Cool thread. I will be in the market for a new setup (from scratch, total amateur), but we’re going to hit our rainy season soon and the scope would be useless for a few months. Figured if I spent this time shopping, maybe I could be ready once the dry season returns. Appreciate the links!
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Rainy days are terrible. Whats worse is the condensation at night time. By the end of the two hour night viewing my telescope and electronics have a light coating of dew.
Gotta keep the optics, the main glass, of the telescope dew free as well.
I look forward to seeing everyone’s images, even if they are like the ones above. We can build the group together and grow from amateurs to professionals.
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Binoculars for your telescope.
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I found the condensation problem concerning in the decision to eventually buy a telescope, but then I found this article:
Hope this can actually help, but one section sounded promising. Dew heaters make a lot of sense as you would want to have your telescope warmer than the prevailing dew point to prevent condensation, and apparently even if it’s not a humid night, it’s still good to have dew heaters on, as it can help with resolution. But some of the other recommendations can seem to help as well, like tube extensions and also where you setup your scope.
BTW, out of curiosity, does the moon photograph well with a home setup?
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I haven/t been able to get my camera eyepiece to work at night, but I still continue to learn how to use it everyday though.
But I did invent my own spotting scope mount Smart Phone adapter so I could mount the phone as close to the eyepiece as possible. What ever I aim and point at now with my telescope will appear on the SkEye app.
Home made Spotting Scope Mount for 127mm EQ3/Mak-Cass
The bottom image is the correct or close to the correct placement of the mount.
You want to be able to adjust the Smartphone so that it is almost nearly on top of the eye piece that you are using. In this case I am using a Barlow 3X so the position of the phone is over the Barlow giving me almost 100% pinpoint accuracy in translating what the SkEye App is showing me and what I am pointing at with the 127mm.
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Before using the telescope after adding the home made mount and smart phone you will have to re-balance the telescope depending on the position that you adjust the Smart Phone mount.
Believe it or not that small PVC pipe and Smartphone did cause some backlash or gear chatter. After re-balancing with the new gear mounted the gear chatter went away.
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Here is a very affordable telescope for beginners.
For under $60.00 you can get a 50 mm telescope and still be able to use the home made mount above.
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Making the Spotting Scope Mount
I’m not going to go into details about how I made the smart phone spotting scope mount because I want you to put your engineering knowledge to work. If you don’t have any engineering knowledge then this will be your first day at school.
Here are some images of the mount as it dried after being spray painted. You can make it any color you want. So make your daughter smile and paint it with glitter or bright blues, pinks and lavenders, because real men are pastel.
Now what you will need:
1" PVC Pipe
1/2" PVC Pipe
Fittings for both 1" and 1/2" pipe
Gorilla Epoxy for PVC
Spray Paint
Vent Lock Phone Mount from Fusebox - https://www.efilliate.com/ then https://www.efilliate.com/branding-partner/?brandid=3. You will have to fill out a request form for a representative to contact you but you can purchase the phone mount from Lowes.
Make certain to take your spotting scope mount along with you to get the correct PVC pipe and fittings.
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The total price was around $35. The biggest cost was the vent mount at around $10.00 and the Gorilla epoxy that was around $6.00. The pipe and fittings made up the rest and after a Pepsi at $2.00 I think the price was the total cost was around $30. The good thing is though if you have friends who have telescopes you can make them a mount like the one above for the price of the phone holder, $10.00 and fittings, $5.00 and then add $5.00. You will have enough 1/2" and 1" pipe to make at least five or six of these mounts. So for $20 a piece x five is 100 thus making a profit of approximately 65.
FYI, there is no mount like this in the existence of the telescope industry and it is a first go invention. So getting in and making your own will put you in a class of your own. When this mount idea starts getting passed around telescope engineers and telescope users will throng to the invention, guaranteed.
Why?
Because you no longer have to look through a spotting scope to find your target, now will you have to rely on books being out that can get damp and require a light to read by.
All you have to use is the Huth Spotting Scope Smartphone adapter and the SkEye App.
I’m certain that more industrial and savvy people with a machine shop will be able to create a better version, but this is the original idea that started it all.
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Friday this week there will be a Jupiter - Moon conjuntion, it’s a chance to take some good pics with a modest zoom.
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I finally figured out how to work the USB Camera Eyepiece.
Here are 12 stills of the Moon that I took over three different video sessions tonight.
These images would put our orbiter at approx. a hundred thousand miles or so off of the Moons surface.
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Jupiter will be my next session later tonight.
I have three video files that the above images were screenshot from. There is no file format associated with the video but each video just fine in VLC and Media Player.
Any ideas on how to determine the video files formats?
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Thank you for showing the pics I didn’t know you could see such detail of the moon like that since the last telescope I had was when I was a kid I think they got that one from Toys are Us.
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If it plays on VLC, go to the Tools menu, codec information tab. That will tell you what codec is VLC using to decode it.
Is the color true to original? Was the moon looking red through the eyepiece or is this related to the video? Generally speaking the full moon is gray, with greenish and blueish maria (that’s why they were called mare, “sea”, also because they’re mostly flat); some parts are yellowish. It shouldn’t look red.
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No, the reason the Moon looks read is because of the clouds reflecting the light I think, or maybe its the color encoding of the camera itself which is more likely.
Check out the video I finally converted using Bandicam to screen capture the actual video playing in VLC
Actually I had a 13% light filter in the tube. That’s why the color looks organish.
Video that I made the Moon shots above from.
Click on Full Screen to read the description
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If you have the correct eyepieces such as a 12 mm you can get great images with that Toys R Us telescope.
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Yes, very nice, I like the color too.
I didn’t get to make a video or or take photos of the ones I saw back in around 1982 or so (+/-2 years, I forgot exactly when it was, although I may be able to find out for a few hundreds).
I also saw the ring(s) around Saturn, although the resolution we had made it more like a large ring than 2 or more, with more defined resolution.
You could still clearly see something much larger defined going around the center circle, the same from top to bottom, and bottom to top, with some form of angle on it.
It’s harder to detect due to the pointer device that we used to get a general direction for the higher focus magnification lens.
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I use the SkEye app to pinpoint what I am looking at. Its difficult to get orientated though.
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