Show us your set up in action at night.

[Stu]

Got the big boy out tonight after having a look at Jupiter through the Tak. Conditions aren’t the best, but still getting some nice detail showing up. Baader Maxbrights first light too 👍

Just for the record….

APM LZOS 130mm f6

AZ100 on Rowan pillar and Planet tripod

Baader Zeiss T2 prism

Baader Maxbrights

Zeiss 25mm orthos plus various Barlow/GPC combos

Dew straps!!!

 

[josefk]

Hi @Stu  that’s a very nice looking setup. I assume the 200mm pillar under the AZ100. How do you find it (the pillar)? Any noticeable loss of rigidity? Do you think you would have gotten away with the 125mm extension clearance wise for that LZOS f6?  I’m curious as I will have to do the same shortly with one or the other. Cheers. 

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Got the big boy out tonight after having a look at Jupiter through the Tak. Conditions aren’t the best, but still getting some nice detail showing up. Baader Maxbrights first light too 👍

Just for the record….

APM LZOS 130mm f6

AZ100 on Rowan pillar and Planet tripod

Baader Zeiss T2 prism

Baader Maxbrights

Zeiss 25mm orthos plus various Barlow/GPC combos

Dew straps!!!

 

That APM LZOS 130 is a dream refractor, any chance you have another one laying around on a shelf? I’ll take it! 😆

[Sunshine]

Had a great time with Jupiter and Mars last night! interesting thing about this image is that it was actually pitch dark out, my phone was set to a 3sec exposure so all that light is street light. Even so, that light is a good 70ft away, modern phones are impressive, it was after 9pm and the sun had set at 6pm, even the sky looks blue, I’m a bit stumped.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Sunshine

[Froeng]

3 hours ago, powerlord said:

First light for eq6r-Pro no 2. After a brief affair with a zwo am5, we parted company, and a decided to go with old faithful.

Not great forecast tonight, but just wanted to get it tried out!

2 eq6rs, 2 asi2600s. One tonight with a sy135,  the other with a redcat

 

This somehow reminds me of the scene from 2001, where they examine the monolith on the moon… 👩‍🚀

[Froeng]

3 hours ago, powerlord said:

First light for eq6r-Pro no 2. After a brief affair with a zwo am5, we parted company, and a decided to go with old faithful.

Not great forecast tonight, but just wanted to get it tried out!

2 eq6rs, 2 asi2600s. One tonight with a sy135,  the other with a redcat

 

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Froeng
Double post

[Sunshine]

6 minutes ago, Froeng said:

This somehow reminds me of the scene from 2001, where they examine the monolith on the moon… 👩‍🚀

You nailed it, I was wondering about a movie scene but couldn’t remember which one.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Sunshine

[Deadlake]

22 hours ago, Stu said:

ot the big boy out tonight after having a look at Jupiter through the Tak. Conditions aren’t the best, but still getting some nice detail showing up. Baader Maxbrights first light too 👍

Just for the record….

APM LZOS 130mm f6

AZ100 on Rowan pillar and Planet tripod

Baader Zeiss T2 prism

Baader Maxbrights

Zeiss 25mm orthos plus various Barlow/GPC combos

Dew straps!!!

 

The Baader Maxbrights are great with the 130 F6.



I've been experimenting with a Baradv and 10 mm UFF which I find gives excellent contrast on the planets, even if it makes the scope super long and balance a little more complicated.
This setup need add a 3.5 " TeleVue extension tube to gain focus.

 

[Stu]

19 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

The Baader Maxbrights are great with the 130 F6.



I've been experimenting with a Baradv and 10 mm UFF which I find gives excellent contrast on the planets, even if it makes the scope super long and balance a little more complicated.
This setup need add a 3.5 " TeleVue extension tube to gain focus.

 

Yes, I found them very good last night. What diagonal do you use? I tried the Zeiss T2 prism and thought it was an improvement over a BBHS mirror in this scope.

[Deadlake]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Yes, I found them very good last night. What diagonal do you use? I tried the Zeiss T2 prism and thought it was an improvement over a BBHS mirror in this scope.

I use a Baader BBHS T2 or 2”. Looking at a white star I do not see any red on the star using a mirror diagonal, according to Baader mirror is the correct option in this case and I do get better reds on Jupiters belts when using the mirror over prism.

Having said that, maybe it’s the GPC which is leading to your result of better performance with a prism, when Baader’s guidelines state the opposite. I’ll try again, also with the BARADV in place as this will change the result, a prism might world better in that case as well as the scope is working at f20.

I get the same result with the 130f6 or 105f6.2.

Edited December 11, 2022 by Deadlake

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

I use a Baader BBHS T2 or 2”. Looking at a white star I do not see any red on the star using a mirror diagonal, according to Baader mirror is the correction option in this case and I do get better reds on Jupiters belts when using the mirror over prism.

Having said that, maybe it’s the GPC which is leading to your result of better performance with a prism, when Baader’s guidelines state the opposite. I’ll try again, also with the BARADV in place as this will change the result, a prism might world better in that case as well as the scope is working at f20.

I get the same result with the 130f6 or 105f6.2.

Thanks Martin. Seeing wasn’t very good last night so that won’t help me to accurately just differences. Could only just detect the E star in the trap last night.  I’ll keep trying, haven’t used the scope much so need to get some miles under my belt with it.

[Stu]

On 10/12/2022 at 19:38, josefk said:

Hi @Stu  that’s a very nice looking setup. I assume the 200mm pillar under the AZ100. How do you find it (the pillar)? Any noticeable loss of rigidity? Do you think you would have gotten away with the 125mm extension clearance wise for that LZOS f6?  I’m curious as I will have to do the same shortly with one or the other. Cheers. 

Thank you 😊. I confess there was perhaps more vibration than I was expecting, but I find it hard to believe it came from the pillar which is very solid. It is the 200mm version, I’ll have to check the clearances more next time, but suspect that the shorter one would have done the trick. Need also to check vibration/damping time without the pillar. It’s certainly easier to use with it though.

[Ratlet]

Took the Tair out for a spin with the side by side mount, but something wasn't quite right with the optics and it was almost like it had bad coma.  It was -3 so decided to sack it off and do some visual.

[Guest]

On 10/12/2022 at 12:43, powerlord said:

First light for eq6r-Pro no 2. After a brief affair with a zwo am5, we parted company, and a decided to go with old faithful.

Not great forecast tonight, but just wanted to get it tried out!

2 eq6rs, 2 asi2600s. One tonight with a sy135,  the other with a redcat

 

Ok.... We need some day time pictures to just what you have going on here.  

[markse68]

Not in action but out of- but it has been snowing hard and it was dark so decided on a little maintenance ready for Wednesday- mirror clean and matt black tube respray- has made a significant difference that will hopefully improve contrast on Mars. Really lovely little scope to work on this Tal-150p. Also realised I had been collimating wrong as the secondary has no offset 🤦‍♂️ Should improve things too!

Before:

 

After

 

Mark

Edited December 12, 2022 by markse68

[Captain Scarlet]

10 hours ago, markse68 said:

Not in action but out of- but it has been snowing hard and it was dark so decided on a little maintenance ready for Wednesday- mirror clean and matt black tube respray- has made a significant difference that will hopefully improve contrast on Mars. Really lovely little scope to work on this Tal-150p. Also realised I had been collimating wrong as the secondary has no offset 🤦‍♂️ Should improve things too!

Before:

 

After

 

Mark

Maybe take the opportunity to check the centredness of the spot while it’s out?

M

[markse68]

43 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Maybe take the opportunity to check the centredness of the spot while it’s out?

M

It's back in I put the spot on when I got the scope so I'm fairly confident. Made me think about stuff though- obsessing about collimation using autocolimators like the Cat'sEye but that relies on the centre spot being perfectly central. And not central to the mirror blank but central to the paraboloid. How would you get that perfect?

Mark

[Captain Scarlet]

24 minutes ago, markse68 said:

It's back in I put the spot on when I got the scope so I'm fairly confident. Made me think about stuff though- obsessing about collimation using autocolimators like the Cat'sEye but that relies on the centre spot being perfectly central. And not central to the mirror blank but central to the paraboloid. How would you get that perfect?

Mark

👍🏼

Yes my thoughts too about obsessiveness with autocollimators and other techniques relying on that spot. Both my OO 1/10 wave mirrors were originally wrongly spotted, one grossly so.

As for the paraboloid not being symmetric, I think a grinding process more or less guarantees it must be symmetric, as accurately centering the position of a blank is easy. If it weren’t I think the mirror itself would be unusably bad in all sorts of other ways.

[powerlord]

15 hours ago, Mike Q said:

Ok.... We need some day time pictures to just what you have going on here.  

full build all here:

still going strong, solid and weather proof.

 

[Vroobel]

On 10/12/2022 at 17:43, powerlord said:

First light for eq6r-Pro no 2. After a brief affair with a zwo am5, we parted company, and a decided to go with old faithful.

Not great forecast tonight, but just wanted to get it tried out!

2 eq6rs, 2 asi2600s. One tonight with a sy135,  the other with a redcat

 

My first impression was that it's a big hole in the ground with a concrete ring inside protruding half a meter over.  It would be a great idea if not for the worse view (houses and trees).

[MalcolmM]

Took the FOA60Q out for a quick look at the moon this morning. The seeing was so good and steady I ran in to get 'Mummy' Tak. Here's one on the moon and the other on Castor. 

Malcolm

[Paul M]

Here is my new toy, heading towards 1st light. Of course the computer plays up at the worst times...

[Vroobel]

Hi,

Thanks to @tomato I am a new owner of the Altair 102/715 EDT triplet APO equipped with a dedicated 3" x1.0 field flattener and simple moto-focuser. Printing some important accessories and adapting my ATM EQ fork mount to such a small OTA took me several days. The shelf made with a piece of plywood is a temporary solution to check all calculated forces and outcoming balance. I'm going to replace it with an aluminium plate that is heavier and will also work as a counterbalance. The shelf will be ready for something like RC8.

Everything works superb and my mount discovered its new face. The big, 17kg 10" Bresser-Messier Newtonian generates big inertia, so I never could set a guiding in Dec in the Auto mode. Now I see it's possible. Also, possible became performing 600s long subs (or longer, depending on the guiding). 😲

Now I learn a new way with the Heart Nebula. 

The unexpected benefit of replacing the OTAs is that I can take the shelf with the OTA and the camera attached home to do flat frames.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Vroobel

[Sunshine]

18 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Hi,

Thanks to @tomato I am a new owner of the Altair 102/715 EDT triplet equipped with a dedicated 3" x1.0 field flattener and simple moto-focuser. Printing some important accessories and adapting my ATM EQ fork mount to such a small OTA took me several days. The shelf made with a piece of plywood is a temporary solution to check all calculated forces and outcoming balance. I'm going to replace it with an aluminium plate that is heavier and will also work as a counterbalance. The shelf will be ready for something like RC8.

Everything works superb and my mount discovered its new face. The big, 17kg 10" Bresser-Messier Newtonian generates big inertia, so I never could set a guiding in Dec in the Auto mode. Now I see it's possible. Also, possible became performing 600s long subs (or longer, depending on the guiding). 😲

Now I learn a new way with the Heart Nebula. 

The unexpected benefit of replacing the OTAs is that I can take the shelf with the OTA and the camera attached home to do flat frames.

Wonderful! Congratulations! but I feel it is undermounted.

[Vroobel]

Thanks.   What do you mean?

Edited December 13, 2022 by Vroobel