Telescopes & Astrophotography

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-15✓ Read

  Apparent size of stars with increasing magnification using scopes of increasing aperture

  While studying double stars with a couple of different scopes... my AT102EDL 4 inch refractor and my SkyMax 180 (7 inch Maksutov) I noticed a couple of things that seemed interesting. Stars are point sources and really should not therefore appear as little disks as magnificaton increases significantly. That was not quite my experience last night.

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-15✓ Read

  Cleaning Tak Mount Electrical Sockets

  So the other night I set up to observe Saturn, lo and behold my hand paddle would not function. Seems my EM-10 would track okay but I was unable to use the

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-14✓ Read

  Sharpcap Live Stacking - What settings work for you?

  I just figured out why I could never get live stacking to work. Major Doh! Now that I know that there is one for DSO and another for planet, hello! So looking for what is working for others that use it. Next time I get out I going to try and keep the sharping and noise very low or completely off. I love the real time quality graphs and under/over exposure info. This really helps to understand know what is working and why.

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-14✓ Read

  Considering Ioptron CEM60-EC

  Greetings, I am looking for a heavier capacity mount to manage my loaded C11 for astrophotography. I found a nice deal on an Ioptron CEM60-EC. Appears to function well mechanically and has recently had firmware fully updated. As I enjoy using the ASIAir with my ZWO cameras, is this mount something I should be considering? Thank you!

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-14✓ Read

  Orion vs Celestron prism star diagonal (1.25") for C90 mak?

  I'm helping a friend with his newly acquired C90 spotting mak for astronomical use. The idea is now replacing the 45-degree prism for a 90-degree one; he has an offer of an unused Orion 1.25" prism star diagonal (seemingly discontinued) for half the price it would cost to get a new Celestron 1.25" prism star diagonal. From what I've found, the Orion one is fully coated, but I can't find any official source stating if the Celestron one is also full coated or even fully multi-coated.

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-14✓ Read

  WeBo 1

  Last week I spent five nights camping overlooking the VLA at the Enchanted Skies Star Party in New Mexico, USA. It’s an annual event in Bortle 1 skies. Highly recommend it! Here’s an image I captured there showcasing one of the most fascinating sights in our galaxy: the Heart Nebula, so named because its shape resembles a human heart. Located approximately 7,500 light-years from Earth, the Heart Nebula lies within the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way and appears in our night sky in the constellation Cassiopeia.

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-13✓ Read

  A fun ride with Saturn, 10/13/2026

  As I let our Border Collie out one last time yesterday evening, I noticed the sky was relatively clear. This surprised me, as it did NOT correlate with the forecast I had checked earlier in the afternoon. Thankful I had not had much to drink that evening, I opened the observatory roof, powered on the equipment and turned the scope to Saturn. I was immediately impressed with the steadiness of the atmosphere to the south (Saturn was just approaching the meridian, so almost due south).

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-13✓ Read

  Looking to rebuild / upgrade an existing 10" Dobsonian scope

  Hello to everyone! I'm brand new to the forum and this is my first post. I bought this 10" Dobsonian scope at a swap meet back around 2010 and have been using it since. I'm somewhat of an astronomical evangelist, hauling out my telescope for strangers to enjoy. Last weekend was family weekend at my kid's summer camp, and I brought along the telescope to show people sights like Saturn and the Pleiades.

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• CCloudy Nights2026-10-13✓ Read

  Mars near M44

  I chronicled my sadness with this conjunction in the General Astronomy forum, but the short version is I have been looking forward to this conjunction for a couple of weeks and when the time drew near rain was in the forecast. My plan changed, get what I could- so I went out Friday morning, did a sketch. Then I was to go again Saturday, but I was beat and slept through my alarm. At midnight we had clear skies, Mars and M44 were set to rise about 2am so I hoped to get out 2:30 - 3am, but when I got up at 5am it was 100% cloud coverage.

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