What did the postman bring?

[Helen]

Hmm more boxes arrived today...

 

 

My initial impressions are very favourable -  robust, nicely engineered, relatively lightweight. This will be my travel/starparty mount.  It takes my Tak so easily that I almost got away with no counterweight .  The starbook Ten is rather different to the standard skywatcher ones.  I'm looking forward to exploring its use in the field.

It should also be controllable via asiair, so that's the next challenge, in time for the SGL star party (or I'll be picking Grant's brains 😉 )

Helen

 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Helen said:

Hmm more boxes arrived today...

 

 

My initial impressions are very favourable -  robust, nicely engineered, relatively lightweight. This will be my travel/starparty mount.  It takes my Tak so easily that I almost got away with no counterweight .  The starbook Ten is rather different to the standard skywatcher ones.  I'm looking forward to exploring its use in the field.

It should also be controllable via asiair, so that's the next challenge, in time for the SGL star party (or I'll be picking Grant's brains 😉 )

Helen

 

Very nice Helen, I guess it is the successor to the Vixen Sphinx I have? It's a nice design, requiring less in terms of counter weighting because the motor and electronics are positioned to act as a counterweight themselves.

I suspect the Starbook 10 is quite an improvement over the original, but I've managed to connect to Skysafari using a wifi router which is great.

Enjoy!

[Helen]

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Very nice Helen, I guess it is the successor to the Vixen Sphinx I have? It's a nice design, requiring less in terms of counter weighting because the motor and electronics are positioned to act as a counterweight themselves.

I suspect the Starbook 10 is quite an improvement over the original, but I've managed to connect to Skysafari using a wifi router which is great.

Enjoy!

Thanks Stu 😊. If I was purely visual I would have gone for the older version, but the jumping issue made using for imaging too risky.  The redesign gets good reviews, although there aren't too many around.  I'm hoping that for visual the Ten will be sufficient - combination of lists and graphics looks good.  For imaging I'll need to connect though - what router are you using?

I'm also pleased that I can easily carry it 😊. I'll hopefully get years of service out of it 😎

Helen

[L8-Nite]

3 hours ago, Les Ewan said:

HI Mike,

Just ordered it for £2.45. There's quite a few listed on Ebay.I noticed that the publisher is Octopus while Astronomy With Binoculars is Faber,I don't know what that means in regards to layout , I'll just wait and see. BTW I'll give you the sellers details in case you want to claim a 10% commission!!😆

Thanks, but no commission required, just doing my good deed for today.  

[Stu]

24 minutes ago, Helen said:

what router are you using?

I just bought a little tp link AC750 travel router, model TL-WR902AC. Worked straight away, no problems getting it connected.

[Helen]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

I just bought a little tp link AC750 travel router, model TL-WR902AC. Worked straight away, no problems getting it connected.

Another post in this thread coming then.... 😉  (just a little one though!)

 

[johninderby]

The correct acetate sheet finaly arrived so I can now flock the Bresser dob.. Oh and a corrector demister device that I’m reliably informed can also be used for drying hair. 😁

[LukeSkywatcher]

11 hours ago, johninderby said:

The correct acetate sheet finaly arrived so I can now flock the Bresser dob.. Oh and a corrector demister device that I’m reliably informed can also be used for drying hair. 😁

What hair?

[johninderby]

11 minutes ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

What hair?

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by johninderby

[Ledge1962]

My posty is getting plenty of exercise, a Skywatcher 8" Collapsible, Astronz 2" 42mm EP, Shroud for the Skywatcher, heater band for EP's, Turn left at Orion book, autocollimator, Bobs Knobs for the Dob and th eposty still has more to do. Just preparing for my retirement in 7 years time

[RT65CB-SWL]

20 hours ago, johninderby said:

 

He looks like one-third of ZZ Top. 😆

BTW - the one with the moustache in the band has the surname Beard! 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Philip R

[RT65CB-SWL]

A pair of frames for a pair of 52mm lens convertors, to make a cheap pair of low power/wide angle binoculars... 

<--- mine are all black!! 😜

 

...and a 3D-printed Batinov mask...

via www.astrokraken.fr 🇫🇷

[Stub Mandrel]

10 minutes ago, Philip R said:

A pair of frames for a pair of 52mm lens convertors, to make a cheap pair of low power/wide angle binoculars... 

<---

That's interesting. I have one of these, it's... passable but more like 0.8X than the advertised 0.4X

[DeepSkyMan]

Finally... A solution for transporting my UA T-Mount, a repurposed double rifle storage case from TecTake.com.  Decided on a diagonal layout for the mount, on the basis that this would spread the load better rather than focussing all weight vertically along the parallelogram shaft.  One thing about this case is the depth of the pick.n.pluck, it’s deep enough that I will be able slot another counter weight in on top of the existing one.   Total all up weight 14.7kg, but if I’m feeling lazy it also has wheels😃

 

 

[upahill]

Lots of postmen over the past couple of days dropping off parts for a new rig geared more towards astro-processing and 3d modelling.

Had to make quite a few compromises to keep the budget less than astronomical though. Managed to get the majority ex-display or second hand though so grabbed a few bargains.

Unfortunately Hermes have let the side down again and it has been sat ready to test for 3 days until a CPU fan arrives

 

[parallaxerr]

The last piece of my diminutive eyepiece collection (yeah right, who am I kidding!?).

This one I bought new so get a sticker and everything 😁

 

 

[parallaxerr]

11 hours ago, upahill said:

Unfortunately Hermes have let the side down again and it has been sat ready to test for 3 days until a CPU fan arrives

Looks ripe for a water cooler to me 😉

[BinocularSky]

15 hours ago, DeepSkyMan said:

Finally... A solution for transporting my UA T-Mount, a repurposed double rifle storage case from TecTake.com.  Decided on a diagonal layout for the mount, on the basis that this would spread the load better rather than focussing all weight vertically along the parallelogram shaft.  One thing about this case is the depth of the pick.n.pluck, it’s deep enough that I will be able slot another counter weight in on top of the existing one.   Total all up weight 14.7kg, but if I’m feeling lazy it also has wheels😃

Looks good. What weights do you have (I have 3x 5lbs)? Mine has just been transported "assembled and naked" for the last 16 or so years.

Edit: Can you provide a link to it, please. A search on TecTake for "rifle storage case" merely threw up nearly 350 things that aren't rifle storage cases. 🤔

Edited September 12, 2019 by BinocularSky

[DeepSkyMan]

46 minutes ago, BinocularSky said:

Looks good. What weights do you have (I have 3x 5lbs)? Mine has just been transported "assembled and naked" for the last 16 or so years.

Edit: Can you provide a link to it, please. A search on TecTake for "rifle storage case" merely threw up nearly 350 things that aren't rifle storage cases. 🤔

Here you go Steve

https://www.tectake.co.uk/universal-box-rifle-hard-shell-case-long-40287

 

A single 5lb weight does the job for me🙂

Kind Regards

Paul.

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by DeepSkyMan

[upahill]

2 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

Looks ripe for a water cooler to me 😉

Will be getting a custom hard line loop eventually but will have to wait as I already went WAY too far over my budget and if I go water I want to do it properly. Will also be resleeving all the cables etc.
Air cooler was £50 - Custom water cooling circa £300-£400 with the GPU too 😔 so it was the first of many compromises. Im not a gamer so its a little unnecessary to be honest and will be mainly for aesthetics if I go for it.

Hermes are due to deliver within the next 3.5 hours - fingers crossed.

 

[parallaxerr]

41 minutes ago, upahill said:

Will be getting a custom hard line loop eventually but will have to wait as I already went WAY too far over my budget and if I go water I want to do it properly. Will also be resleeving all the cables etc.
Air cooler was £50 - Custom water cooling circa £300-£400 with the GPU too 😔 so it was the first of many compromises. Im not a gamer so its a little unnecessary to be honest and will be mainly for aesthetics if I go for it.

Hermes are due to deliver within the next 3.5 hours - fingers crossed.

 

I must admit, I'm totally converted to the AIO water cooling solutions. Had a few Corsair units now and they're great. My 12 year old i7 940 is overclocked to the high heavens and still runs cool (relatively speaking as the 940 was always a burner). 

Fingers crossed they deliver and you can get up and running, good luck!

[upahill]

1 hour ago, parallaxerr said:

I must admit, I'm totally converted to the AIO water cooling solutions. Had a few Corsair units now and they're great. My 12 year old i7 940 is overclocked to the high heavens and still runs cool (relatively speaking as the 940 was always a burner). 

Fingers crossed they deliver and you can get up and running, good luck!

Well it arrived....

... and despite the seller listing it as the TR4 edition and specifically stating it was for Threadripper, it isn't. It's the normal version for standard AMD/Intel sockets.

So have ordered a Cooler Master ML360 TR4 on a next day pre-noon service as a stop gap and now the labourious returns process can begin 😔

I have had an AIO before, the Corsair H50 or H55 I think and didn't rate it so hopefully the CM one will be better.

[parallaxerr]

3 minutes ago, upahill said:

Cooler Master ML360 TR4

👍

4 minutes ago, upahill said:

and now the labourious returns process can begin

I can wholeheartedly sympathise, this has become the norm for me in recent months when internet shopping!

[Victor Boesen]

Today I had a takahashi box delivered:))))

Although it might not be what some of you expected here it is:

I'd purchased it together with the skywatcher 72 I ordered a month ago and I finally got it today. Build-quality seems to be high but I do miss some included caps for the precious prism inside(I will order some immediately)... The forecast doesn't look good for the next week or so unfortunately.

@upahill nice PC you got going there! Is you graphics card the 2060? I have the 2070 in mine and I mostly built my computer towards gaming while also being able to do some 3d-modeling like you say and some video editing. I also have an I5-9600K which I can easily overclock to 5ghz but I left it at 4.7ghz since the temperature at this clock speed is a little more comfortable. If you need some help feel free to ask(I see you have almost everything set so there might not be any). And by the way! Here's a pic of mine:

[JeremyS]

30 minutes ago, Victor Boesen said:

Today I had a takahashi box delivered:))))

Although it might not be what some of you expected here it is:

I'd purchased it together with the skywatcher 72 I ordered a month ago and I finally got it today. Build-quality seems to be high but I do miss some included caps for the precious prism inside(I will order some immediately)... The forecast doesn't look good for the next week or so unfortunately.

@upahill nice PC you got going there! Is you graphics card the 2060? I have the 2070 in mine and I mostly built my computer towards gaming while also being able to do some 3d-modeling like you say and some video editing. I also have an I5-9600K which I can easily overclock to 5ghz but I left it at 4.7ghz since the temperature at this clock speed is a little more comfortable. If you need some help feel free to ask(I see you have almost everything set so there might not be any). And by the way! Here's a pic of mine:

It’s always nice to receive small shiny blue boxes with Japanese writing on them 🙂