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My Telescopes

My Main Telescope - C14 and Paramount ME

My new Paramount MyT and 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien Telescope

MyT Hand Controller

My Meade 12 inch SCT on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

My 4 inch Meade Refractor with Sky Watcher Guidescope and ZWO camera on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mount with Canon 40D

 

My Solar setup using a DSLR and Mylar Filter on my ETX90

DSLR attached to ETX90. LiveView image of 2015 partial eclipse on Canon 40D

Astronomy Blog Index
About the Site

 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

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Friday
Apr172015

A new telescope for £34.99

I could not resist buying the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) astronomical telescope today when I visited the RSPB Reserve at Leighton Moss. It was for sale at half price.  the telescope comes with two eyepieces and a Barlow Lens which are of fairly poor quality at that price but are 1 1/4 inch standard fit so you can use your own eyepieces which improve matters considerably. I tried the telescope out the same night and started with Jupiter - a bit difficult because I was looking through the branches of the dominant oak tree that blocks much of my view to the south west. The disk on Jupiter was visible but difficult to focus. I will try again when I have a clearer view.  I then looked at Ursa Major and Mizar/Alcor. I could only see those two stars with the supplied 25mm eyepiece but when I used my own 25mm I could see the third off centre star between the other two quite clearly. No Moon which I suspect is the object that the telescope would be most useful for. The alt-azimuth design is easy to use and objects can be found by sighting along the tube - not difficult with the wide field provided by the 25mm eyepiece. I can see that the telescope would be a good starter for Moon observation. When the Moon is in a convenient position and phase I will try again. You could use it for observing birds in your garden once you got used to the telescope and an upside down view! I tended to move the whole telescope when I tried to adjust either axis and I think that clamping the telescope somehow would improve matters considerably.  Viewing a chimney pot on an adjacent property gave a very clear view with the 25mm eyepiece supplied - I am looking forward to using the telescope to view the Moon - it could potentially be very convenient for that purpose. I gather that at that price the telescope is selling well - the staff at Leighton Moss said that it was a very popular item.