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What did the postman bring?


nightfisher

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Gave the SV171 8-24mm behemoth a spin earlier since I could see Jupiter was out, tho lots of cloud so wasn't expecting much. Set up the TAL100RS and Jupiter snapped nicely into focus at the 24mm end. No detail at all just a white ball, seeing very poor so no surprise. Zooming in I had to tweak focus around halfway, the white ball grew a little bigger but down at the 8mm end was hard to pin focus, just a ball of fuzz really. Jupiter then blinked out so I expect that was the thin cloud badly aflicting the view.

Not a great test to be fair but I was itching to get a look at something celestial with this one, will redo on a better night when I can also switch to other fixed eyepieces to compare. For sure it's not quite parfocal but with the good reports I'm hoping that for £49 it'll be a nice buy and very handy for quick sessions rather than swapping EP's to and fro 🙂 

Edited by DaveL59
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52 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

4 years and 241 pages, and now I can finally post something here! DHL dropped off a Hyperflex 7-21mm zoom and Baader Q turret barlow this afternoon. I think these are the first new items I've bought in at least 5 years!

IMG_20201001_195908905.jpg

Watch out Roy: it’s a slippery slope 🙂

 

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3 hours ago, Steve Clay said:

Celestron Starsense Lt 70 for the grandchildren. However, I'm robbing the Starsense unit to fit to my skytee.

16015702164092123211794192077594.jpg

after umming and ahhing on this one I just pulled the trigger and ordered from Harrison's, damn you SGL throwing temptation at my credit card 😄 

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On 01/10/2020 at 21:15, DaveL59 said:

after umming and ahhing on this one I just pulled the trigger and ordered from Harrison's, damn you SGL throwing temptation at my credit card 😄 

Wise move. Very interesting. StarSense sounds like a useful tool. Is it possible to use it with any manual alt/az mount? Can it be fitted to a telescope mounted finder scope shoe etc?

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26 minutes ago, Dantooine said:

Wise move. Very interesting. StarSense sounds like a useful tool. Is it possible to use it with any manual alt/az mount? Can it be fitted to a telescope mounted finder scope shoe etc?

I'm hoping it'll work fine on EQ mounts too as most of mine are, will see soon, hopefully. Should arrive monday but when the skies will play ball is another matter as ever 😉 

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Just ordered a Skywatcher Evostar 90 as a grab and go telescope. I want to do a lot of pavement astronomy so want to show people what they can see with a reasonably priced, entry level telescope.

Arrives on Tuesday. 😀

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2 hours ago, pastiche said:

Just ordered a Skywatcher Evostar 90 as a grab and go telescope. I want to do a lot of pavement astronomy so want to show people what they can see with a reasonably priced, entry level telescope.

Arrives on Tuesday. 😀

That’s a nice thing to do. It’s very true about people wanting a look. I’ve set up before on my drive and moved the telescope further into public view as the evening went on. I’ve had whole family’s wanting a look, even complete strangers come up and talk, they always seem amazed at what they have seen and go home talking about it.  

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I took the plunge after my painful divorce from Astroberry/RasPi :

20201005_134655.thumb.jpg.dbf17d076a1bf9b4a41696ed2b92cd38.jpg20201005_134645.thumb.jpg.f15039e4e2f70dce5102f6d365b47b0c.jpg

I took many weeks to decide whether to stick with Windows/APT or have another go at KStars/Ekos on a bigger Linux machine.

I decided on the latter which also saved the cost of a W10 license. This unbranded machine came with 8Gig of Ram and a 240 Gig SSD, preinstalled with Ubuntu. I particularly liked this machine because it's got plenty of USB ports so hopefully no need for the USB hub and it's native 12v input. I know the intel NUC's can run on 12v but there is anecdotal evidence that 12v is the very bottom of their stable range.

Now it begins; installing everything. Which will have to wait because I have no USB keyboard for initial set-up.  I found the keyboard I knew I had but it's the old PS2(?) plug type. There is an on-screen keyboard but that doesn't appear to be accessible for initial user account set-up...

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1 hour ago, Paul M said:

I took the plunge after my painful divorce from Astroberry/RasPi :

20201005_134655.thumb.jpg.dbf17d076a1bf9b4a41696ed2b92cd38.jpg20201005_134645.thumb.jpg.f15039e4e2f70dce5102f6d365b47b0c.jpg

I took many weeks to decide whether to stick with Windows/APT or have another go at KStars/Ekos on a bigger Linux machine.

I decided on the latter which also saved the cost of a W10 license. This unbranded machine came with 8Gig of Ram and a 240 Gig SSD, preinstalled with Ubuntu. I particularly liked this machine because it's got plenty of USB ports so hopefully no need for the USB hub and it's native 12v input. I know the intel NUC's can run on 12v but there is anecdotal evidence that 12v is the very bottom of their stable range.

Now it begins; installing everything. Which will have to wait because I have no USB keyboard for initial set-up.  I found the keyboard I knew I had but it's the old PS2(?) plug type. There is an on-screen keyboard but that doesn't appear to be accessible for initial user account set-up...

What's the model / link?

It looks like one of these: https://www.inside-tech.co.uk/fanless-quad-core-intel-mini-pc-dual-display?gclid=CjwKCAjwiOv7BRBREiwAXHbv3KgxbljV9WYTXWx8bz-NDvk8bQujI8p4kuMnGoBd5iJlVTBquoVQNBoCW1EQAvD_BwE

Edited by gilesco
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1 hour ago, Paul M said:

It's a generic mini PC of Oriental origin. I got mine from eBay and it was the last one the seller had. This is it, it's go a 128 Gb SSD not 240 or whatever I said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254724954111?ul_noapp=true

 

I got a similar one, 8Gb, 128Gb, 1Tb, 4xusb3, 2coms, VGA, etc for £220. Very nice, quick and easy to set up win10 pro installed.

IMG_20200929_225637.jpg

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Just a couple of filters for me..Hoping the forecast for Sun morning stays as it is to give Mars a good go. The polariser is let down by an absolutely awful box that fell apart in my hands once opened. I’ll find something for it I’m sure, hope the glass is good.

558A15A9-8557-44B5-9BC1-DD256604C634.jpeg

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9 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

so today the nice man from DPD dropped this off

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and I added a variable polarizing filter which they'd popped inside for me

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Ah ha, you got one of those awful boxes too for the filter 😄

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2 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Just a couple of filters for me..Hoping the forecast for Sun morning stays as it is to give Mars a good go. The polariser is let down by an absolutely awful box that fell apart in my hands once opened. I’ll find something for it I’m sure, hope the glass is good.

558A15A9-8557-44B5-9BC1-DD256604C634.jpeg

I have that exact filter and box as well. Luckily it has yet to perform a rapid unscheduled disassembly in my hands:lol:

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