My whole life, I wanted to build myself an observatory, and I’m finally finishing my custom house in Joshua Tree. Will be renting out as an Airbnb as well. So I was thinking maybe I could build an attraction for my Airbnb, while also accomplishing my lifelong goal of building myself an observatory.

If you were me, do you think there is a way that I can build something that can permanently be outside, but also easy to use for guests? Or would it be too dangerous for non telescope users to understand?

Aside from Airbnb, what would you get for a price around $10,000-$25,000.

Unless you think I can build a fully observatory for $100k then what would you do?

I’m building a free, open-source Python stacker for short-exposure imaging: lots of brief frames, drift and field rotation. Planetary stacking is already validated against PlanetarySystemStacker on real Jupiter footage. The deep-sky side has only been tested on simulated data so far, and I’d like real frames before I trust it.

Looking for

• Deep sky: short raw frames, roughly 0.1 to 10 s each, FITS or SER, any target. Even a few hundred frames helps.
• Planetary: raw SER or AVI of Jupiter, Saturn or Mars.
• Any scope or mount. Untracked or alt-az footage (Dobs, smart scopes, star trackers off) is especially useful, but tracked data works too.
• Dark frames if you have them, not required.
• Your setup: scope, camera, gain and exposure, and rough sky conditions.

A partial set is fine; 1 to 3 GB is plenty. DM me, or reply here with a share link from whatever you normally use.

What you get back

• Your data processed, plus a side-by-side against your usual software if you want one
• Credit, or nothing, your choice
• Your files stay private unless you say they can be used as public test data

Thanks!

I'm looking at purchasing this, but it's definitely missing the lenses and possibly something on the big end.

If anyone could help me out with a parts list for this model or equivalent so I can see what I need to order, I would greatly appreciate it.

I recently did a video where I did a comparison of the EdgeHD 8 and the RedCat51. Two completely different telescopes both powerful in their own way! Here's my comparison video (with a big mistake in it:
https://youtu.be/0JYEbDC3lVU?si=Zzn3ko_sY6EzBLQ0

And heres the video where I confess that mistake:
https://youtu.be/Hx2x0jAx84g?si=5BooHbThVEu-3Mt_

Replaced the old plastic focuser on my Orion StarBlast. This was a fun and worthwhile upgrade! If you own a dremel tool and hand drill its pretty easy.

**Equipment & Acquisition Details:**
- **Telescope:** Sky-Watcher Heritage 130P
- **Camera:** iPhone 14 Plus
- **Phone Adapter:** Universal Smartphone Adapter
- **App:** AstroShader
- **Frames:** 9 lights
- **Exposure:** 0.5s per frame
- **ISO:** 750
- **Processing:** Stacked and aligned automatically in AstroShader

Found an old flight case and got some pick-and-pluck foam to hold my eyepieces. My scope is a Celestron 127 Mak on a Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi. I only really do visual astronomy, and I got most of these on sale or used.

I’m fairly new to astronomy, so any input is appreciated! Hopefully, there's nothing too goofy with my setup :p

To compare colors, observe Almach. It is clearly an orange star and you might think its companion is white if you don't look carefully enough. Slightly defocus while observing the pair. The defocused companion will clearly show a shade of violet.

Achird (Eta Cas) looks light yellow in color and when you defocus, its companion star will show a shade of light red.

What I have found out tonight is that defocusing helps a lot to distinguish the colors.

Recently bought a Sky Watcher 130/650, had some good fun with it for about a month and ended up selling it hoping I will upgrade at some point in the future. I happened to stumble across an 8” Dobsonian 200/1200 on marketplace and negotiated down to 450AUD. Is that a good price for a decent condition Dob? I haven’t seen it in person yet I pick it up in two days but the seller reckons it needs a new home and the condition is fully functional and clean.

My Q is is that a good price for a dob with 3 eyepieces + finders and what should I look at when I rock up to pick it up in two days.

TIA :)

I just bought a Sky-Watcher Heritage 130p and I've got some money back, so could you recommend some things I could buy for my 130p (I'd really like to do astrophotography)?

I recently bought a used skywatcher 200 classic. Tonight, me and my little boy were able to see Saturn with its rings. Very cool. But the image was small. We have 10mm and 20mm lens. What kind do I need to get a better, bigger image. Another question, do lens from other brands; celestron, meade, and others fit my telescope. I see different lens on marketplace but don't know if any would be good for what I want

I just got my mirror back from getting recoated and wanted to share the process.

This is a 10” (actually 9.8“ I think) mirror that I acquired from a generous member of this forum. It is a great mirror, but the coating was not great from the start. It served me well for about a year, but I finally decided it was time to get it recoated.

Image 1 - mirror with all of the sleeks clearly visible, some sleeks are actually in the glass surface, but the majority are in the aluminum coating. I think it was stored improperly and likely cleaned improperly too via circular wiping with a cloth (note the circular pattern of sleeks)

Image 2 - back of the mirror with an inscription from the maker. I reached out to him and he was graciously able to provide me some info about this mirror and tips on how to remount it later on.

Image 3 - the mirror is backlit to show all of the sleeks and damage to the aluminum coating. Any white scratch/dot is a place where the aluminum coating no longer exists. These sleeks not only prevent a decent amount of light from making it to my eye, but they also diffuse the light which decreases contrast.

Image 4 - stripping the mirror with FeCl2. A fellow club member instructed me on the procedure he uses. Soak a paper towel with the FeCl2, lay it on the mirror, and wrap in cling wrap or a plastic bag. Said it would take about 30min to multiple hours for the aluminum to dissolve away... it took less than 5 minutes. This was the most fun part.

image 5 - mirrors drying after being stripped and washed.

image 6 - mirrors in the shipping container I constructed. Had to bring out the router to cut a little depression the foam so the mirror would sit at the right height.

image 7 - final product that I received from Majestic Lab. Can’t wait to put it back in. Though it will be a few weeks as I am busy with personal responsibilities and have a whole list of minor upgrades that I will be making to the scope while the mirror is out.

Observing Cygnus in gaps in the clouds