Informal Astronomy meet in Skerries tonight at 9pm (Fri, 11th Sep) - All Welcome

Dr Pepper

Location: Red Island, Skerries, North Dublin
Time: 9pm, Fri 11th Sep

More details can be found towards the end of this thread.

Cheers,
Brian

astronomy mods: Hope you don't mind this new thread, I was hoping we might catch the attention of people at a loose end tonight who might not regularly look at a thread called "North County Dublin Astronomy Group".

Calibos

Come on Lads! Its customary to post some observing reports and tell us how you got on on your observing session!

squonk

Well it was a good first session for a 'get to know you' sort of scenario. A lot of us have new scopes so a lot of help and advices was given out by those more in the know. We also had some families along and some of the lads did great work showing the kids the moon and jupiter and some of the constellations. There were some photos taken as well. We'll try and get some of those up. We snagged the ISS and shuttle too of course and kept an eye on Jupiter and the moons over the evening. Things quietened down a bit once the moon came up but all in all it was a very enjoyable first night for our group. Roll on the next meeting!

Stargate

squonk wrote: »

Well it was a good first session for a 'get to know you' sort of scenario. A lot of us have new scopes so a lot of help and advices was given out by those more in the know. We also had some families along and some of the lads did great work showing the kids the moon and jupiter and some of the constellations. There were some photos taken as well. We'll try and get some of those up. We snagged the ISS and shuttle too of course and kept an eye on Jupiter and the moons over the evening. Things quietened down a bit once the moon came up but all in all it was a very enjoyable first night for our group. Roll on the next meeting!

squonk thanks for the update , was monitoring to see how you got on , well done

Stargate

squonk

While we were talking on Friday it was mentioned there was a detailed 'how to' on calibrating the motors on the LX90. Would someone mind posting up the URL? I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

Also, if you've photos from the night, post them up as well and on the facebook group too. I've some at home that I'll post tonight.

Dr Pepper

Great night on Friday, thanks very much to squonk for setting it up. We had about 15 people down, 5 or 6 of whom were very enthusiastic kids which really added to the excitement.

We got a good look at Jupiter and the 4 Galilean moons. Also, the ring nebula, Andromeda, Pleiades, ISS, shuttle, our own Moon.

Thanks also to Rob (robk24) for all the tips on the binos and telescope (not to mention the loan of car cigarette lighter to power my scope!). I'll have to try and get my hands on a dew shield/heater before the next outing.

My colleague, Enda probably has a few good photos from the night so I'll post those up if I get them.

squonk

I've popped two of my pics up on the facebook group page. Not very astronomical I'm afraid though.

Thanks to all who came along. You all helped to make it a great night.

Hauk

Well done lads.

I would have gone down, but I was in the pub.

I did the daily walk around the head last night, and it would have been a cracking night for it. I was able to make out the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye.

It was a good walk.

dbran

Unfortunately I was on my Hols.... but looking forward to the next one.

Regarding recalibrating motors on the lx90, a good website i always keep an eye on is http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html. As the Lx90 uses the same autostar as the etx, there is a lot of stuff up there that is very relevant to the lx90.

You should also join the lx90 user group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/lx90/. A simple search should get all sorts of info you need.

There is a "recalibrate motors routine" on the autostar and it just takes a couple of seconds to do. i suspect you would only really need to do it if the voltage of your power changes, or every fw years as the motors age .. I believe it just measures have far the motor turns the scope for a given level of voltage to first the alt and then the dec motor. (The autostar should automatically know what type of scope it is attached to.)

The one that you need to do regularly if you have an LNT and use automatic allignment is to "callabrate sensors" Again this is a routine on the autostar and just requires you to centre Polaris with the LNT unit and is relatively easy. It will usually need to be done if you change the orientation of the LNT unit on the scope.

Another one I should do but dont do very often is train the drives. Here is the best tutorial that I konw of that explains it. http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/training.html This is another routine you can find on the autostar. Note that there is a sequence of procedure that you need to follow to properly train the drives otherwise you can introduce further inacuracies.

If your gotos alignments are inaccurate then usually running one or all of the above sorts it out.

Hope this helps.

dbran

Dr Pepper

Here are some photos of the night from my mate, Enda (some better than others!):
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4056583&id=523360588&ref=nf#/photo.php?pid=4056583&id=523360588&ref=nf

Photos 9-23 are from Skerries the other night. Sorry, I think you have to be a Facebooker to see them!

I might try and remember to get a few photos of the group and the rest of the scopes the next time.

Cheers,
Brian

robk24

hey all was a great night friday.... many thanks to all who where there....

squonk those sites are the ones above....

heres a direct link to the drive training page i told you about:

http://www.weasner.com/etx/techtips/etx_tuneup3.html

cheers

rob

squonk

Any chance Enda might pop up some of the photos from Friday on the North County Dublin Astronomy Group facebook page? They're really good! Fair play to him!

Rob, thanks for the link! I'll have to get the scope sorted now and behaving itself!!

Dr Pepper

Sorry, I forgot that only Enda's 'friends' would be able to see those. I've added them to the group page now.

Calibos

Dr Pepper wrote: »

Sorry, I forgot that only Enda's 'friends' would be able to see those. I've added them to the group page now.

Not to say I couldn't ever be Enda's friend but I am not Enda's friend and I was able to see those pictures yesterday? Its the pics of the newt on the GEM, the 'ghostly' pic and all the moon sky pics?

Dr Pepper

Calibos wrote: »

Not to say I couldn't ever be Enda's friend but I am not Enda's friend and I was able to see those pictures yesterday? Its the pics of the newt on the GEM, the 'ghostly' pic and all the moon sky pics?

Hmmm.. much to learn in the ways of the Facebook I have.

He seems to think other people can't see his photos.

squonk

Well I could see them, but I can't remember if I'm friends with Enda or not

I was just thinking they were great pics and would be a nice addition to the group FB page. Plus it'd give anyone who stopped by a rough idea of what to expect!