IAS purchases

[geordie85]

I attended the IAS today and I must say I'm rather unimpressed with my purchases. I spent less than £200 on a new dovetail, a solar filter and a skywatcher st80. 

The dovetail I bought came with screws that are the wrong thread for my william optics tube rings. Lucky enough I found a couple in my box of spares. The st80 is missing the diagonal and the dew shield slides off rather easily (I don't know if it's supposed to slide off easily, but I cannot see it as being intensional). The solar filter is a visual filter and doesn't even fit my flt98 even though I specifically asked the vendor which will fit and told him that it'll be for imaging. Even if I wanted to use it for visual with my st80 I can't because the diagonal is missing. 

I should have just bought the ex display tak instead. 

[John]

Get back to the vendor and I'm sure they will put things right. The dew shields on ST80's do slide off quite easily though. They are just held in place by thin felt pads so you could add slightly thicker felt.

I don't think there are special imaging solar filters but it should fit the scope that you specified it for.

 

 

[geordie85]

13 minutes ago, John said:

Get back to the vendor and I'm sure they will put things right. The dew shields on ST80's do slide off quite easily though. They are just held in place by thin felt pads so you could add slightly thicker felt.

I don't think there are special imaging solar filters but it should fit the scope that you specified it for.

 

 

I've emailed the vendor about the diagonal so hopefully they will find it and send it to me. Tha ks for clearing the dew shield issue up for me, I wasn't 100% sure if it should have been bolted/ skewed on in any way. 

I thought imaging solar film had a different ND rating to visual solar film. I can only assume this is why it states visual on the side. 

[Scooot]

13 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

I've emailed the vendor about the diagonal so hopefully they will find it and send it to me. Tha ks for clearing the dew shield issue up for me, I wasn't 100% sure if it should have been bolted/ skewed on in any way. 

I thought imaging solar film had a different ND rating to visual solar film. I can only assume this is why it states visual on the side. 

I used a Kendrick filter with visual on it to image the Mercury transit in 2016 with my Canon on my baby tak. It was one of my binocular filters which I taped on with masking tape. It obviously wasn’t designed for this purpose but the filter worked ok.

[djpaul]

Anyone  know if Rowan astronomy had their new az100 mount on show?

 

[Space Hopper]

Sure did matey......!! 😀

Edited November 16, 2019 by Tubby Bear

[Space Hopper]

One more......

Edited November 16, 2019 by Tubby Bear

[John]

Looks like the one that I had and the one that @Stu had for testing are drawing admiring glances

[Space Hopper]

8 minutes ago, djpaul said:

Anyone  know if Rowan astronomy had their new az100 mount on show?

 

It looked very impressive Paul, and if i didn't already have the DM-6 i'd certainly be in the market for one.

Like the DM-6 it works very nicely with the Nexus DSC

I also heard talk about sometime in the future they'd be adding motors / goto functionality.

[djpaul]

Well it's my next purchase as far as I'm concerned  

So I may well go just to see it and see if it's as well built as it looks.  

[Space Hopper]

I bought a dew band from Barbara, some imaging adapters for the TEC, and picked up a new smaller refractor to go with the TEC

I also added to my meteorite collection.....a nice specimen i think. Its a NWA stone type.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Tubby Bear

[Space Hopper]

6 minutes ago, djpaul said:

Well it's my next purchase as far as I'm concerned  

So I may well go just to see it and see if it's as well built as it looks.  

Make no mistake, its certainly well built ! 😀

[djpaul]

Perfect. 

I may go tomorrow then .... 

Looks like it gives the losmandy mount a bit of competition. 

 

[JamesF]

Baader solar film is available in two different types, one for imaging only and one for visual.  From memory I think they're called ND3.8 and ND5.0.  As far as I'm aware, the numbers represent the proportion of light that passes through the filter expressed as a power of ten, so ND3.8 reduces the light passed through by a factor of 10^3.8 and ND5.0 by a factor of 10^5.  Both are ok for photographic use, though the ND3.8 may give better results.  ND3.8 is not safe for visual use.

A quick search suggests that Kendrick only produce an ND5.0 filter (they appear to have done others in the past).

My experience with the ST80 and ST102 is that the dew shields don't need a lot of encouragement to slip off.  As John says, they're only held on with felt pads.  It can be handy if they still stay on nicely, but in some instances they'll pretty much fall off if you turn the OTA objective-down.  The path of least resistance in this instance is probably a thicker bit of self-adhesive felt, though I have found it expedient to use a small piece of folded paper to make the fit tighter before now.

James

[johninderby]

41 minutes ago, djpaul said:

Perfect. 

I may go tomorrow then .... 

Looks like it gives the losmandy mount a bit of competition. 

 

Seems a better built and heavier duty mount so not so much as competition for the Losmandy AZ8 but an alternative if you want something that’s a step up from the AZ8  .The AZ8 is a cheaper alternative. 👍🏻

Edited November 16, 2019 by johninderby

[Skyline]

Anyone got pics of new scopes?

[djpaul]

14 hours ago, djpaul said:

Well it's my next purchase as far as I'm concerned  

So I may well go just to see it and see if it's as well built as it looks.  

Just been to the IAS I have spoken to the guys at Rowan Astronomy and seen the AZ100 in the flesh. 

Beautify made and to a very high spec.

So it's defo my next purchase in the new year.

😁

[Space Hopper]

Good work @djpaul

I'm sure it will be a good purchase for you.

I was certainly impressed with it.

Maybe it would be good to test it against a DM-6 and compare the two together...??

[John]

Is the AZ100 actually on sale now ?

[Swithin StCleeve]

I wonder why neither Sky at Night or Astronomy Now weren't there? I've enjoyed their stands in the past, and have come away with some bargains. 

[johninderby]

13 minutes ago, John said:

Is the AZ100 actually on sale now ?

I’ve heard nothing from FLO lately about my order so assume it’s not yet for sale.  Wouldn’t be surprised if they are taking orders at the show though. 

Edited November 16, 2019 by johninderby

[djpaul]

39 minutes ago, John said:

Is the AZ100 actually on sale now ?

I was told it will be ready by end of the year.

I will order one probably February. 

I did notice some new tension knobs I think have been added since john had one to test.

[djpaul]

[Paz]

I had a productive day. I got a a couple of finder shoes, a 2-1.25" clicklock adapter which I've been interested in trying for a while, then I accidentally broke the "strictly no more astro books" rule when I saw the the Stellarium Field Guide, and I finally got a travel scope having spent a long time researching and agonising over it... a TS Optics 72mm Apo.

I had emailed a couple of vendors about travel scopes who brought them to the show I have held fire on picking one until could see and compare them in the flesh. I was quite set on getting an Altair Astro 72mm EDF CNC but having looked at all the options in the flesh the TS won it for me due to being slightly shorter and a lot lighter than the Altair 72mm EDF CNC. The Altair scope had a rotating focuser and stand off dovetail which would have been useful but in my case the rotatong focuser was not worth the weight penalty and I can bodge a stand off dovetail myself. I also noticed a clone/similar 72mm Apo on the Rother Valley Optics stands branded "Horizon" that I've not heard of before.

Thanks to Zoltan and colleagues at Astronomy 365 for bringing the scope along with some similar alternatives that I could have a look at.

I had one interesting conversation on one stand (which I won;t name) where I asked if they had a bit of kit that I was after and was told "you don't need that you need this...." ... I research things to death - draw your conclusions about whether I bought anything from them!

The unexpected highlight was the Rowan alt az mount - I'm not looking to get one myself but it looked very well built and good looking enough to go on the mantelpiece when not in use in the field. Hanging a Starfire off it was quite appropriate.

[fireballxl5]

My credit card is recovering on the bed after being used to purchase a ZWO ASI071MC Pro from 365 Astro 🙃 Planned upgrade from my 12-year old modded Canon 40D DSLR, used with my travel setup.