I have been visiting Cosmos observatory for some time and have  become a volunteer for the community observatory on the Island of  Brechiek, Ynysek Syllan (St. Martin’s Isles of Scilly)

It is an amazing observatory. My son and I have taken part in two Scilly Dark Sky weeks which happen in October each year and take every opportunity to visit the observatory , It has been in my mind for a long time to become a part of this community project and so as soon as the opportunity arose in whatever form it took I would jump at the chance to be apart of this, and earlier this year a call was put out to become part of the team as a volunteer helping out with the weekly astronomy sessions. It is just great stuff to be able to use this eqyipment and to share the experience with such wonderful like minded people

….  Here is the link to Cosmos observatory click here    ….

I had noticed some time ago that there were various pieces of spare astronomy equipement at the observatory particularly a sturdy eq mount that was without an O.T.A. that after asking about turns out is donated to the community project as something that can be used by any interested members but this particular mount is not being used. The owner no longer uses the eq mount. What mader me interested is that the telescope I have is on an eq1 mount which is in my view inadequate even for the small 114mm Skywatcher Newtonian reflector that I use at home.

So I asked if it might be possible for me to use the mount and the owner said yes of course and because it is never used suggested I just have the mount which was absolutely wonderful. In the past I have when the opportunity pressents itself swapped one of my artworks for whatever it is I am interested in …. I love to do this kind of swap/barter …. on the whole I hate and loath the very concept of money and exchanging artworks for money has always been a neccessity which I thoroughly hate. That we all have to exchanged our lives for this is to me appauling, so whenever I can I will do this. And so I took my courage in my hand and asked if Charlie the owner of the EQ mount would like to exchanged the mount for one of my paintings …. a simple swap …. well art is a very personal thing so you never know for sure if this will work, You can never know if the person will like the art you do but long story short Charlie does like my artwork and so …. yes that is what we did.

I took the mount home after our usual astronomy evening session and a few days later after finishing and framing a new painting took the painting round for Charlie. The painting to me is in size quite small …. for me, I usually like to work on much larger paintings. Anyway Charlie was not expecting anything quite so ‘big’ and is really supper happy with the paintign. The painting is apt as it has an astronomical theme which goes hand in hand with this circumstance and by chance has Charlie’s favorite colour palette …. great stuff.

The mount is an astromaster CG3 Celestron, now I like Celestron’s astronomy equipment, but this mount does have issues so the first thing I did was to completely dismantle the mount, both the RA and Dec rotation axis were stiff and in places sticking and there was some tarnish and corrosion on the various bolts and it was very dusty having not been used for quite some time, so I cleaned of all the old sticky goo that passes for lubricant by the manufacturers and replaced it with a much, much, much, better  greese. There is an upgrade kit available for the RA and Dec axis’ which I will at some point buy or if possible barter/swap for another artwork.

One issue that I had to solve right way was how to attached my 114mm skywatcher newtonian reflector to the celestron mount. I needed a dovetail plate because the tube rings for the newtonian were not compatible, but fortunately this was a fairly easy thing to make. I simply used some 12 mm marine ply I had found in a skip and fashioned a dovetail plate with a flat metal bracket screwed to the side of the dovetail plate  that could then be clamped in place. Attaching the tube rings was simple enough …. I simply drilled the appropriate holes at both ends of the dovetail bar and found some longer bolts that I had lying around and hey ho the newtonian could be attached to the celestron mount. This was also a useful modification as it allowed me to mahe the dovetail bar longer than the attachment for the old EQ1 mount thereby increasing the stability of the telescope.

The mount had the usual brace for the tripod legs but with no tray so this is something I will also make in the next few days. The tripod is ok ish the lower internal legs extend and there are only a few spots of corrossion on the legs that required a bit of clean up. However there is quite a bit of play in the lower legs as they extend which I also want to address fairly soon.

And finally I have a larger finder scope that I will piggy back on top the the Newtonian and I will make a bracket out of the 12 mm marine ply to do this …. again faily soon. But my main concern for this day was to get the set up working.

For the moment I have done everything I need to get this new set up working well and I tested the whole thing the other day with my home made solar filter to view the sun and it was a very definate improvement going from a basic EQ1 to the astromaster CG3 which I assume is the equivalent of an EQ 2/3. There is a terrific improvement in stabilty which is particularly noticable during focusing and the slow motion controls are a big step up from the EQ1 mount. Here are some photo’s of the new set up, with me and the painting I swapped for the mount.

…. Me, the painting I was about to take round to Charlie and the set up with the astromaster CG3 mount …. Great Stuff ….

…. The O.T.A. attached with my home made solar filter, the work bench in the back ground and the large finder scope being prepared to be attached ….

…. this next image is a close up the the dovetail bar that I made to attache the O.T.A. …. you can just make out the flat metal bracket I used to allow secure clamping ….

…. The painting has several titles …. ‘Daughter of Theia’ is one and also ‘Children of Theia’ …. I also slightly changed the foreground this is how the painting originally look. I added some more details to the foreground and some sirus clouds around the Moon, which you can just make out in the photo of me with the painting and the telescope….

…. This is not such a great image but it shows how I changed the painting for this occassion ….

Ever since I first saw the Aurora in Iceland in August and September 2023 while cycle touring for three months in Iceland I have taken every oportunity to observe and photograph the Aurora. Seeing them is just amazing and has been a life long dream and as we approach solar maximum I have seen them from Tresco and Brechiek Ynysek Syllan several times. Not as dramatic as they were in Iceland but to see them this far South ….. several times is quite extraordinary.

This image was taken using my mobile phone hand held and braced upon a dry stone wall. I set the camera to ISO 3200 and set to a 30 second exposure. This was taken just a few minutes walk from my home.

…. This next one was taken on the same night using the same settings 6th November 2023 at 21:16:25 pm ….

…. Now to start some new Aurora paintings …