todd8137

Hi and thanks the afocal was not bad it was a littledamp and did not want to take the laptop outside in case it breaks with all that damp air the tube was wet at the end of the night for some reson a put the photos in twice to photo bucketone of these nights a will get the webcam and laptop out to get saturn filmed thanks pat

do not let this put ya off there lots to see get some cluster looked at or the chrismas tree cluster ,there lots of doubles to split and pleaides as lots to explore the moon is another great site as ya no am still try in to tick of all the craters ,andromeada usally does not excite people eithr but it does me some more eye pices would no be a bad idea and or a barlowx2 that will double ya collection of ep`s clear skies always

no in a word unless you have tracking on your scope and a dslr camera and adapters and long exsposures, color filters will bring dif things out lets say jupiter red green yellow filters for me brought dif belts and the red dpot out but other wise on orions great neb and most others will be black and white

sounds like you got a bad service a spent just over a grand with them and they was brill they e mailed me and rang me to let me no the score ,but the woman on the phone will tell you what you want to hear but i have ordered stuff in the past and its come 2 days latter and when it was not in stock they rang and told me how long it would be be

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/

its the other way round for me every time a load sharpcap it crashs tried to reinstall no joy

sounds like a great night jupiter is also great and try in to pick out more details bands and its moons gloves hat are a good start and maybe a flask next time sounds like ya had a great first light pat

Hi all just a quick rant,well a set the scope and web cam up last night spc 900 and 12" and just wanted to give it a quick test.the moon was my test subject but a soon found the thermals and windy conditions were against me. but still a wanted a play with the settings sharpcap kept crashing so a had to use v lounge and a quick play about with the gain ect got it going a had just the cam in the eye piece a took a few vids and they were not bad a better tweak next time,would be better with the settings. the moon looked like it was boiling so a scrapped it in the end a must remember to save the settings next time because it kept jumping back to 15 fps and not ten when a put them in v dub to convert the vids to avi a kept get in a long list of errors .but a will work through them today and try and resolve this all in all it works ok and a better steady night may give me better results but the gain settings ect take a bit of mastering will re download sharp cap as that saves as avi as ya no thanks pat

try morgans web site they sell the spc 800 but theres a link for the drivers ,when you click the link on morgans website site it takes you to phillips website scroll down and v lounge is there under sofware

the pic is great 1st try we had a short gap in the clouds last night ,and a got the scope out for ten mins but the moon was boiling, here but gave the spc900 webcam a good try but the vids were all boiling but i got there in the end

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

ANOTHER NIGHT OF 1st Well what a great night i have which started around 18:30, -1.5c and no wind clear skies .MO1 (the scope) had been out side for a good hour and was ready to go .my first thing of the night was Andromedae galaxy which until tonight i have never seen the telrad came into its own again and saved me this was better than expected because a was not expecting to see much had the 20mm ep and ding there it was a big grey smudge at last there she was, i looked at this for ages just looking in and around the grey smudge before me. what a sight this was great it blew me away and i will come back to this time and time again for any one who says its just a smudge then that's crazy Cassiopeia This beautiful constellation at the edge of the Milky Way has definitely the shape of a "W" and tonight was no exception, M52 can be found quite easily by extending the line from Alpha over Beta Cassiopeia by 6 1/2 degrees to the NW to 5th mag 4 Cassiopeiae; M52 is roughly 1 degree south and slightly west of this star. and what a great open cluster this was 32mm ep first then the 25mm it was a great sight and a first for me next came ngc663,654 .double clusters ngc 869,884 very big lots of stars and not just white yellows and what looked like light blue.just to the right of Caph is 2 great ones ngc 7790and 7788 they are both full and lots of brightly clumped stars i then had triangulum galaxy in and ,no joy there not not a thing ngc 752 was easy and a do like that one a did try for crab neb but can never seem to see this m34 was easy a always take a spin in and around this one,Auriga was next M36,37,38 east to find that telrad sure earns its keep so does the compass and spirit level . whilst looking to night half froze and spinning still from Andromeda galaxy i always look at each thing with a range of eps and like to try them all and note down which gave me the best view for reference next time. i also looked at Jupiter tonight and it was the first time i have seen this in great detail at least 4 bands could be seen a tried the light blue filter because it was real bright 3 bands were seen with this,i next put the moon filter in that killed it only the lower thick band could be seen . tonight was a great night for me and have got a few more things under my belt and am starting to feel a lot more confident finding them this is the best thousand pound have ever spent also on the market for a refractor as well i am gonna find a star party some were because a nee to see a few things my back garden will not let me on wards and upwards "CLEAR SKIES ALWAYS "

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

hi everyone just thought a would add these so you can save and print out after weeks of try in find some on sgl to no avail i got these feel free to save and print i am keen on drawing what a see as wll as take in pictures ,but i love to keep a record this way clear skies always pat

hi thought a would post this up as a point of interest as the moon is really bright when full, and cause me all sorts of probs some times will post monthly if you wish to come back and check or copy and paste ect thanks pat http://stargazerslounge.com/members/todd8137-albums-moon-picture8584-moon-phasesfor-month-jan-will-post-febs-feb.html

my quest for the andromeda galaxy goes on and on still not seen it a wish a could get up early to see saturn at around 7 this morning it was bright in the dusk sky in the southish direction a will get up and set up one of these days i hope to see saturns rings soon fingers crossed big smile just thinking about it cheers pat

hi chesty i just clik the button that does both at once get on you tube therea great tute on there wait a will post a link to it YouTube - astronomyshed's Channel theres 5 altogether search thiss channel to find them all pat

hi isabelle and john yes we hit some great clusters and doubles, the moon was so bright dso`s were out luck ,but we had a great night am glad john and connor had a good night even tho the kids legged it inside early bless them. i could have stayed out all night my self but the fingers were froze, it was great to have some one else to view with for a change and john any time we have clear skies chuck the scope in the car and get ya self over .your scope does the bizz, all the doubles and nebs and clustters are easily seen with it when ya no where to look get a book to help ya have more faith in it pat

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

rgistax helped me out i shot some 60 sec vids and let rigiastax do the rest you should give it a go a only held the cam up to the window and downloaded of the camera to pc ect and did the registax speacail with it give it a go

hi every one thought a would have a go with registax and some video it did not turn out that good this is my first go so be gentle any tips on what went wrong please thanks pat http://stargazerslounge.com/members/todd8137-albums-sketchs-picture8462-not-good-i-no-first-go.html http://stargazerslounge.com/members/todd8137-albums-sketchs-picture8463-second-go-not-goos-no.html

hi pat yes they are good and kept me update with the order all the way i for one am not looking forward to col in my 12" either