Wow! Thank you so much! Really appreciate it!

@@EarthtoSpaceScience Here we are, years after you made the video and it is still one of the clearest explanations online!

We went and saw the eclipse in Clarksville, Arkansas. Had a great spot and view!

Good tip, thanks!

The beefier tripod is on the version that has a heavier optical tube. You can buy the same tripod to replace the included one but it would be nice if it was an option at time of purchase.

I hope it helps you! There are of course new software releases since then, so I’ll have to make an updated version eventually.

Why?

So light pollution has zero impact on planetary views, and might actually help them somewhat in that you don’t actually want your eyes dark adapted to see the best planetary details. The biggest impacts to planetary views are atmospheric stability which varies dramatically night to night and hour to hour. If the jet stream is over head the views are usually not going to be good. The other issue is making sure the telescope is thermally stable. If the telescope is warmer than the air you get heat plumes radiating off of the lenses and such that distort the views. So, the views can often be better after the scope has been sitting outside for an hour or so. This is a bigger issue with larger telescopes. As far as eyepieces, it depends on the focal length of the telescope. It is usually hard to get a sharp view over 200x unless conditions are perfect. In an 8” SCT, a 9 to 11 mm eyepiece can work well. Televue eyepieces are amazing but very expensive. But a 9mm televue Nagler will work great. The Baader 8-24mm zoom is actually really good too and is best in the 8-10 mm range I think and so can be a nice eyepiece. There are some decent lower cost eyepieces. I’ve been happy with all the Baader eyepieces and others can be good too but again it depends on the focal length of the scope in terms of what the best option might be. Also, if you have an SCT you have to make sure the mirror is collimated properly to get a sharp view. The views of Saturn in an 8” SCT can be absolutely incredible and rival the best images when the air is stable and the telescope thermally stable.

Not sure exactly what you are referring too. I showed a couple samples of viewing the sun, but you can’t see the edge of the field of view in those…

I usually use an 8-10ms exposure time and the gain varies each time. I just look at the histogram and set the gain so I’m not going over 100 on red green or blue. Depends on transparency and what the apparent size of Jupiter is since it is quite a bit brighter closer to opposition than a couple months before or after.

Yeah a stainless steel one with a few holes drilled through it would actually be a great option.

@@EarthtoSpaceScience Could you tell me if the SW Az-5 mount can withstand a Schmidt-Cassegrain pipe with a diameter of 9.25 inches? Or should I limit myself to eight inches when using the twilight mount? Would it make sense?

I don’t think so. It has a capacity limit of 15 lbs and really, going over 12 is probably going to start getting shaky. Also I’m not sure if there would be enough clearance for the tube.

@@EarthtoSpaceScience Thanks! Please advise an alt-azimuth mount with a load capacity of 10-15 kg (22-35 ibs)

I don’t know of any low cost ones offhand. I think these would work, but are much more expensive once you include the tripod. There are others besides these as well, but all rather expensive. Stellarvue M2: www.stellarvue.com/stellarvue-mounts/ Discmounts: www.discmounts.com/price2022.html Rowan AZ100: telescopes.net/mounts/alt-azimuth-mounts/rowan-astronomy-az100-altaz-mount-head.html?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_gc4qJxTmDA8dIxUmwGkkjMrG0G&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-5y1BhC-ARIsAAM_oKmlPq0FeRWr3VkGP4g6kfx3kRq-n7n3uoa3Oxx0KaDP2ghqYDLa9pIaArj6EALw_wcB

You may have to align without the filter on if it can’t see enough stars. This can be an issue, especially if not many stars are visible to begin with. The reflection part I’m not sure about. Perhaps because of a lot of background stray light if the environment is very bright.

​@@EarthtoSpaceScience Yes, my Evscope is already aligned, I used the template that comes with the cap, it's fine, but when I put the filter on, everything goes dark and all I see is the reflection of the spider (that cross that the sensor is on) and the telescope can't find any stars. I live in NY, Manhattan, in fact, it's quite bright and there are few stars at night.

I’m guessing it is also changing the focus just enough to blur out the stars (dimmed by the filter) so you can’t see them. Generally if you can see the secondary you are out of focus. Filters can impact focus position. You can always make a mark on the focus knob where the best focus position is for a given filter once you find it.

The Celestron filter isn’t baader film as it does produce an orange sun.

@EarthtoSpaceScience then it was changed from when I used to sell them 2006-2011. And even the costco special nexstar 80gtl which was my fist scope in 2004 came with a solar filter than used baader film. Celestron used to be the main source for some of the baader filters, with celestron branding, the contrast booster and uhc/OIII, and astrosolar on their solar filters. But things change over the years and baader has increased many of its prices since the hyperion was such a huge hit on the forums back in 06. The celestron OIII and UHC were the cheapest way to get those baader filters for a long time.

Yes, Naglers tend to improve the view in almost any scope.

That was an explore scientific twilight II mount.

It is basically a software-limited version of their GTI mount but with the solar tracking camera. Yes, it would be nice if it still had all the other functionality.

Any smallish scope (around or under 10 pounds or so) with a vixen rail should be fine. The tripod is pretty light so you can probably put a somewhat heavier scope on it if you upgraded the tripod.

It tracks pretty good. I haven’t tried it at high magnification, so not sure on that. It will keep the sun in the field of view for a long time with the tacking camera (it did the entire eclipse without issue, for example) but I’m not sure about how well it would keep a specific prominence in the center of the field of view.

MONO I use the ASI 462

Yeah, they have lots of threaded adapters. The click lock is nice but you can always do one of their cheaper 1.25” adapters and upgrade later, especially since you can use two of them. Backfocus can be tricky to measure. I didn’t try too hard to get it optimal, I mainly just focused on getting a setup that worked physically in terms of all the connections and just tried to get in the ballpark. Since I use it with an SCT, reaching focus isn’t an issue but of course you don’t want to have the spacing too far off optimal.

It is one of the very best “bang for your buck” telescopes out there. For the price it performs amazing. Obviously you can spend $3,000 and get a much better telescope, just like anything else. But for the price it does well. You can certainly get nice views of the planets with it when the atmosphere is steady.

Glad it helped!