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todd8137

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  1. todd8137
    hi all am sure any one that gets a meade goto scope and as not really thought about the alignment thing ,so you set up and are not sure were any thing is star wise it then says
    "slewing to Etamin" as you gasp and get you books and stellarium going a bet you wish you just had a print out to show the stars in the conste
    http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/AlignmentStars497A4.pdf
    found this as a was searching for some thing else it also shows the southern hem so download it my help if you do not no your way around and after a few looks you will be ready to go because if you do not no were they are some times the brightest aint always the alignment star
    clear skies
    pat

  2. todd8137

    Ready for tonight

    By todd8137,

    Well hope tonight is the night ,as last night was spent messing,with the sct 9.25 try in jupiter but shes over the house now and the thermals wee on the wobble ,even with the ir 740 pass filt not much luck.
    so back to tonight set the 127mm EDT cf up with the 80mm guide scope will include a few images ,
    it sits on a cgem head on a astrotec pier
    just have to stick the qhy5 and modded dslr 600d on tonight fore the laptop up phd/ back yard eos and away we go will post my results as and when going to get around 3 hours of data. On some small galaxy
    pat

  3. todd8137

    Suppliers

    By todd8137,

    Hi there just want to say that,all telescope retailers ,all offer the same service as each other ,royal mail does not make parcels go any faster,so why say
    "xxx company" delivered in one day most company's do they all offer the same service,they all chat to you on the phone
    It's the company's that do not have a direct number,now if they was good they would have a direct number,it does not matter if they are shop based or Internet based ,company's that do not offer a direct line do not get my money so thEy should take heed, who wants to e mail a company for a phone call back not me these companys are idle aNd do not care about the people its all about the money!most shops and internet based companies are the same some re good some are bad,some and most will offer your money back ,only because long distance selling abides by this rule.most are good but some just take the Micky,if you do not have the stock,why say you do ,and then there's a 3 week wait
    Moan over
  6. todd8137

    M94 FAIL

    By todd8137,

    Hi all well set every thing up test shot done checked on pc fine put dew shield on.for some reason i put the dust cover on as well went in the house come back ,and started to snap away i did it in 3 sets of 20 ,did i mention i left the lp filter in as well.
    any way i have 60 x 30 secs good darks to save i ended up getting about.10x30 it was late at this point so i gave up
    put them in DSS, They small as well i feft the 2" tube in which took the d10s chip a little to far.all the same will try this again with just the fr and camera
  7. todd8137

    Not a bad night

    By todd8137,

    28th Sept
    Hi all was out last night as clear skies where on the cards,and a wanted to see what i've missed over the last few days
    Cassiopeia
    caph as 2 great cluster ngc7789,and 7790 to the left,just under them is ngc129,189,225,nery small and not very bright
    move in down to ruchbar ,is m103 not hard to miss meduim brightness,also a few small clusters 32mm/18mm ep ngc 436,457
    the last star as a few more nut did not look.just sweeping around Cas theirs loads of great star fields of all colors
    also look for the great double cluster about haf way between rachbar and mirphak for the massive great double cluster nc869 ,always a great on it massive the lowest power you have here i use a 32mm its just riht i can sweep left and riht and take all the colors in blues reds oranges whites stars of all colors.
    M33
    i did have a good look tonight but all i got was the stars i could see the spirals of stars that make this but no grey smudge at all i then had a half hour round cygnus and sagita and then got the web cam out for Jupiter at this point i was tired but the sky was so black and clear i thought i would have a go ,i got a few videos and will youtube them later i did hunt for lots mor faint clusters the 18mm antares speer walers,worked great finding these hope with have some more nights like these
    Triangulum galaxy was next
    i could not spot any smudge but the stars spiral shape s were to be seen ,its still a great site to see theres a small cluster just to its left that also looks likea spiral but small lots of people mistake that for m33
    it was a great night
    Heres the Jupiter vidoe








  8. todd8137

    The moon

    By todd8137,

    HI all and welcome did a few pics afocal cos it was really damp out last night the link below is to the pics a was use in this a/c for my cloud pics but can stick my moon and other astro pics in it as well the weather held for a few hoursand a ussed a iso of about 600 and set to infinity with about a 1/30 sec time with tripod and cam up to the eye piece they not brill but could ya let me no what ya think if ya get the time cheers pat
    http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr93/todd8137/moon/
  10. todd8137

    M1 CRAB

    By todd8137,

    M1 CRAB NEBULA
    HI all and as you no tonight the 16 jan,i started a new messier list on 12- 28-11,i had started the list so many times ,
    now i could burn a load of in one night,but then i would not able to bath in its light on my eye ball,that said i put the scopes out at 18:30 and came in for tea fed and watered i printed of all 110 sheets for free i will post one up later ,and i decided i will start with M1 and work my way from there,now is it pos to see all from the UK,i see lots of sigs state in that so ?.
    i got out side and with m1 in mind Orion was high up and i wanted to check the telrad and 9x60 was all in order and all pointing me in the right way ,i had colaminated the scope early out side(well truth be told i did it in the porch about 3 o clock, i gave the neb in orion a good pan around,32mm in and the OIII filter in my pocket i took a look,for the first time in 3 years i have actually seen orion in all its glory tonight it really was standing out ,i did not need the filter i am sure i saw some green purple and dark red,it was not a trick of the eye or mind either.
    that out the way and still glowing ,i spun the scope to the Crab to be honest in the 32 mm ep i passed it about 5 times and the OIII filter let me see a smudge ,i popped the filter of and put the 20mm skywatcher uw,i used to hate this ep but that was not the eps fault colamination and the summer heat gave me a sour taste with this ep,scope sorted aligned the 20mm sw uw 68,its became my best friend no field curvature ,or stretched stars around the edges i got back tothe crab and it takes power rather well tonight with the 300p also i found it with the 90mm goto with a 17mm gso plos and it was more detailed with the 300p ,but the little 90mm f8 did not fail to impress yet again !theres a lot to be said for 90mm fracs .
    with the 300p tho it was rather out line was really standing out,and towards the center it was more darker it shape was just like it should have been in the past i ve had a go for it but the first time in years there it was,i spent 20 mins on and of tap in the scope lightly did not reveal much more detail,it totally worked on the great Orion neb,for the next time i intend to head straight for M1 and spend a bit more time with it not just the neb bt the stars as well around it because once you have studied them you will never have probs finding it again thats me done
    thanks for reading
    clear skies
    todd8137



  11. todd8137

    More Moon pics 14/2/2011

    By todd8137,

    hi just three more pics a did the other night a used the a focal method ,and the trpiod which sounds easy but line in the thing up to the eye piece was crazy. ep was 32mm cam sony mavica and zoom was x3 ,in these pics they on photobucket here is the link if you want a look and all comments are welcome cheers pat
    clear skies always
    http://s473.photobucket.com/albums/rr93/todd8137/moon2/
    do not for get to clik then klik again on these pics to see full screen on photo bucket
  12. todd8137

    my horrible day!

    By todd8137,

    hi all well phewwwww am glad to day is done because what a day its been the new serial to usb came today all excited i unwrapped it and thought good by to the old one which i trapped in the door 4 nights ago half a sleep,half awake ,i trapped it in a heavy door big ali one chopped it clean in half.
    so to flea bay i went thinking a cheap one at 10 quid would do the job,not!what a hassle it turnede out to be i riiged every thing up and thouht all would work well all plug and play the laptop top is about 2 years old from new and is dual core 4 gb ram graphics sound card full monty.
    plugged her in and it flashed once and that was it i could not work it out run the wizard drivers ok checked the port fine?
    then i tried and tried 20 million downloads latter nothing it was now tea time and my good lady came in and asked me to come for tea (she is not a fam of the scopes at all) and i had tea called my IT mate round and he had a play were upon he said there a problem made that funny whooo noise and said this and that he splitt 10 minutes later.
    i thouight it was a virus because the day before i let my daughter go on a game called habbo house one she plays on face book which killed the laptop ,blue screen of death 55 minutes later done updated and thought thats that rulled out i then came up stairs to the spare room were the ofice type room is and plugged just the cable in to the old tower was in to the com port,and not the usb to serail cabble screwed the nuts up and brought starry nights six pro up (by the way thats a lot of money and go for the free version the pro version aint much better) i kliked on the on a random star hit go and ran out the room with my fingers in my ears ,i grabbed a cuppa came back up and it was pointing the other way i tried stellarium and kliked on m101 and held ctrl and the number 1 and of she went tried meades auto guide fine .
    the love affair is back on then the mrs said she smilled and walked out the room
    the blood pressure is back to normal and the headaches gone am done rant over

  13. todd8137
    hi wanted to vid the moon positions ,this morning try in to get a video every day for the month if you watched the 3rd august video this one is a must as the 3 moons, io,gan,euro form a lil triangle tonight was brill was hope in,for the same tonight.but a think we all have the wet stuff today for a change
    http://www.youtube.com/user/todd8137?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/uZUsMX0z5lI
    heres the link try and sit a few feet away from the monitor for better view in and watch in HD thanks pat
  14. todd8137

    crayford hell

    By todd8137,

    well were do a start,i decided to by a low profile crayford to better the scope and help with my pics adventure,well just put in a normal 1.25 ep in is a hassle and takes a good 5 mins to get focus because not only ,do you have to pull the ext tube all the way out,but also the 1.25:holderthat the ep sits in what a hassle the 12"dob was so easy to set up with the rack and pinion focuser.i had a long 2" skywatcher t adapter which was just to long when use in the cannon camera and ended up by in the short 2"one from flo.that was fun and games in its self but got that sorted all was fine the camera gets great focus.
    so my next headache started with the cape instrument uw80 f30mm ep , i thought this would make a great first 2"ep and after a bit of "duff advice decided to buy it for near on 55 quid, only to find out this time it can not get far enough away from the crayford even with the tube fully out, it would get focus if a held it just above the focuser so what to do ,do a by a ext ring just for one ep or by a star diagonal and use it in the 90mm meade frac ?. when a did end up getting focus it was usless the stars in the middle were fine,but round the edges rubbish the pain in side was welling up so a called it a night.a see flo do Baader T2 Extension Tube
    am not sure if these would screw on to the bottom of the 2 inch ep, to give me a bit more lenght am sure some one will put me straight ,as these ext tubes come in all lenghts but i do not think these are what they are for . (add in lenght to my 2" ep) so my troubles will end with this some day any ideas why the 2:cape will not get focus a no it needs to be longer at the bottom so it van,get further away from the low profile crayford .
    update 5th April
    hi got a 80mm exttnsion tube delivered and theres no prob at all nowthe 2"eps get perfect focus the web cam is 100 times better the cameras are fine a was gona get the 50mm one glad a did not now after get in the tape measure out and some card just to see how much travel was needed it was 53mm phew,every thing works fine now and i take back all what a said about the crayford but think befor ya buy this may be a prob for you to .........


  15. todd8137

    Saturn

    By todd8137,

    Hi one and all ,let me first start by thanking "astro baby" for her great guide on collimation which i did and the scope was of by miles and is now tip top and tonights viewing was all the better for it ,so a big thanks to her .
    now Saturn who wee baby my eyes nearly popped out my head the ear to ear smile was hurting my face i had the 32mm eye piece in and soon changed to the 12mm, which gave me a great view all the moons were there it was magical my hands touched the scope and it felt electric a shooting star shot past my view and the rings were perfect the angle was so good that i thought my god is this real
    i looked left and saw dione.enceldu, and tethys they were there mimas wasreal close bottom left amd rhea was up and to the right am sure a saw some thing else near rhea but could not be sure if that was just a back ground star.
    let me tell ya this if ya have never seen saturn befor like me its just unreal to see this makes the heart beat faster and gives you a scale on just how small we are here on earth,and makes the feeling inside of just how small we are on are blue little ball to sum this up a wish a could travel into space and just fly close to saturn just the once,but i will be more than happy to look at it through my white baby every chance a get(white baby be in the scope ,whos name is MO1)
    what a night wipeeeeeeeee
    unreal
    clear skies always
  16. todd8137

    Tonights view in x2

    By todd8137,

    hi all
    well Clive (Telesto) is coming up with 200p at reflector tonight and the 12" and 90mm will be out as well ,hope to image the moon and hopefully Clive will able to get the tracking go in and get some good moon avi`s.Pleiades is what i want to draw and a few other
    clusters whilst Clive gets the video and may be some ,images with the moon and the d10 and 12" reflector,update to follow
    update
    well what a night last night was,crispy cold ,and it was nearly minus four at one point .Clive arrived (telesto) and set up prior to Clive get in here ,i had a look at Venus which was still in its current phase,Neptune was just there and was more than a dot it was not white,may have been me but it looked a lightish blue and just above venus no good with the 90mm frac i was use in the 300p 6mm tmb.
    well after we had a brew and had settled down out side 20 mins later we started to view M35 was the first thing we looked at Clive had not seen it before most of what we seen tonight was for clive ,is first time the amount of double stars tonight was great oranges blues lots of bright stars
    i used a 20mm uw for all tonight`s view in, apart from mars we we looked at a lot in Gemini split the double and moved on to cancer ,m44 of course Clive loved it it did look nice tonight and i stuck the 32 mm in for a quick look lovely cluster, the owl cluster was next Clive had a blast to with the 300p and he could clearly see the blue and yellow gold stars easy to fins and see
    Orion for a while m78,the neb of course ngc 2175 split Rigel very nice double clearly seen,
    sigma Orion errm, Ursa major next mizor was naked eye with alcor,m81/82 where hard to find at this point as the moon was above the trees and its massive glow proceeded it 30 mins before,then seen Clive was really pleased his glow from seeing the clusters was keep in me warm he seen all but m81/82 with his scope as the moon was shocking ,we then looked at Andromeda and its galaxy, which filled the 20mm ultra wide both me and Clive noted how bright the center was tonight .
    but the high light for both of us must have been M33,have in a telrad makes this great galaxy soooo easy to find and theres a lot to be said about the guy who made these possible genius,m33 wow at a few points i did see the dust lanes the 32mm ep was needed for this ,and averted vision, and a little tap on the side of the scope,and a mean little taps ,on the scope and the dust lanes popped in and out of my vision the shivers were not just from the minus 4,either the scopes were covered in ice at this point ,but may i say the fan was running all night and the dew shield on .i was taken with this for a bout 25 mins on and of and clive was busy relocate the other targets we had set up for the night he was star hopping to them and have in a great time with is 200p truss tube auto track his diy skills with a light shroud and dew shield out of a camping mat he had made a few days before were excellent .
    the quote of the night goes to Clive,
    "pat is that mars just above the trees","yes mate" ,"pat i have it in the ep, with a 6mm and i can see a white bit at the top and a brown line and a dark L shape near the bottom" i was still on m33 blinking my eye lids and tap in the tube this method for any galaxy always brings out loads of detail for me ,i was in the shed and have in the dew shield on it was not possible to drop the scope down that low as it would have hit the sides of the shed, i sneaked a look with Clive`s 200p and is 6mm ep wow wee no wonder he was smiling away , he was right the polar ice cap was so obvious there was a dark feature running just below it and there was a prominent L shape feature ,my first real view in 2 years and from the back garden,at this point clive legged it to the kitchen and got the camera and laptop, a few avi`s got we went in for a drink seeing was not that great for video and you could see features on mars on the vid but the stacks would only stack 50 out of 500 ,
    what a night great all round Clive ticked of plenty of doubles,clusters nebs,double clusters and every thing in between ,i did not write every thing down as the wow moments did not stop all night thanks for reading
    todd8136


  17. todd8137

    mini star get together

    By todd8137,

    hi every one had a great night tonight just finished cleaning the scope and eps had a friend of sgl john and is lad Connor at my place tonight they brought there scope and a set 12" dob up, we aligned johns finder scope up on is 4 inch newt,and had a quick tour .of the moon filters were the best help we had the moon was so bright and full ptlemaeus.alphonus and arzachel were the first things to show john and Connor .who a will call from now jc mare humoron was the next,mare fecunditatis with the messier pair were another high point .
    next was Orion for a quick look at that to show jc with and with out OIII ngc 1981 open cluster was nice and the great Orion neb was its normal self we then looked at Taurus and its doubles we saw lots the best were, tau 80,81,85,75.
    Pleiades was next all 7 main stars were on view and a few more hard to spot doubles some were so small also ngc752 great open cluster was cool to say the least. Cassiopeia ngc436,457,663 were brightest double cluster am going to make a point one night to just search for double cluster and tease out there fine details am still gob smacked every time a see one. and we did have a look for a few more things crab neb be in one, no chance same for m33 .it got to about 23:00 hrs and i could not feel my finger, Connor had retired to the house with my daughter froze solid a hour before . what a great night and to share it with john and Connor who can now point out and look for more things we all had another night of first a still get that tingle when a see the scope on the garden and a book circled with targets for the night also the moon still as many things a want to see o even the Apollo 16 landing site ,was seen we even got some pics well john did so i can not wait to see how they turned out and will link the,to this post.
    thanks pat
  18. todd8137
    Barn door tracker
    HI all thanks for take in a look,
    well i started with idea to make one for ages but had not a pice that a needed to make it ,to the shed i went . i looked in a few boxes to find what may or may not work,finding a piece of old hoover pipe was the first thing i thought theirs the mount for the camera and so on,till i found everything apart from the bolt which i got from a diy place,i set to work
    job done i set it up tested it ,reset it up tested tracked a few shots lens got dew on it so i came in the house left the camera in a plastic bag in the shed went out 20 mins later low thin cloud ect, i aimed the camera for for Lyra in the bottom right corner and took a 2 min sub as a massive cloud was drifting across here a short video of the mount and some of the pics i took
    this is truly a back yard build,i stick one of the pics and the video,
    video
    http://www.youtube.com/user/todd8137?feature=mhee
    update 23 nov
    well things are not go in smooth,some times it works perfect,but most of the times it does not work at all i think the bodge job is no good a new model is in the pipeline as this one is ok but does not work all the time i some times do not see the benifits of it ,but i will struggle on as any one else had problems with barndoor trackers

  19. todd8137
    Hi all ,well a wa up till around 04:30 we had a great clear skyand high mag see in conditions set the scopes up and got the coffee on and fired it all up well for some reson the 90mm refractor just would not focus with the cameras or the web cam .a new the dob would be a challenge as the web cam makes it shoot through the screen so of a go , after 2 hours of twisting turning i headed for the kitchen to warm up and check the footage so far a new soon saturn would be high in the south eastish and would be better
    a started with eps to start with and got some great views a could see a couple a moons one to the right and one close left a thought get the web cam. well the web cam did not pick them up well in one vid may be it could be a dead paixel or just wish full thinking,any way here the link for the video a did manage to pull a few pics out some of the vids and ya cam just see some detail on saturn no cassinni doh a want to see it on vid naked eye ball at the eep cam but the low res vid cam ,can not any way what a night a loved it saturn did not disapoint one bit a hope it stays clear tonight as a no were a went wrong last night so tonight "should be a breeze",i wish
    heres the link for the vid on you tube it is long hope ya make it till the end cheers now
    pat:hello2:

  20. todd8137

    Jupiter 3rd aug 2011

    By todd8137,

    Hi all waited up for jupiter so i could try Castrator software out as with have in the dob and it fly in all over the placeon the screen,this sofware sorts that out and makes registax catch all the frames i dropped one as i shot this all in 60 fps which was rubbish ,with the spc900,any way heres a link for it have a look
    http://www.astrokraai.nl/castrator.php
    it works ok theres no point me going any more into it ,as am not up to speed with it my self but its fool proof and very easy to use
    cloud came out just after a set up last night what a pain but any way
    http://www.youtube.com/user/todd8137?feature=mhee


  21. todd8137

    m35,n42,m44,m47

    By todd8137,

    Hi to one and all,
    M35
    Open star cluster Messier 35 (M35, NGC 2168) is consisted of several hundred stars,to which popped out at me last night under partly cloudy skies and a bit windy ,is fairly easy once you recongize the constellation of Gemini. You’ll find it just a little more than the average field of view north of Eta – the centermost of the three “foot” on the northernmost twin. In the finderscope under low power it was easy to spot.32mm first then a droped down to 25mm to have a good look round it was not visible to the naked eye but is easy to find stuck the telrad on propus and its there no probs this was my first view of this great open clusterand i like nothing more than cluster i like them better than galaxys
    M44
    Messier 44 (M44, NGC 2632) or the Beehive cluster. It is also one of the objects easily visible to the naked eye and it was last night easy to find in cancer and a first for me .The Beehive is most easily observed when Cancer is high in the sky; in northern latitudes this occurs during the evening from February to May. At 95 arcminutes across, the cluster fits well in the field of view at 32mm this time a dropped down to 15mm to get a good look round and it did not fail to impress me 2 really bright ones and 7 small that were the main ones and hundreds of others was a great view and can now tick this one of
    M47
    Messier 67 (M67, NGC 2682) easily found tonight star hopping from alpha cancri,this is a lot small than the behive but still as good and was easy to spota lot more yellow and blueish dots tonight in this one tahn befor 25mm let me have a detaled look around thisi would say the mag was about 4/5 the clouds did not spoil this at all another one for me to tick off
    M42
    The Orion Nebula Messier 42 (M42, NGC 1976) Anoher look at his and tried to draw again beause i had a great view tonight i`ll stik the real crude drawing up but its a first pop a this a was gonna try the sp990 tonight but did not want to spend to much time out side so hence the drawing
    thanks pat
    clear skies always
  22. todd8137

    Well i never

    By todd8137,

    Hi all well last night was a great night for me .i gave the system a bit of a go and it worked .well sort of i will not go on about the settings ect as there in the dso`s forum on here i will include a few pics.
    well i started with double in Pers and i did have a few mistakes ,on i forgot to switch the pec on after training it for 8 mins forgot to hit play.
    that drama over i took 20x15 secs and moved on,they looked ok zoomed no trails
    M13 was next this was a lot easier the celestron 0.63 reducer worked well and framed it nice of course 35/40 mins would have been better but .i wanted to try a few clusters (the easy ones) a guide system would be just the job but for the time be in.i will stick and learn with what i have .the cannon 10 d is where am falling its not that great and its un moded
    so the night was clear dew was not a problem and the longest part was the darks but i did save them for next time .
    i saved all my data and can add to it later .
    its not easy i thought it would be ,but its not.
    i take my hat of to the guys who do hours of this work ,like this and there results are evident. please excuse my grammar ect
    as you can see a blind stab in the dark does work
    thanks for looking pat
    link to other pics and post
    http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/179970-firts-go-dso-s.html



  23. todd8137
    Neodymium filter
    well last night i was collecting all my stuff up and was walking towards the back door i saw my neighbor come round the corner ,in is car so hurried to get to the door ,i heard a metal clang on the floor opened the door and heard a crunch, i started to check and sort my eps out no neo filter,i put the porch light on to see the filter had been run over
    gutted this is my best filter and they not cheap here`s the pic of the dead filter
  25. todd8137

    Saturn

    By todd8137,

    hi all
    well Saturn will soon be back,and i can not wait i was scanning the net for some info and found in a couple a pics ,what i was looking for.
    the angle of the rings, the pics are below,i am tempted to set the alarm one night but may wait,
    this time round i feel i have enough to get a good few pics for next year ,enjoy the pics

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