Simon128D

Thought I would throw this video on here.

My I suggest getting a tank like this next time lol pFX3Abb.mp4

Oh don't worry, my kitty has little interest in anything apart from me and his food. 😄 Besides, the scope is all broken down and in their padded bags right now.

I have been taking videos of all and will put together a full video. It might be a while as I have no editing skills but when it is I will post it up. There will be more pics too 😁

Thanks Cajen, 6 months in the waiting and now I will probably have to go through another 3 months of trying to get a primary mirror replaced but at least it will be usable should I get a clear night before something - hopefully something - is arranged.

It finally arrived. Came early this morning, took me a bit by surprise as I was meant to be phoned to arrange delivery but there was a bloomin' big lorry outside my place and sure enough it was for me. I am super impressed by how well put together and secure the whole pallet was. I could tell right away there was no delivery concerns. I couldn't leave it sitting outside with rain on the way so I had to act quickly to get it all inside. Once I got all the screws out from the box lid I was very impressed with how the scope was packaged. There wasn't a mm of movement in there, everything was so tightly packet and neatly done. 10 out of 10 Once I got all out I took it all inside to spend the afternoon on the sofa. I took the liberty of giving everything a quality check and wood, finish and feel of everything is exquisite, so very beautiful. I had to have a peek at the primary mirror and see what it was like, so I took the cover off and that's when my heart sank a little. I don't know what went wrong here but one whole side of the mirror is filthy. It would be easy to assume that tap or bottled water got spilled on it and wasn't noticed so dried out. What ever it was it is looking like a petri dish in a lab. I have good experience cleaning mirrors. I've cleaned several 10" mirrors, one 12" and my own 14" mirror once to excellent results, so I could take this out and clean it but I will not do that until I have discussed it with both Taurus and Astroshop and see what the outcome is but getting mirrors in this state is not acceptable, certainly not at this money. I have already sent emails to Astroshop and Taurus and will await their responses. You can see for yourself in these photos: Setting this disappointment aside I am delighted by the build quality and design. The collimation process is original and stunning to use. The collimation after assembly was almost bang on and only needed the minor adjustment you'd expect after breaking down and building up a truss style Dob. I cannot wait for first light but with the weather now the first few weeks of February are a wash out it seems. At least I can practice the assembly and break down process and develop a routine and some muscle memory. I did get it assembled this evening to get a good look and boy is it an impressive instrument. Hasn't sunk in yet that it's mine lol

Thank you Baz, excellent to hear you're so happy with yours. Galloway is one of those places I hope to visit sometime in the near future. Before Covid was already making a go at visit dark sky locations around the UK and Ireland. I am lucky to say that I live in Bortle 4 skies, with B3 only 7 miles from me and B2 locations with in 2 and three hour drives. Hopefully, some time next week I will be as happy as you are.

That is why I thought I would start a thread here, so anyone else doing web searches may fine this, and others, containing the kind of info and real hands on details a potential buyer would want to know.

No I haven't, thank you for sharing. Awful to see the truss legs get damaged. Hopefully won't happen with me. Everything does look lovely in those photos aside from that. I love the wooden crate it comes in. I also ordered the padded storage bags so hoping I can store the scope in the crate and just be able to lift it in and out.

Hello all, Back in August of 2021 I placed an order for the scope mentioned (Taurus T400 ultra light Dob) from the unknown company based in Poland. There is next to nothing about these scopes online so I am hoping to change that a little and document my journey from ordering this to receiving it and possibly a user review. https://www.taurustelescopes.com/en/telescopes/ I only came across this company via a friend telling about them and linking me to an advert in Astronomy Now, or some similar magazine. What caught my attention first was the beautiful wood design, it was very striking and upon looking into the design further what really got my attention was the the primary mirror cell and their deign for collimation. Instead of fussing with knobs or alan keys at the rear of the cell, the mirror housing has three beautiful looking wheels that can be turned clockwise and anti clockwise, with ease of use while wearing gloves. So on other words, the entire scope is tool free and can be setup and collimated while wearing gloves. The design was so unique to me that it stayed in my mind for the longest time and then about a year after I decided that it was time for me to get my, dream, large Dob while I am still young enough and have the physical ability to enjoy such an instrument. I remembered the Taurus ad and after trying to find more info about them it was not much but I did find a few reviews taken from an astro magazine either in Germany or Poland, that was translated. A read of that gave me confidence that this was a quality instrument and performed very well. This is the review: https://www.taurustelescopes.com/test_EN.pdf I wanted to know more about their optics and looking into the history of that I found out that when they were fresh and starting up they were using Orion Optics UK mirrors. That can be a good or bad thing, I personally have had an awful experience with Orion Optics and my 10" Newt mirrors but when it was resolved the mirrors are incredible. Now that they are an established scope maker they make their own mirrors and seem to be proud about them. I will be very interested in seeing how they look and preform. (I am very fussy when it comes to mirrors) I was hoping to get an 18" but the only options for me was 16" or 20", so I decided on the 16" - knowing that the 20" would be just that much too heavy and too high for comfortable use. Another thing that impressed me is that every scope is custom made to order. That would also mean a long wait time (five months for me) but knowing your are not getting a mass produced instrument, that its hand made and checked from start to finished is that little bit of special you'd want when spending a lot of money on what you hope to be your dream scope. It makes you think of Obsession or Hubble Optics and I am hoping Taurus can be up there or even best the big guys, even if just a little. The prices are certainly a huge winner. I decided to order via Astroshop.de as I had heard about their excellent customer service and high standards so I placed an order with them in late August 21, as a means of having a reputable company to deal with should anything go wrong in delivery. This is the very model I went with https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/taurus-dobson-telescope-n-404-1800-t400-standard-smh-dsc-dob/p,71575 I got word yesterday that my scope has been shipped out! If all goes well I hope to have it in about a week. I plan to document the experience as much as I can and probably try to do an unboxing, setup, overview, first light and in the end first thoughts and long term user review. If this companies scopes are as good as I am expecting them to be then I want to do my part in helping them become more well known.

That's what I am doing too. Getting back to my original topic - sort of. Could anyone recommend a 2" adapter/visual back that I can screw onto the Celestron Focal Reducer? Would there be a version of the Baader Click Lock that would screw onto it? Say like this one? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-click-lock-2-for-celestron-meade-sct.html I first saw this but have no idea if it would fit the threads on the FR https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-2-visual-back-eyepiece-holder-for-sct-telescopes.html

Moon and shadow transit animations is exactly what I am trying to achieve in the future. Do you use a mask for getting fine focus?

That all makes sense. I was capturing at full resolution to try and capture the moons you see but I shall knock the res down and play with that. The biggest appeal is not having 20GB plus files for 10k frames at full res lol

That is very helpful Vlaiv, I have been keeping my exposure around 10 and my gain at 220/250, I did not know having it lower would be beneficial. I have not read up on anything or look into anything with planetary imaging, just doing what I think makes sense. I will try that next time. If I may ask, what resolution do you image at? Full res of the camera or do you lower your res to have the planet fit the frame as much as possible? Hoping to see a crack in the clouds tomorrow night.

F10 is unusable for me. N.Ireland skies are so unstable that using F10 is impossible to see anything. The planets are just a blurry mess and impossible get focus. I've tried to do it many times and all results were disastrous. Using the FL was the best result I've had in years. I would never use a barlow as I rarely get stable seeing that low down. Camera is the ZWO ASI290MC Some useful tips there vlaiv, thanks.

Thanks again all for your help. I was able to get sorted and find an original visual back for this scope. It's only the 1.25" so now looking to see if I can get a 2" adapter. What difference it is to get this scope down to F6.3, images at the eyepiece as so much brighter and more defined. It's going to make for a usable DSO scope. Imaging Jupiter and Saturn was much easier. ZWO camera was getting so much more light so could knock the gain all the way down to 14-16 and get 82fps versus the 25-40 with gain at 20 or more in the stock F10 configuration. The scope was slightly out of collimation, which is why the images have a slight blur - especially Saturn's rings - but I collimated the scope the next day and am looking forward to the next clear night now. 2021-07-25-0026 Regi.tif 2021-07-25-0016 Regi.tif

Thank you all for the help! That's a lot of good suggestions. @fozzybear I will need to check that and see but its likely to be one of the earliest models. I will have to look into what you've all suggested, the 3.25 to 2" adapter seems like the right thing for me but I cannot find anywhere in the UK selling one.

Hi all, I've been shopping for a focal reducer for my C11 for some time now but am stumped by it all. I made a video that will explain it better so if anyone could help me figure this out I would be so happy. Just to add to this. The Meade 4000 I was trying in the video is exactly the same as this https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reducersflatteners/celestron-f63-focal-reducer.html Thanks Simon

Thanks again, Yes I found that pdf and is excellent. I was able to take the mount apart and could confirm I have the nylon bearings and want to replace them now. I am unsure what bearing size I need to order. The PDF and all other references I found online state they are 0.25" bearing but to convert that in mm comes to 6.3mm and I cannot find bearings of that size, 6mm is the nearest and I am not sure if they will do. Upon reassembling the mount - so I could put it back into its case - I powered it on and the slewing is much improved but the movement my hand is really rough. Believe I found them https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p222116/1/4-inch-Diameter-Grade-100-AISI-316-Stainless-Steel-Ball-Bearings/product_info.html

Geoff, I just set the scope up there to check software versions and do some updates and I tried to spin the scope as you said but even with some force on the handle it is only moving about 40 degrees and stops so there must be binding going on. Can you point me to any material that could show me what I need to do?

I only want to power the scope, nothing else. I am 95% a visual astronomer. Everything else I can power from something else. I haven't tried to spin the mount around when when I did unlock the clutch it certainly did not feel like it was free enough to be spun around. I will try that again when I next use it. I am new to SCT scopes. I am usually a Newt, dob or on EQ6 so not sure what binding is or what I would need to be looking at if I need to open it up. I am really tankful for your advice though.

Hi all, I've just recently become the owner of a lovely CPC 1100 and couldn't be happier but after being out last night to watch Callisto's shadow transit on Jupiter the scope was having moments of struggling to slew at full speed and tracking was just not happening - like it was at half speed. I have been using a Halford's 20ah power tank to power all my gear for years now but I am suspecting that it is not up to snuff for the CPC, thus before I go out and buy an expensive Lithium power pack - to replace the Halford - I thought I should buy a mains power adapter to use at home. I came across this on amazon and wondered if anyone had any thoughts on it? https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07N1WTGWM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A850CZQOZ8GYC&psc=1 Or would this on FLO be a more sensible option? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/nevada-ps-08-6a-8a-regulated-linear-power-supply.html If anyone can recommend something else?

Hello all, It will be coming up to 10 years since I got my 350P GOTO from FLO and has been the most amazing scope to use and will continue to use it for many more years to come but since about two years ago I've been having an issues with the mount base motor when slewing for anything from GOTO or just tracking an object. It seems the motor gearing is slipping a lot. In most cases the star alignment goes just fine but after a while an object will be gone from the eye piece and normally I just need to press and hold the right arrow but more and more I have to hold the button for 10 seconds or more to get any actual movement. I can speed this process up by increasing the slew speed to anything above 5. I have removed the black plastic housing to have a look at the internals and there does not seem to be any easy way to do maintenance on these mothers. I couldn't see any way at all to remove the motor from the base and from the angles I had available it appeared to be a sealed unit. Is there anyone or anywhere that would look at the base to service it for me? I suspect it will just be a matter of applying fresh grease or lubricant but I am not sure what is involved in doing this or what the risks are of causing damage. I can see one of the encoder wheels and I would dread to cause any damage to that. I have managed to get used to it in the sense that I know if I use GOTO or manually slew to an object to then use the hand controller so that when I press the right arrow button I get movement and finish centering with light presses of right and up arrow the tracking will usually be solid for long observations. I would like to get this back to really good working order though and I usually spend 15 minutes or more observing an object so the tracking of the GOTO is essential for me. Any help or advice from any of you will be greatly appreciated. Simon

How do you go about getting a true north with a compass? This is probably why when I did use a compass all I could do is setup using magnetic north and was too far off.

Both common sense tips there. Unable to mark the ground as I set up on gravel. I have tried the compass many years ago and was not close enough for me to just get away with using the mount knobs to achieve polar alignment. I should try doing that again sometime.