Parus major

Last summer I went away for a week and came back to find a storm had ripped the felt off the roof of the shed and the inside had gotten rain in. I thought I'd got away with it until I discovered a slug had scooted across the primary and ate the centre donut.
 

You have my sympathies.

I've had a fair few years away from it as well and it's been like being entirely new again coming back. Hardware is not that different but there's leaps and bounds difference in the software side of things. I was far from an expert on anything but now I'm waaaaay back to knowing nothing. 

11 hours ago, John said:

It's the most loved that counts in this thread 😉

The one I posted was my oldest and one of my least expensive scopes. But I'd not be without it 😁

I saw that one, it's a piece of art.

I'm happy to report I've cleaned off the rust from the weights and repainted them. It's not a perfect job or anything but they're clean. 

The telescope itself I can't do much about, the cosmetic marks it sustained from getting kicked over by a couple of drunks who saw it in my garden at 3am are scars of its life. I had to break it down to tap out a crease and the focuser bolts were pulled out. I did think about buying a replacement but the primary mirror was undamaged so I decided to fit a new focuser and a new secondsry. At this stage I think with the flocking and the new focuser it's as good as a skywatcher 150PL can get. 

I'm definitely winning the least aesthetically pleasing set up what with the rust and the dents.

2 minutes ago, Bridgehouse said:

Thanks! Shuker Uberhorn Fretless - the top is African Blackwood. Kinda feel it matches the TV for build quality and style

It's gorgeous.
 

31 minutes ago, Bridgehouse said:

Got to be the TV NP101is…

 

 

That bass is exquisite.
Not to say the scope isn't

She's been few a few wars but she fires every times she does. 

Btw, I'm not a psychopath, there's another Telrad plate on the other side in a more convenient position.

I like to have everything out and working in the light if I can.  I can take my time to set it up right and I'm fairly good at plonking the mount down enough north that polar alignment is near as dammit for observational.
 

The two big failures I made was not installing the EQdir driver and not setting the com port. At the time I didn't know you could manually set them and every USB port I plugged was higher number than the programme could go.

My computer's not that hot since it's only a dual core at 3.8GHz but I'm plugging on with it and I'm currently #67 on the SGL decending score list.

I've never dealt with 365 before so I thought I'd report in.

I ordered a Telescope Service focuser base plate on the 21st Jan and instantly hit a paypal issue where the transaction was "randomly selected for review" by paypal. 365 were very understanding on this and gave me pointers as to how to resolve it. After a lot of correspondence from Paypal I got it fixed and had my focuser base plate in under two days.

Two days from a cleared payment is excellent, and even better when the company basically had a problem transaction on their hands. I found them patient and friendly in the face of something that they could understandably told me to go raffle ma heid over.

Top marks!

Spikey, Carastro and RogerTheDodger, you all have my heartfelt thanks and gratitude. thanks for all the help. Thanks to you kind people I'm in business!

Ah, officially I'm an idiot.

I've went back and tried the steps again but can't seem to find where to get the drivers from. The first post says the list is on the left but I think the page might have had a redesign since.

Just in case I'm attempting to use a HitecAstro EQDIR and an EQ6 on XP.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the replies, people but it seems again I've got a problem...

I did a google search and it seems one way to bring the section up is to update the BIOS, which I've done but it's still not there. Ho-hum.

I'm giving this a go but I'm getting as far as trying to find a port on the "ASCOM setup". I've tries the search button (Clicky with bino's) and manually changing to every port on the list and get nothing. Two Days I've been here!

Any ideas, people?