And the Crown Jewel:

 
The great Orion Nebula! 
(high res: https://i.imgur.com/MHeRnwC.jpg)
 

Here are some old pics I took awhile back.
 
M13:
 

 
M27:
 

 
M57:
 

 
All taken a few years ago with my C9.25 

Also I see the difference between a newt and a cassegrain.  No star flares.  They are actual pinpoints vs "blobs".  All your stars are nice and round, while mine are starting to form the diffraction spikes from the vane holding the secondary mirror.

Ever have a bunch of poles rattling around in your car?  Noisy as anything.  Clanging around is also not good for aluminum poles.  They could easily bend.  Thankfully I have lots of extra plastic leftover to make these:
 

 
The poles simple snap in and keep them in place.  Only needed 2, but I made 6 for good measure.  Figure when its dark, late, and cold i may overlook these black plastic items, but when it only takes 7 minutes to make them... no biggie. 

you know... I thought about using music wire for struts.  There really isn't any triangles, so I thought about going all 1918 biplane struts.  Still a thought. 
 
The aluminum  plates for the rear mating rings will arrive next week.  stinks as I actually had this weekend free.

I just got in the music wire, turnbuckles, and screw eyes for the "bi-plane" bracing.  STILL waiting on the aluminium.  midweststeelsupply.com is the slowest thing going, but at their prices I can see why.  I have had my CNC setup for a week waiting for this thing, and I finally got an arrival date of MONDAY. =/    another SIX days from now.

Welcome (back) to the forums!  Everyone has the time for it... just have to want to do it.  Especially in the winter when its pitch black by 5pm.
 
using a telescope can be a bit of a journey down a rabbit hole.  For me, one step always leads to another.  I started with just visual, but now I have taken the next step to astrophotography, and working on the next step narrowband astrophotography.  If you never want to take pictures, I would simply get a dobsonian telescope.  Most bang for the buck in terms of size.  Also I would get one that is computer controlled.  If for nothing else it will track objects so when you have it setup with folks, you can point to something, and everyone can see it, instead of having to stop every third person to make sure its still in the viewfinder.
 
Just depends on how much you can afford to spend on it. 

Finally some more progress!

 

 
It is SO much stronger.  Also using steel rivets improves the rigidity immeasurably.  Second alunimum ring will be finished today.  Probably will be over 40LBS, but the mount seems ok with it.  As long as I can get it to balance well it will be ok. 

Take some pics of the space station if you can.

nally dialing in my telescope.  Hang in there... theres been updates.
 
Here we have the double aluminum ring, and my using one of the old plastic rings on the rear. 

You can see the brown in the center of each pole.  That is a steel core 12" long into it.  Added an additional 10 lbs (at least) to the rear of the scope.  Wasn't pretty with this super light aluminum tube.
 
Still just a monster scope compared to the mount:

The center of gravity was in between the aluminum mating rings, but the front of the scope still moved way more then I liked it.
 
The scope was much more sturdy with the aluminum rings, but with the dovetail bar still forward of the rear of the scope there was still a cantilever system which moved the scope more than I liked.  So then came the idea for this small support brace:

By adding this support brace, it now supported (some) of the weight of the lower strut tubes.  
 
Here is my testing it with this new support:

Need a ladder to see anything.  The support helped considerable, but I still didn't like how much it wobbled or how long it took to stop moving. So after thinking about it some more I came up with another way, using existing items...
 
So the solution I came up with, was absolutely to embrace the center of gravity being between the 2 sections.  I moved the dovetail bar to bolt to the front of the rear section, and put one of the leftover plastic rings almost in the center of the strut tubes.  Considerably better:



 
Now, I can probably take it up another notch by trading places with the rear aluminum tube, and the center plastic one.  That will ensure metal rigidity over a far greater supported length of the scope.
 
I also think I am outgrowing a vixen style dovetail and need a losmandy type which is twice as wide.  Problem is that I would have to buy a new mounting head to accept the losmandy style bar.  Not a fan of that.  Also I can now hack off the excess pipe off the back.
 
Still tossing the idea around in my head how much more rigid it will be to swop the mid and rear rings.  So thats where it stands now.  I actually may even be able to go back with the steel shower rods.  Will explore that next.  I am terrified that I will bend one of these aluminum rods. 

The difference between a losmandy plate, and a vincin:

working on either purchasing, or fabricating an adapter.

Some mistakes were made:
 

10 day for the ISS in the northeast US. Thursday morning has the highest magnitude but promises to be cloudy. Saturday and Sunday AM also promising.
Nate, can you actually track something as fast as the ISS?

These times and alts are for my house north of Albany so a minute or 2 earlier south and west and later to the north and east.
 

yodap
10 day for the ISS in the northeast US. Thursday morning has the highest magnitude but promises to be cloudy. Saturday and Sunday AM also promising.
Nate, can you actually track something as fast as the ISS?

These times and alts are for my house north of Albany so a minute or 2 earlier south and west and later to the north and east.
 

Weather is always questionable for me this time of the year.
 
I want to say yes, with the software I am using, but honestly I dont have the experince with it.  I know my mounts fastest slew right can move across the skyI only just started using it today  You can set custom tracking rates. 
 
I have to get a program like Cartes du Ciel  but here is a video that I will try it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeJOIh2C3V0
 
 
 

Those of you in Northern latitudes, there is something going on this weekend called a Messier Marathon.  If you have a clear moonless night, and horizon to horizon sight lights, you can see all 110 Messier objects in one night.
 
https://www.space.com/39931-messier-marathon-with-mobile-apps.html
 
With an absolutely clear forecast this weekend, I plan to spend an entire weekend under the stars, and I plan to catalogue as many as the trees aren't covering. 
 
If anyone else is doing one, let me know so we can compare notes.