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What did the postman bring?


nightfisher

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22 minutes ago, Sky-J said:

Yes indeed!

It was in fact a nest of 3 identical boxes Russian doll style (great packaging). I was relieved when the boxes stopped at the third box to reveal my new FC100-DC. I'll post a pic of my new rig in the scopes section, when it's complete.

You will love it! 

Helen

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1 hour ago, Sky-J said:

Yes indeed!

It was in fact a nest of 3 identical boxes Russian doll style (great packaging). I was relieved when the boxes stopped at the third box to reveal my new FC100-DC. I'll post a pic of my new rig in the scopes section, when it's complete.

Takahashi do tend to go OTT on packing boxes/cartons/materials that resemble a 'Matryoshka' / 'Матрёшка' doll. :icon_salut: 

Edited by Philip R
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On 03/02/2020 at 21:22, Captain Magenta said:

Not quite what DID the postman bring, but what I expect them to bring very shortly, a Revelation 2" Crayford SCT focuser to go with my newold Intes 603 Mak 150. I thought I might bring it up here early because it seems to be offered at something of a bargain, both from Bresser UK and Telescopehouse.com . It's on sale from those sellers at £90 including postage. Which I think is quite good brand new.

https://www.bresseruk.com/revelation-2-sct-crayford-1-11-dual-speed-focuser.html

I've ordered it because although the Intes optics are, so far as I can tell, good, the focuser is not good, though I do plan to make a project of it and disassemble and service it in due course.

I'll update as soon as it arrives and later when I've had some use of it...

Cheers, Magnus

... well it duly arrived today. On unpacking, the first impression was that it's heavier than I was expecting, in a good way. Finish feels good. It felt much more Steeltrak (I have 3, including an SCT-fit) than Skywatcher (I have 3 newt ones, including an upgraded PDS one). Its coarse-focus motion is just weighty enough, and the fine-focus feels just like the Steeltraks I have, very direct and "go-to and stop". So far I am very favourably inclined towards it, well worth the £86 + pp.

As soon as I've had a chnace to use it "in the field", I'll post in the Scopes Whole Setups section.

Cheers, Magnus

 

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A nice chunky Orion/Vixen Field tripod for me to put the Vixen GP on, courtesy of Alan. It is out right now with the little Telementor on it. Might need to add my riser to stop the scope clipping the tripod top but it is lovely and stable compared with the AL150.

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Had the Altair phone holder and sold it on a few weeks later. It was merely OK and very plasticy. Came in a generic Chinese box with a little Altair label stuck on one end. 

Just been looking at the Celestron one and it too is very plasticy but has far better adjustments. Had to tighten up s couple of screws on the vertical adjustment to stop it from tilting. I’m going to order some 1mm thick self adhesive rubber sheet to line the clamp jaws with to give them better grip.

Edited by johninderby
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Postman brought a nice shiny EQ6R today. Usual brilliant service from FLO - and delivered within 24 hours. Nice surprise to find a USB port on it and can control EQMOD via standard USB cable. Anyone know of any issues with this compared to the standard EQDIR cable?   

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2 hours ago, johninderby said:

Had the Altair phone holder and sold it on a few weeks later. It was merely OK and very plasticy. Came in a generic Chinese box with a little Altair label stuck on one end. 

Just been looking at the Celestron one and it too is very plasticy but has far better adjustments. Had to tighten up s couple of screws on the vertical adjustment to stop it from tilting. I’m going to order some 1mm thick self adhesive rubber sheet to line the clamp jaws with to give them better grip.

The Celestron holder does look quite substantial compared to the Altair one

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Test fitted the Celestron unit and find it is fairly solid except that the clamp on the eyepiece can wiggle a little bit. One of the clamp jaws is just hard plastic and the other jaw has a paper thin bit of not very grippy hard rubber. Doesn’t grip the smooth metal body of the eyepiece very well. Have ordered some 1mm thick self adhesive rubber sheet to line the jaws of the clamp with which should sort things out. 🤞🏻

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Had a Baader Neodynum 2” filter with a badly damaged filter cell (had welded itself to a diag) and as these filters are now over 100 quid decided to put the Baader filter in a new cell. The Baader replacement cells are overpriced to looked around for a cheap 2” filter and found a Gosky Moon & Skyglow filter on Amazon for about 20 quid delivered. Geting the Baader filter out of the damaged cell was a problem as the locking ring wouldn’t unscrew so out with the snips and cut the cell apart. 😬Releived that the filter was undamaged and now a simple job to put it into the Gosky cell. 🙂

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Baader filter in the Gosky cell and remails of the old cell and the loose Gosky filter.

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Edited by johninderby
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I’ve just ordered Lakeside Focuser Kit from FLO. My last outing Feb 6th and 7th imaging the fish head was slightly out of focus :(

Astro Pixel Processor detected no stars. There were hundreds! But apparently its star detecting algorithm likes stars to be spot on.

So I’ve put off motorising the focuser for far too long. Looking forward to a package that says “May contain clouds” and then wait a month until I can try it out in anger! It’s made in Britain and has great reviews and I also ordered the bracket kit for the WO ZS73.

 

Deep Sky Stacker still worked OK on the data I collected so all is not quite lost.

Edited by TerryMcK
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So a large package from Amazon...containing a small box (rather over packaged!). 

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 This converts the back of my ETX to sct and then T - to take the little helical eyepiece holder for fine focus 😎.

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Hopefully the peg in the original focuser will now be redundant!  And I'll get no mirror flop either 😁

Off to Milton Keynes again tomorrow, so hoping for some clear skies to test this grab and go kit 😊

Helen

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On 08/02/2020 at 19:01, TerryMcK said:

I’ve just ordered Lakeside Focuser Kit from FLO. My last outing Feb 6th and 7th imaging the fish head was slightly out of focus :(

Astro Pixel Processor detected no stars. There were hundreds! But apparently its star detecting algorithm likes stars to be spot on.

So I’ve put off motorising the focuser for far too long. Looking forward to a package that says “May contain clouds” and then wait a month until I can try it out in anger! It’s made in Britain and has great reviews and I also ordered the bracket kit for the WO ZS73.

 

Deep Sky Stacker still worked OK on the data I collected so all is not quite lost.

I hope it does the job for you, the Lakeside looks a useful bit of kit. I'm sure it will be very capable.
 I have a JMI NGFS linear fine focuser  which I intend using with a Steeldrive focuser I've just ordered from Flo.
It's going to make an additional weight to the scope with the   CCD Camera, and Filter wheel in the train.
It's on a MN190, and I just hope I can get good a balancing  act worked out 😀.
Ron.

Edited by barkis
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A Skywatcher power tank, an auto focuser and a Wi-Fi adapter.

I have installed both the Synscan and the Stellarium mobile plus apps on my Android tablet and both are working fine.  Had a bit of a play with it last night in between the clouds and was very impressed!  I'm a visual only observer and won't be able to upgrade my kit for some years so thought I'd make my set up the best I can for now. Also my 8 year old son takes a big interest so he was absolutely mind blown that he could control the scope with the tablet 😀

 

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A solar filter for my 9x50 finder and a small sheet of self adhesive rubber to line the jaws of my Celestron smartphone adapter.

Now if the sun will just come out so I can try my new white light setup.😁

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Edited by johninderby
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