Category : Astronomy Equipment

Lakeside Focuser Control Box Bracket Holder

I have my Lakeside Focuser boxes around the outside of my metal pier held on by wrapping a wide piece of velcro around them. The problem is they do move a bit now and again. So I decided to design and build some Lakeside Focuser control box holders. I added two slots in the back

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3D Printed Solar Finder

I could really have done with this on the day of the partial solar eclipse on 10th June 2021. I didn’t have any way of aligning the telescope on the Sun that day. It was made even harder when it was very cloudy for most of the morning. I found this solar finder on Thingiverse.

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EQ8 FTDI EQDIR USB Cable Upgrade

After changing from RS232-to-Serial cables that connect my Lakeside focusers to my PC, I decided it was time to upgrade the EQ8 Dir cable as well. That was an older one from HiTec Astro and ran using the Prolific drivers. This time I decided to purchase the 5m EQ8 cable from First Light Optics. I

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Canon 200mm 2.8 lens for widefield imaging

I have been trying out widefield imaging with the Geoptik adaptor and my Atik 460 mono camera using a relatively cheap Canon 75-300mm zoom lens. I have found that you need to step down the focal length to a more reasonable f6 or f7 to get some nice round star shapes. But really you want

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ZWO ASI120MM S USB3.0 CMOS Astronomy Camera

Well I just got my ASI120MM S USB3.0 camera through via DHL. Ordered it direct from ZWO Optical on AliExpress and paid £250, then had to pay an extra £19 on import duty etc. But still a bit cheaper than buying from 365Astronomy – they were also out of stock at time of ordering. The

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John Lewis Telescopes

Whilst I was searching lately for a new Skywatcher telescope I was amazed to see that John Lewis appeared in the lists on Google. So I had to have a look, John Lewis now sell telescopes. They don’t sell too many, about 7 in total. Maybe telescopes are becoming mainstream, maybe it’s the Brian Cox

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Second Hand Astronomy Equipment

I’m sure this is a highly emotive subject. But this is the question should you buy 2nd hand astronomy equipment? I myself have bought and sold lots of astronomy equipment, either through AstroBuySell, Stargazers Lounge or eBay. But there seems to be so much astronomy equipment constantly on the second hand market, I wonder how

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