YogSothoth

Visual only for me and have no interest in AP beyond the odd snap of the sun in white light through the eyepiece with my phone. For me, it’s all about sitting out in the garden for an hour or so peering through the eyepiece and trying to tease a bit more detail out of that faint grey patch that has taken thousands or even millions of years for the light to reach my eye. That and sketching (badly) what I see.

Great looking scope. Hopefully you’ll have some clear skies soon.

3 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

As far as I can see it comes with the standard saddles as is supplied with the Skytee. The Stella Lyra does come with the counterweight(s).

OK thanks and thought that might be the case. Replacing the saddles with ADM saddles adds another £180 to the price 

6 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

The mount sold with the Stella Lyra tripod is actually a Skytee mount. I have been weighing up between a Berlebach and the Stella Lyra tripod myself.

I was thinking more about the saddles that come with the mount. I understand that the saddles supplied with the Skytee aren’t really up to the job, so people replace them with ADM saddles. I was wondering if the same applies to the Stellalyra mount or if it has better saddles as standard.

Hi all. Just wondering if anyone has used one of these Stellalyra mounts yet? If so, would the saddles still need replacing as seems to to be recommended on the Skytee 2? Thanks.

19 minutes ago, UKDiver said:

It does take some grip and effort, but it will move eventually.  Oh, yes, it will.

It did eventually unscrew. I was just being a bit overcautious, not wanting to damage anything. After much swapping around of various spacers, I managed to bring it to focus with my Lunt solar wedge for a bit of white light observing. For all of 5 mins before it clouded over again 😂. Looked lovely though.

5 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

It should - probably just a bit tight.

OK thanks. I’ll give it another go.

2 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Oh, I see. How do I remove that ( if I need to). Doesn’t seem to unscrew

23 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Good choice - my DF is quite lovely. Of course you've now committed us to more cloud  

A good tip for the DC is if you run out of in focus the green spacer comes off 

Thanks for the tip, but I don’t see a green spacer. There is the longer extension tube, which I’ve removed and a much shorter spacer that but they are both black. It’s flat grey sky here so not much to try and focus on at the moment

13 hours ago, JeremyS said:

Which model is that? 

Sorry, should have said. It’s the FC100 DC. Looking forward to some clear skies- I think it looks like mid August might be OK 😂

Took delivery of a new scope today 😀. Excellent service fro FLO as usual. It is, of course, thick cloud outside.

That’s interesting. I have one in my FLO basket at the moment, including a vixen bar. I was going to ponder overnight and decide in the morning. The photo on their page definitely shows it with a Losmandy bar and when I contacted them today they recommended a couple of vixen bars as an alternative.

I don’t know this particular scope but I have the SM 80mm f10, which is a fantastic scope. Very well built and with excellent optics. Pin sharp stars and no CA.

Another great book to have a look at would be ‘The Backyard Astronomers Guide’ (Dickinson & Dyer). Packed with useful information and has a section on binocular observation. I started off with binoculars many years ago and still love sweeping the sky with them. 

On 10/09/2022 at 11:05, sorrimen said:

You could potentially do some solar system AP, but god knows how you’d attach the iPad to a scope. If you mean wide field shots of the sky, then it’s easy to just do a long exposure picture. What you won’t be able to do, is take multiple long exposures tracked for stacking, which is really what AP is. Absolutely all AP starts with the mount (apart from untracked planetary).

I was thinking of the iPad more for the processing side rather than taking the photos. I have a DSLA and was thinking of buying a tracker to use it on. It was more a case of using the iPad for stacking, rather than having to buy a laptop as well but, it appears that none of the Apple apps have a stacking facility 

OK thanks for that. I should be able to pick up a suitable laptop at a reasonable price, so that’ll be the way to go I think if I decide to get a tracker.

3 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

You could try using an RPi4. That has plenty of grunt for imaging and controlling the mount etc. I use that powered by Astroberry which is a pre-built image that includes relevant software for Astro. But I agree to do the processing of large images you would be better off getting a laptop. I too have Affinity on my ipad but use Siril on an old laptop that cant run windows but can run linux 🙂

Thanks for the reply but at the risk of sounding ignorant, what’s an RPi4?

Thanks for the reply and that’s about what I thought. I use Affinity for general photography, which works well on iPad but it doesn’t have stacking. Looks like a laptop is probably the only way to go

I’ve had a pair of Zeiss 10x50s for years. I get a great deal of pleasure just sitting in the garden doing a bit of casual observing. I also use them to locate unfamiliar, brighter DSOs, which they are great for

As the title suggests, is this possible, or do I need to buy a PC? I only have AZ mounted scopes at the moment but was thinking of buying a tracker that I can use a DSLR camera on for some simple AP. I can’t seem to find any stacking software for the iPad. Affinity is available but I believe the stacking feature isn’t included.

Shameless plug for libraries (I work in one). If you live in West Sussex and get a library card, you’ll get free access to Sky At Night and New Scientist on the Libby app. Also, hundreds of other mags, newspapers, e-books etc.

I have the same problem with my Stellamira 80mm. I’m thinking of buying a Berlebach observing chair from FLO when they are back in stock. I never have the same problem with my 200p dob as it’s always just about right with a kitchen stall

On 07/05/2022 at 22:09, Olli said:

After receiving my new scope a couple of weeks ago I have been itching to use it with the az gti after having a few woes before with tracking problems with SynScan, and after a lot of help on here once again I think I have finally figured it out ( so he says!) 

it was only a short session today as the clouds were rolling in and wasn’t feeling that great after being tested positive for covid I thought I’d give the moon a try as it is one of my favourite objects to look at. 
 

after doing a 2 star alignment with the mount everything seemed to be aligned great and adjusting the slew speed  was a life saver. Wish I had found out sooner! I first put in my 24mm ES eyepiece in and the moon was perfectly framed in the scope and my first reaction was how sharp everything was. I could easily see a lot of detail across the moon and even across the terminator. As well as the non illuminated surface which was quite surprising!
 

Coming from a dob I was pleasantly surprised. Next I changed out the eyepiece for the 14mm and again  the detail was still great as using the 24mm nice and crisp. Tracking was great with the mount will hopefully get into sketching when looking at the moon . I definitely need to learn my craters as I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at but it looked great .

It is amazing what looking at the stars does for your well-being even if it’s only for a quick session. I think this scope will probably last me a lifetime and can’t wait to use it more especially for imaging and DSO. ( hopefully the repairs go okay with Flo next week!) 

Clear skies 

Olli

I just received a Stellamira 80 f10 and like you have come from using a dob. I too was amazed at how crisp views of the moon are compared with the dob. It’s also a lot easier to carry out into the back garden as well, which is a bonus

Thanks for all of the replies. Some great drawings and some good advice there to inspire me and get me started. I’ve just been looking at a book called ‘Astonomical Sketching: A Step by Step Introduction’, which looks interesting. 

Hi All. I’ve always been impressed with some of the fantastic pictures I’ve come across of drawings made at the eyepiece. My own attempts end up looking nothing like what I can see- open clusters with stars in the wrong place, that sort of thing 😂 and was looking for advice on how to improve. Book recommendations? Many thanks.