trapped inside the heating chamber preventing the heater from working. This created the fault condition. It's all working now so I'm happy not to have to pay for a repair or get a new one however I might take the back off and see what prevented the water from escaping properly.
  9. There was nothing obviously wrong with the dehumidifier so I switched it on about an hour ago. It sounded normal so I was hopeful. By now the RH should be 60% but its not moved at all. I'll have another look tomorrow in daylight. I used to let natural ventilation keep the obsy damp free but drawing in fresh air at 90%+ Rh wasn't really achieving anything so I closed as many gaps as possible with brush strip and run the dehumidifier 24/7. The only time its off is when I'm inside with the roof open.
  10. My dehumidifier has run for years on a low setting keeping the obsy at 60% humidity. It's so reliable I forget about it most of the time. Today I got an alert that the humidity was over 70% so went for a look. Hmmm, a few hours at -6c has proved too much and it's stopped. That's -6c inside the obsy 🥶 and -8c outside for a while overnight. I first thought that the outlet hose might have frozen causing it to shutdown but it wasn't that so I've unplugged it for now. I've popped a heater on and will investigate further once the obsy has warmed up a bit.
  11. A late Xmas pressy. 😀 500 pages listing every event from 1 July 2020 to 31 December 2025. Great for longer term planning and then looking up on Stellarium to check. There's no commentry on events though so I wonder if I'd have spotted this one on 21 Dec 2020 and realised its significance.
  12. Something warm and fluffy for my head and neck on those cold nights.
  13. but I like it. https://www.facebook.com/artvideosofficial/videos/305340907530261/
  14. I thought 'oh, that looks interesting' and went off to Amazon to order it only to find I'd bought it in January 2019 when this was first posted. 🤣 My plan was to have it to read whilst I was in hospital but I didn't read it then and never looked at it since. So, a timely reminder. Must get the kindle charged and take a look.
  15. This is really good tubing, nice and flexible to get through any route between A and B. However, it has a lot of internal stiction making it difficult to pass cables through it. My tubes were about two metres in length and I spent a long time pulling and pushing and moving barely 5mm at a time. Not fun when the bends were a fairly large radius and almost impossible with any sharp bend. Try passing a cable through to test it before installing.
  16. The small object came in that box
  17. Not just 15 years but an average of about 8.75 posts per day throughout that time. Congratulations and here's to many more years and posts.
  18. Big flakes of snow in the box and a scattering outside on delivery day. Flo excelled themselves. 🤣
  19. Two parcels. One for me and one for my grandson who will be eight next week.
  20. I received an email from Salvatore on Friday saying he'd recovered my images and when I logged in there they were. You've got to admire him, when things go wrong he doesn't give up trying to put it right.
  21. Nailed it there! A normal 24 hours is the time taken for the earth to rotate enough to point exactly at the sun. A sidereal 24 hours is the time for the earth to rotate exactly 360 degrees. Therefore stars appear at exactly the same sidereal time which is why RA is described as a time.
  22. Living in Scotland we have 80-100% humidity pretty much all year round. I had thought that with plenty of ventilation my obsy would remain condensation free however, it only takes a rise in air temperature of a couple of degrees and moisture would form on the cold mount and scope and everything made of metal leading to rust. I run my Neostar Desiccant Dehumidifier 24 hrs a day 365 days a year. I keep it at 60% humidity and being plumbed in (hose through the obsy floor) it never requires maintenance or even looking at. The gentle heat it outputs keeps the obsy a few degrees above ambient temperature but not so much that I have to wait for the scope to cool before use. I can highly recommend one based on my experience. Images - Instructions, Typical weather, Chart of temperature and humidity this last year. Up spikes in humidity are when I've had the roof open.
  23. According to the police this scam was shut down in 2005. All email warnings about it since then are hoaxes. https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/news/hoax-email-from-pds-parcel-delivery-service Edited to change text to a link
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