Cloud Dodgers New Equipment thread

[dan_uk]

Nice work, that galaxy looks great!

[knobby]

Well done!

[Billy- the -Badger]

Thanks peeps.

He'll of a learning curve.

Off to Norfolk Saturday for a weeks holiday.

Taking my kit and hoping for some dark skies

[dan_uk]

Finally got my CGEM DX 1100HD on Friday, ended up collecting directly from David Hinds. I also grabbed a Starsense and Lodestar which was a bit of a impulse buy.

It's been just over 2 months since I put the LX90 up for sale, i'm glad its finally over and I can enjoy something I intend to keep!

Pics to follow soon, I got 2 big Peli cases for the OTA and Mount head. I have to admit even seeing the tripod and mount in the shop doesn't do it justice until it's setup in your living room, it's absolutely huge!

Also found that it was far easier to understand how EQ works once you have it in front of you,  I watched many videos and read a load of tutorials but felt like it was over complicated but now that it's in front of me it just makes sense.

Seem to be missing the HC holder but Greenwitch are working on that for me, there was so much packaging that I had to take a trip to the tip! 

Hoping for first light tomorrow if it's clear

[knobby]

Wahey... That will explain the rain then :-)

Luke you say, eq mounts are much simpler when they're in front of you.

[Blazar]

Look what landed yesterday.....

Shame the female cig lighter power adapter was delayed....still managed to get out last night to set-up the finder scope..and thought I might as well manually move it around and look at stuff (Mars, Jupiter, Moon, and a couple of doubles). very impressed! Once I get the power I will try and do some more focal stuff until I can save for cameras etc...

At last!!!!!

[knobby]

Can't believe its taken me a day to notice this...

Congrats on the new scope!

No more blue fringeing for you now :-)

And some clear sky... Result

[Dave Dubya]

My exciting new purchase:

[Blazar]

My exciting new purchase:

A new mug of Coffee Dave? looks nice though ;-)

Thanks Knobby, yes very happy so far...we will see if I can get my head around the APSA routine when I next use it (when I get some power!)

[knobby]

My exciting new purchase:

most impressive :-)

[knobby]

My exciting new purchase:

A new mug of Coffee Dave? looks nice though ;-)

Thanks Knobby, yes very happy so far...we will see if I can get my head around the APSA routine when I next use it (when I get some power!)

What are you doing about power then ?

[Blazar]

I do have have a Maplins external 12v setup (already have power outside), but they could not send the female cig lighter adapter ..so its about 7 days away....I can wait..waited this long, and as you say...I do admire it as I walk through the lounge ;-)

[knobby]

You'll have to setup near the car and plug it in... Theres no way you're going to wait 7 days :-)

[Blazar]

yer..out the front....had thought about it ;-) 

[dan_uk]

Grats on the new scope Blazar, have you been out with it yet? Or still waiting on the power cable?

[Blazar]

Dan, nope...well only to manually move it around ;-) was impressed though. Still awaiting the female cig lighter with M8 rings....I could power it via the car, but don't fancy standing out the front of the house!

I will have a play with the set-up for a while, then I guess I will go for a focal reducer, and a DSLR to start with. then it will be an ASI 120MM (this is what I am leaning towards).

Hows that 1100 and the CGEM? lovely piece of kit!

[Tinker1947]

I would look at moving the mount round 180' so the weights are attached first over a north facing leg, they can't topple over then, and looking through the polar scope is a lot more comfortable with the 2 rear legs spread out......

[knobby]

Got your power lead yet Mr Blazar?

[Blazar]

Nope....I have chased...Mind you the sky has been awful the last week or so....the only nights that were clear I had already had a drink ;-)

[dan_uk]

Finally managed to get pictures of my new setup from tonight which despite the sudden clouds was another great night of getting to know the new scope. I got a quick glance at Saturn which has to be the best i've seen even though it was close to the horizon,  were much better than my previous Meade 12", the biggest difference was that instead of looking like a bright yellow blob with rings, I could actually see some decent colour. 

I also included pictures of another new purchase, a Hotech Advanced CT laser collimator. During my recent trip to the Lake District I found that my scope was definitely out of collimation, have to admit I have never touched it before and relied on the fact that "sct's hold collimation it's fine.."  as we get very few clear nights these days I decided that it would be worth the investment. I spent a good 3.5 hours last Friday fiddling around and found it was out of collimation by a decent amount, I also made the worst choice possible and installed Bob's Knobs, while these are great it really does throw out the collimation badly when installing them.  I was slightly nervous this evening as despite following the instructions I thought I must have made a mistake somewhere and my collimation would be completely off but it turned out great!

Going forward I would say I could be setup and fully collimated in 30 minutes. It actually does a lot more than the secondary tilt as it also checks the entire optical assembly from the visual back to centering the secondary mirror on the corrector plate.

On the back of that purchase I also got a beautiful tripod to go with it, a Giottos silk road, i'm not much of a regular photographer but it does seem like a really nice tripod to use for it in the future.

My final purchase was an Astrozap heated dew shield, the Celestron dew shield I got before was terrible compared to my previous Kendrick and it couldn't even fit around my dew band or even on the OTA well with the dovetail in the way. The Astrozap comes with a neat little notch for the dovetail and no more messing around with a band either.

I'd be happy to bring the Hotech collimator along on any meet ups in the future for anyone struggling with it.

Daniel

[knobby]

Nice... The hotech looks complicated :-)

[Blazar]

Really nice set-up now Dan....

Must admit that I have not touched or looked at the collimation, except for star tests, and it appears to be fine, but as you say....I probably do not know what 'fine' should look like. Might be good to meet up at some point, and bring the 800 over....

I did go out last night, but clouds rolled over and that was it! and started to dew up....really low dew point last night so it would appear. I just have the ordinary shield, not the heated one....would be nice to have some power at some point as well! still don't really know whether the mount works or not!

[dan_uk]

The Hotech really isn't that complicated and once you understand it it's easy. There's some good video tutorials from them and I spoke directly to David Ho a few times on the night and he was very helpful.

I have to admit it's quite a lot to spend on a collimation device but I hate all the guess work with things like this and it was good to check the rest of the OTA as well. For instance the supplied visual back was skewed to one side quite badly, also my 1.25" adapter wasn't great either. The Feathertouch crayford was great though as to be expected.

Maybe I'll open a collimation station for anyone who wants to visit, it's nice to have company when observing.

Last night was so annoying I just had to laugh. After lugging all the stuff out and alignment  I checked Arcturus for collimation and then Saturn. I dropped my Bandmate filter, cleaned it up and put it back in and saw nothing! I was like damn i've broken the filter, but when I looked up the entire sky was covered in cloud! Considering that there wasn't a cloud in sight a few moments ago as well...

[knobby]

The HavAstro are meeting up at south Weald on Sunday...

[dan_uk]

Thanks for mentioning that, I thought they were done for the summer but it seems not! Will you be going?