What did the postman bring?

[JeremyS]

38 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Trying not to think about it lol- bought the 7 last month and just got the 10 to complete the set at the weekend 🤦‍♂️ Lovely eps and it’s only money. Lovely eps and it’s only money. repeat....😂

Did I miss the family portrait pic, Mark?

🙂

PS it's only money 😂

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by JeremyS

[markse68]

24 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Did I miss the family portrait pic, Mark?

🙂

PS it's only😂 money 

 

You didn’t Jeremy- I’ll have to take one later

[AdeKing]

Not the postie, but collected locally last night by myself after 5 months of shielding at home.

A new to me Vixen GPD2 and Skysensor2000PC. 

I can't believe how much heavier duty this is than the standard Green GP that I have.  Hoping that this will cope with my Starwave 102 f/11 a bit better.

The GPD2 will stay on a semi-permanent setup in the garden and the GP will be used as a mobile Setup on my TAL Wooden Tripod for when I finally venture out.

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Another lovely looking piece of glass. Everything crossed the sky stays clear tonight!

 

[Alan White]

1 hour ago, markse68 said:

Trying not to think about it lol- bought the 7 last month and just got the 10 to complete the set at the weekend 🤦‍♂️ Lovely eps and it’s only money. Lovely eps and it’s only money. repeat....😂

Indeed very nice glass, cannot understand why I ever parted with the first 3.
The view will last far longer than the worry of the cost applies here.

[ApophisAstros]

17 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

New dome for the ASC, lol. 

Nice one Nigella , nice and high you will have a great FOV,what camera do yu intend to use?

Roger

[Nigella Bryant]

1 minute ago, ApophisAstros said:

Nice one Nigella , nice and high you will have a great FOV,what camera do yu intend to use?

Roger

Hi Roger, I've a zwo ASI 224mc that I'll use. Yeah, good FOV. Should be up and running today but the weather isn't great, typical, lol. 

[Peter Drew]

I received 16 off, 52mm o/d stainless and shielded ballrace bearings and a 1m length of bar to make mounting posts for them.  The bearings are to replace the 15 year old bearings fitted to the sliding doors of our main observatory that had rusted somewhat.       🙂

[Guest]

Baader #1 mount grease - together with a box far too big for aforementioned mount grease!

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Chris Wright said:

Baader #1 mount grease - together with a box far too big for aforementioned mount grease!

Amazon?

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, merlin100 said:

Amazon?

You'd have thought, wouldn't you? Actually David Hinds.

[DaveL59]

a couple munsen rings - for the vintage 3-incher, a dremel-a-like with flexi-drive and a pair of ortho's (12mm fullerscope and 9mm circle-T) 1.25-inch fit. Also the 38mm OD acrylic tube (not pictured) and looks like the 32mm OD snugs into it just nice, so a DIY extension tube for the TAL-M will take shape at some stage too. 

Reading so many reports on how good ortho's are I figured at that price let's take a look. The 12mm has some nasty metal shards on the rim of the top section (dropped or a wrench used maybe) but I'll clean those up. Glass is perfect which is the main thing. Quick test in the NG 75/350 aimed at distant tree tops and I got nice sharp image, could even see the insects flitting about around the branches 🙂 

The munsen's I'll use just the cap and brass them up (hopefully lol) after smoothing them up a bit first.

[markse68]

11 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

Reading so many reports on how good ortho's are I figured at that price let's take a look.

Enjoy the orthos Dave- love mine  

[DaveL59]

6 minutes ago, markse68 said:

Enjoy the orthos Dave- love mine  

they did give a great image, once cleaned up I'm sure they'll be very good. Was surprised I was the only bid so a real bargain at £19 each 🙂 

[CraigT82]

On 05/08/2020 at 12:19, andrew s said:

It goes on the outside of the tube to stop it over cooling and creating a boundary layer on the inside. 

Look at the post just before your wind up in the thread "Science behind seeing (SCT C5 80mm APO)" and the linked paper.

Regards Andrew 

Well the space blanket didn't work particularly well, as evidenced by dew on the scope. It did seem like there was less dew on the scope than on the mount etc. so maybe it worked to a small extent, but not enough.  Will try the silver backed bubble wrap next (radiator foil?)

How have you got on with the film? 

 

[Alan White]

1 hour ago, Chris Wright said:

You'd have thought, wouldn't you? Actually David Hinds.

Clearly not Amazon, the box is too small for Amazon 😂

[Conor Casey]

He brought me a New (to me) Baader Hyperion Zoom. As is typical got clouds for free 😊

[andrew s]

3 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Well the space blanket didn't work particularly well, as evidenced by dew on the scope. It did seem like there was less dew on the scope than on the mount etc. so maybe it worked to a small extent, but not enough.  Will try the silver backed bubble wrap next (radiator foil?)

How have you got on with the film? 

Not tried it yet. Will update when I have.

On dew, it can't stop it if the air temperature is below the dew point. All it can do is stop it cooling below the air temperature. 

Regards Andrew 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

For dark sky camping trips...

An OEX Coyote 3 tent to replace my (currently for sale on Ebay) Coleman Tasman 3.

It's over a kilo lighter than the Coleman and much easier to erect. No messing about with oh no I'm going to snap these poles if I bend them any more, finger slicing ridiculously tight ring and pins! Also despite the light weight, supposedly a hydrostatic head of 5000mm vs the Coleman's 3000mm.. I'll find out next time it rains heavily!

 

 

 

[steveex2003]

6 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

For dark sky camping trips...

An OEX Coyote 3 tent to replace my (currently for sale on Ebay) Coleman Tasman 3.

It's over a kilo lighter than the Coleman and much easier to erect. No messing about with oh no I'm going to snap these poles if I bend them any more, finger slicing ridiculously tight ring and pins! Also despite the light weight, supposedly a hydrostatic head of 5000mm vs the Coleman's 3000mm.. I'll find out next time it rains heavily!

 

 

 

 

Nice!

(Although not the greatest sales pitch I've ever read on the outgoing model 😉 )

[CraigT82]

3 hours ago, andrew s said:

Not tried it yet. Will update when I have.

On dew, it can't stop it if the air temperature is below the dew point. All it can do is stop it cooling below the air temperature. 

Regards Andrew 

True, but if the air temp was below the dew point it would have been foggy, which is a whole other challenge!

The dew on the scope proved that the tube had indeed cooled below the air temp and was thus the blanket was ineffective 

[Rusted]

1 hour ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

For dark sky camping trips...

 I'll find out next time it rains heavily!

 

 

 

What does the "if" word mean in the context of camping? 

When I were a lad:Iit were all Blacks of Greenock tents in waterlogged Egyptian cotton. There were no ifs and [water] butts.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

1 hour ago, steveex2003 said:

Nice!

(Although not the greatest sales pitch I've ever read on the outgoing model 😉 )

The Coleman has a lot of positives though.. hang on... erm.. well... er... It looks nice? 😉

[Padraic M]

Very excited! Don't think I'll get to set it up tonight though... ⚡🌩️

Field flattener still on the way.

 

[CraigT82]

Postie brought the final piece of kit that I needed -EQ6 pro mother board- to perform open heart surgery on my ~18yr old EQ6. 

Bought motors and the m/b from an eq6 pro along with a lynx astro eqdir cable and 5a power supply. Also bought the rail kit upgrade for the polar alt adjustment from dark frame (works beautifully but still hugely overpriced). Now I can let firecapture do the hard work of keeping the planet centred on the chip! 

It had a strip down and relube a couple of weeks ago and with these upgrades this old beast has a new lease of life. Looking forwards to maybe getting another 18 years out of it.

It's a bit weird seeing it slew around at x800 when all I had was x16 max previously! 

Next on the list at some point in the future will be belt drive kit and a bit of tuning - already got the delrin shims in various thicknesses for that.