On the triflow lubricant it will never go bad and it never comes off spray it one time around it's there for the rest of your life and it keeps doing a phenomenal job of lubricating things it also won't allow corrosion to happen and steel bearings ever

I'm a mechanic and for cleaning roller bearings I find that using a little nonchlorinated brake clean as a spray cleaner works amazingly well The other thing that will help you a lot there is an incredible Teflon based lubricant called triflow which you can get at graingers it's a spray-on lubricant and it takes the friction out of things down to the point of you just can't believe it there's one other product because I also work on stereos and electronics call deoxit 5 and look it up it's about 13 bucks a can also a spray-on product and it's an amazing deoxifying cleaner

Happy New Year. Will the 3D holder fit an 8inch Dobsonian?

I don't understand how its equivalent to pinhole camera...its just reflection...

Not sure I want paper towels anywhere near my mirror. They are very abrasive.

An advantage to making your own big dob is that you can adjust the balance and components to customize and optimize it. Two interesting offsetting options are to add a superfinder operating at abt 20x-25x and to shorten the truss-tubes to add a Parracor. Hang a 4"-6" reflector or up to a 4" refractor on the scope. This can give two substantially different fields-of-view of any object. A superfinder is very helpful to star-hop to faint fuzzies. Weights can be used on an existing scope to counter-balance these big finders if you only do this mod. Thnx L

Re 3D printing, don’t use PLA but try PETG

hmm, appears to be mostly about a guy's face?

How abt a comparo vid of the Orion Starblast 4.5 OTA on this mount and the original dob mount? Or a 4 way comparo of the 4.5 OTAs on the 2 altaz and the EQ1 and the Skyview Deluxe. Orion and Celestron both had 4.5" F/8 newts on substantial EQ mounts. Skyview Deluxe, Polaris, and CG4 were the mounts. They are not heavy, they are stable, and a pleasure to use at hi mags. My C4.5 will carry almost 200x. Thx L

How about a comparo vid of the Orion Starblast 4.5 OTA on this EQ and its original EQ1 mount? Thx L

Wow The sharpest view is 43mm at F/7 with a 65% (28mm) obstruction. That is surprising. Thx L

I've been trying to find a Crayford focuser that will fit my Zhumell Z130 and the ones I've found are for 6-8" scopes. Has anyone a suggestion that doesn't cost more than the telescope?

A view of Omega Centauri is spectacular with a big dob like this. Use an eyepiece that allows OC to be framed by the sky backround. Thx L

Nova Optics' primaries are high quality mirrors. The secondary mirror is likely also high quality. So the primary is marked with date of manufacture, focal length or focal ratio? With a F/5 system or longer a Parracor is not necessarily required. F/5+ also allows smaller secondaries which improves system contrast. The F/4.8 is right there. Thnx for vids. L

I try to always hold elements with a vacuum , Using a soft medical grade silicon hose. I once had a pristine 14'' sct mirror sitting on a clean table , Like 2 minutes and then I would be putting it back in , My wife came out of nowhere and touched it ! LOL! omg ! It was so odd looking to her , That she just had to touch it. Left a perfect thumb print . I don't know what in the world she had on her thumb , But , Man , It took like 4 hours carefully , gently , tediously , before it was finally completely gone.

They don’t want people watching the sky.

Interesting note is they (Orion) are part of a class action lawsuit for conspiring to control telescope prices… That’s probably why they closed down. I know this because I got an email asking me to sign onto this class action suit since they had record of me buying a telescope from them within the suit’s timeframe (GoTo 12” Dob).

Just bought your book...my boy and I are both Sci Fi buffs, looking forward to reading it

Thank you! I just got my boy a 6 inch dobsonian and since couldn't splash for the Celestion, this will make for a frustration free start for us. Much appreciated, I'm subscribed to your channel so will be visiting very often!

Red locktite

I’ve watched a number of your videos now. They’re excellent and you’re doing the community a great service. All the best from Scotland.

Vanished with my $4000 order as well and still fighting to get my money back in a black hole.

Do you want a telescope that is better than Galileo's ? Then set-up the 6×30 to operate @ 25mm and @ 30x. A scope that is WAY better than Galileo's ? Stop the 8×50 to 30mm and operate @ 30x + . Thx for the vids L

Dude, change your title to a more professional “How To Align a Laser Collimator” And you will get more views. The human subconscious is skips over videos that are make an accusation towards the viewer in the title. Change the word “your” to “a” You’re making an accusation that everyone who watches this owns a Collimator and is an arrogant assumption.

your the only one i can ask but i have an orion xtg goto that im trying to update the motor control on but i cant find the file to try updating since i get an error saying both axes no response

Sweet!

the autofocus should immediately be shut down.

That's a shame. I own an ETX 90 I bought in 2001 crappy motor, but great optics. Master class on how to destroy a great company.

I like the Bright Star Atlas by Wil Tirion. It is simple to use, has large scale maps and information to find many many objects. Thx L

If you wish to optimize these scopes for the Moon, may I recommend these modifications? Stop down the scopes to 35mm to increase the focal ratio and get the chromo aberration ratio to abt 6. Even though you cannot pick it out, at F/5 there is color that muddies the image. This may also reduce abberations from the cheap scope's objective. Add extra long dew shields with baffles to cancel external light sources. Even mid-price refractors have multiple interior glossy surfaces, so check the dew shield, the lens cell, inside the drawtube and the nose of the diagonal. I have done these with a cheaper Meade, than the Celestron, at 35mm and it was able to carry 61x on the Moon at first quarter and later. Thx L

There was a class action suit filed against them for price gouging and teaming up with another company to keep prices high. I believe that was the nail in the coffin. Sad.

Seriously there must be a way to hold the mirror tight without making it pinch... leaving a mirror not tight will just complicate colimation... In my case, my scope has the back of the mirror pushed against some kind of foam... so even if we tight the screws, the foam will just squeeze a little to counter the screws.

LOL, I just bought an 8” DOB, now I’m looking at ways to make it better, the crazy things we do for the little extra bit of performance, I’ll have to add this to the list. I thought I was doing good by putting the after market lenses Televue lenses in foam shadowboxed systainer. Might look into Green Stuff World Maxx Darth paint and spraying it.

This was quite useful, thanks! Based on the coarse granularity of the latitude gauge and how the arrow is so far from the numbers (at 11:45) it seems like "close enough" really is close enough. Is that still true if you've got a motor and you're doing long exposure photography?