Society for Popular Astronomy

My Collimation thingy arrived today. I set the 'scope up in the garden and nervously set to work. I was suprised to find that my 'scope was a fair bit off. After a while of nervously adjust both mirrors, I put the rear cover on, left the scope and waited for darkness. At around 9PM Saturn started to...

Thanks for te replies.
I thought about insulation tape... I just didn't want to destroy the wonderful look of the OTA I didn't think about adding another ring. This would look part of the scope.... Got me thinking now.... Thanks again.

Darren

There is talk of over tightening tube rings in another thread and it got me thinking... doesn't happen very often :) When I use my Explorer 200 I have a problem rotating the tube in the rings. When I do the OTA always, thanks to gravity, slides downwards, putting the assembly out of balance. I can't...

Have a look at something like this http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=tal1 Built like a brick outhouse and according to the reviews it performs well. I'm thinking of getting one as my "put it in the garden and throw a bag over it" scope.... We have half decent skies over C...

Again nothing heard :( Heavens-above has no more visable sightings listed, but http://www.n2yo.com/ as plenty of daylight passes to HOPEFULLY listen to. They are getting earlier and earlier. I'll miss most as I'll be in work, this will get worse as time goes by. Does anyone know when we'll get back ...

Another poster just mentioned the ISS overhead tonight, any problems seeing that with the unaided eye? You won't be able to miss it! It's stunning! go to http://www.heavens-above.com/ select your location from the database and click on ISS. You'll be given a list of visable passes. Click on each pa...

The brightest thing in the sky apart from the moon (at night) is Venus. It's VERY bright. It looks like a large star and is one of, if not the first object to bee seen at night, apart from the moon. I'm no expert by a long shot, but judging by the direction you were looking, it could be Venus. The t...

Dave AFIK 143.625 is NFM i.e. narrow, 12.5KHz wide, so if the rig has the NFM setting then use it. 145.800 is normal everyday FM, probably 25KHz wide or there abouts Listenening in the wrong mode can cause the audio to sound poor. Maybe this is why the audio was poor. I've heard nothing at all for d...

It's Sunday... Even Steve is entitled to a day off :) He's probably sunning himself on his Caribbean island. The one with the landing strip for his Lear jet :) Thinking about it... When was the last time he posted???? When did the "space tourist" Charles Simonyi launch to the ISS????.... M...

I've heard nothing on either freq since the day before change over :( The new radio is installed, and raring to go but nothing :( We might be losing visual/night time passes but we'll still get daylight passes... At least I hope we will. The passes are getting earlier each day, so we should still be...

Heavens above only give the times for VISABLE passes so that could be why

http://www.n2yo.com gives the times of ALL passes including the daytime ones. Even so, they don't seem to match up that well, but that might be due to the difference in location. n2y0 only goes 48 hours ahead.


Darren

Dear al(L) The other day BBC TV North West News visited a radio ham chap in the Isle of Man who was supposedly going to chat with the rich space tourist who had paid $25 million to visit the International Space Station. However, it went a little sour because the space tourist did not seem keen to c...

Nothing heard, nothing seen

Waiting for 22:10.

Darren

Is there some techo whizzy way of accurately auto tracking it with HEQ5 motors ? You'd need computer control and variable speed motors. Can you PC control the HEQ5???? I don't think so. I'd love to try it on mine :) Radio hams can track it, but this uses very expensive computer controlled antenna r...

Nowt heard on the 17:26 pass. I was only listening 144.8. I'll probably miss the 1900 pass :( I'll be ready and waiting for the 20:35 and the 22:10 passes. I will be calling, but I suspect that today being change over day they might be busy doing spaceman stuff :) I'm still on low power. The new rad...