New gear :-)

[dpastern]

Orion shortube 80mm arrived today, along with the TV 32mm plossl and Astronomiks UHC-E filter. Very fast delivery by Bintel, exceptionally well packaged, very impressed.

Thanks Bintel!

Dave

[DavidU]

Nice one Dave ! Enjoy the toyz

[jjjnettie]

Congrats.
Bintel service is great!

[dpastern]

Oh yeah, very happy with Bintel. They'll be getting more of my money (as long as I can get the product from them, of course). Won't really get a chance to try out the new gear until the weekend, working the mid shift @ work this week, it's starting to get too late by the time I get home and have dinner etc to get the scope out. Next pay is solar filter and Orion autoguider unit. I figured I might as well get them whilst I still have a job - that way I can enjoy the gear even if I'm unemployed ;-) Better to spend the money now rather than save it and have Centrelink penalise me for saving. 3 or 4 more TV plossls won't go astray either methinks.

Dave

[troypiggo]

+1 nod for Bintel service.

Cool beans on collecting the autoguiding gear. Now you'll be getting those longer exposures rockin'

Wanna borrow a guide cam and GPUSB?

[dpastern]

still gotta work on accurate polar align Troy, but I'm feeling more confident. And I've got a Orion 12.5mm reticle now, much better than trying to do it via the finderscope ;-)

Next pay is the Orion autoguider :-) Oh, and a solar filter. The pay after will probably be 4 or 5 TV plossls. After that it's time to think about car again.

Dave

[gbeal]

What size solar filter do you need D?
Gary

[dpastern]

to fit a 4" Equinox refractor. Didn't want a pure white lite filter, so was looking at getting a Seymour solar filter off EBay. York Optical has them on their website but none in stock in the entire country and won't order until they get at least a $500 order...that could take years...

Dave

[gbeal]

OK, it was a loaded question as I have three for sale (although the C11 and 7" OD sized ones won't fit obviously, LOL).
I do have one that has an ID of about 120mm. It is glass, and IIRC of photographic density, but I would want to check that. It is just that we haven't seen the sun for a while, just rain.
Gary

[dpastern]

Rain, not fun. I believe photographic densities aren't really suitable for visual viewing (I want to do both). I'll probably end up getting a PST in the long run, but for now, a non white glass based solar filter is a temporary fix.

I'll grab the one from Seymour solar filter's EBay store, probably towards the middle of next week. Thanks for the mentioning of your filters, much appreciated.

Dave