4 years later, have you noticed any issues? Did the adhesive wear off? How often did you had to clean the inside again? What about bubbles forming? Was the contrast gain significant for visual observation? Thank you for the video!
Great vid. I have a 300mm Newt to flock. Watching this, I think I'm going to reroll the flocking inside out and leave it for a few weeks. Hopefully the material will take up the reverse curvature so when installing, the curve will work for me and not against me.
Certainly will be doing this to mine! I also don't like the fact the primary mirror has to cover over the rear, my other reflector has flocking over the rear of the mirror.
Awesome video! i wonder, can this flocking material also prevent condensation? i have quite a problem with condensation inside the tube and drying up pollen.
Hi! Great job, congrats! and thank you for the video. One question: I have a 8" newtonian, and received my first CCDs mopno cameras a week ago. Great in many ways, but I have a problem with rings in my flat frames. With my dslr I didn't notice this. My question is, since I once tried to clean the back end of the tube and unfortunately made it shinier than it was before, could the rings (actually more like long arcs that go from side to side of the image and curve around the center) be caused by the reflections inside the tube? (I tested the cameras with and without filters/filter wheel) and the flats, once stretched, show this horrible curve gradients. What do you think? What was the difference between before and after your work in your photos? Thanks a lot if you have a minute to answer. Clear skies!
Hi Diego , that sounds more like an alignment issue than reflections to me. Not sure why they would show on flats, but I would check collimating and focuser squareness .. I presume it’s not Coma - present in many Newtonians and can be corrected by a corrector lens? But I think you would know what this looks like? Good luck 😉
I think you are right, it wasn't collimated properly, things look much better since the last thorough collimation a few days ago. And I probably need to lear to take good flats yet. No, it wasn't coma, even though my images show lots of coma and I need a corrector for that too. I'm curious, what differences do you notice before and after the flocking? Thanks again for your time.
Good video , well explained on the flocking :) Something I need to do as well on my 8" . could you let me know what the dew heater is you are using on your secondary please .
Hi there, thanks for that. The secondary dew heater is home made, but works a treat. I have the video clips and photos around to make a short vid, I'll see if i can get it done this weekend ;-)
You can buy it from First Light Optics in the UK, typically used on gaming tables etc. unbranded, but search 'black velour flocking material' ~£7.50 per metre, two packs needed
Hello, I noticed how dirty your rag was after you wiped out the inside of the tube. I would imagine that the flocking would collect dust and such, have you had any issues with the flocking giving you grief or becoming dirty since you’ve installed it? Thanks for your efforts and taking the time to make these vids, they are very helpful.
hi sorry for my late reply. The water from cleaning was dirty, although i think it was actually mostly the coating from the tube rather than dust/dirt. Since flocking I haven't seen any issues with further contamination, i keep the tube lid in place and store horizontally, but when i next clean the mirrors i will use the opportunity to also vacuum the inside of the tube. HTH, Mike
Lita Catalin, hi. On mine the tube already had some dark paint, I never tried it with ‘blackboard’ paint or similar, but I guess it’s a reasonable idea! As long as you strip it down completely it should work fine. I wasn’t expecting the felt to be so difficult, although it certainly got easier as it progressed, and a year later I’m still happy with the results. Let me know how it works out 😊
Mikey j where are you. Are you still into astronomy. Love your videos and copied a few like the pier one. I now have a pier with the twinwall drainage pipe. Just wondering if you’re still going to be making more videos. Please 👍
LAshotts hi and thanks! I’m still here and apart from the summer lack of darkness very much into astronomy. I had a few things happen in my personal life end of last year that kicked my confidence a bit and vids weren’t top of my list to get sorted. I appreciate your feedback and willl make an effort to get some stuff out - I had several lined up, but just didn’t finish them! See you soon 😉👍🏻
I did. I've watched it a few times. It's how I found your channel. It was very helpful. I got a 23mm and a10mm 60* wide angle from Orion with my scope. And also a shorty barlow in the kit. I never even knew that you could upgrade or change them! Then I dived deep in to the rabbit hole. I spent about a 100 hours researching eye pieces. I have a little money to spend. My brother who just died bought the telescope for me as his last xmas gift to me, and he also left me some cash. So I don't feel too bad about spending maybe a few hundred on eyepieces. The idea being I will really get the best out of the scope, so it's not really an extravagance. I'm in for the long haul with astronomy. I've studied it for years, and I have a deep passion for it. As I can see you do too. Learning a lot from your videos by the way, thanks. These are the eyepieces that I thought I would get: 1: Explore Scientific 68° Argon Purged Eyepiece 24mm 1.25" 2: Meade 07740 Series 5000 1.25-Inch Wide Angle 5.5mm 3: Baader Hyperion 8-24 mm Zoom That should be enough to be getting on with! Part of my reasoning is the fact that I first learned with a 23mm and a 10mm. So the ES and the Meade are in the same ballpark. I use the 10mm with the barlow and am very happy with the results (hey, I don't know any better - I'm a kid in the candy store with my first scope and the heavens unfolding before me). So I can use ES for one end of the spectrum and the Meade for the other. Then the Baader can fill in the gap and when I know what I am doing I can maybe get a more specific lens. They are also kind of classics and the folks at CN seem to love them. So I know they will get some use for sure. I am also considering a Televue 3x barlow. But I will wait until I know more and get some more advice. I know that those 3 eyepieces will reveal whole new worlds again. There are mixed views on the shorty barlow, but once I can see for myself with a couple of high quality lenses, oops, eyepieces :-), then I'll be able to make a better decision. I know that even those 3 eyepieces would be a dream for some people who couldn't afford them. But I don't think it's being greedy to try and get the best out of my scope. I'll probably need a better range finder at some point as well. And it looks like my scope being a Newtonian I might need one of those Televue ParaCorrs as well. But I'm in no rush. And at some point I am going to want to get a good digital camera and a new EQ mount. My aim is to get in to Astrophotography eventually. I've been an amateur photographer since a young kid. I don't even want to start thinking about getting a new Telescope until I've learned the trade and absolutely maxed out its potential. I probably won't be able to afford anything much better than what I already have, but I can go up a step. I want to know what I am doing by that point. Thanks again for your channel. Loads of great information on here. Very impressed. I've only subbed to a few Astronomy channels as I don't want to overload myself. I can do that at CN! :-) Much appreciated.
Paints aren't good for light hitting surface in shallow angle. Even in direct angle "black" paints reflect percent or couple and when incidence angle increases, reflectivity increases lot. Only wya to avoid that is to have complex, very "textured" surface. ruclips.net/video/wwlg9t1yZh4/видео.html Another here: ruclips.net/video/z3sIYCMgL4E/видео.html
If I might make a general suggestion for a video for you to do (apologies if you have already done it and I missed it). I know that you said you were a photographer, so obviously you have a pretty advanced idea of apertures and depth of field etc. etc. One thing I found a severe lack of was a video just explaining the general and quite counter-intuitive principals between the focal length and the depth of field stuff. Maybe not explaining it well. I mean the relationship between the magnification and the width of the field you can observe. I've found a fair bit of information on this in articles but no youtube video. It's probably there somewhere and I just missed it. The ones I did find weren't that amazing. Very often most people would imagine with a higher magnification that things get bigger, but they don't, they get smaller, in one sense. You probably know better what I mean than I do. I'm still trying to get my head around it. But obviously, people using lower focal length eyepieces to observe certain phenomena, even DSO stuff, means that it's an important concept. I've gotten so confused by reading CN and everyone talking about their favourite eyepieces to observe the same stuff. It varies quite a bit even with pro stargazers. Didn't explain that well at all. I'm figuring it out anyway. For so long I just used Sky Map Pro and did it all by naked eye observation. So just having this basic telescope is absolute joy for me. It's an Orion StarSeeker IV. I'm very happy with it. Excuse the ramble. Perhaps when you do a video about observing a specific cluster or whatever, you could mention the best eyepiece to view it with, that kind of thing. Or just a general video telling people use a 25mm for open clusters, use a 10mm for planets. Sorry if I got that wrong. You get the picture. Anyway, having a lot of fun just figuring it all out by myself. Knowledge hard won is not so easily forgotten. But it's nice to get some pointers along the way.
Oh and apologies if I got any concepts wrong. I'm a total noob. Always happy to be corrected. I just wrote this very quickly so I might be talking rubbish.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions 123ubuntu666. Great idea, (although i had better research my own ideas to make sure i have it right!). I agree the whole 'thing' around aperture, magnification, focal ratio and resolution is a convoluted topic. Let me have a think about how to demonstrate and explain it and we'll see ;-)
Thanks. It was just an off the cuff suggestion. More thinking out loud. I'm sure you could really do the subject justice if anyone could. You have a very calm and lucid manner when explaining things. Respect to you.
Friendly advice: you should breathe through your nose when you're recording. I recommend re-rolling the felt before use, re-roll it so the black is on the inside and the removable backing is on the outside, let it sit for a week or so so that the curve of the felt matches the curve of the telescope instead of being backwards. Should make the job easier.
Martyn, thanks for the feedback, listening to it now I see what you mean about the breathing! I set up with a lavaliere microphone, improved sound quality but perhaps too sensitive. Rerolling the material I did try, but it’s not so easy, as the backing is a lot thinner and doesn’t roll easily. Hope you still found it useful despite the distraction!
It’s so disappointing that a fine manufacturer like Sky-Watcher are producing such poor quality optics. Light leeks, lose focuser, questionable secondary mounting system, sad, really sad. I just ordered a 10” unit and it’s not a Sky-Watcher.
Well, they are made to a budget and price point, and remarkably good value for money. If you want to pay more there are always options. What did you buy? I have the SW Quattro 10” now, in carbon fibre. It’s a great instrument
With a water spray you can move it freely without bubbles. When it's in final position just dry it with a hairdryer. It's much easier.
Indeed. Spray the tube wet before placing the flocking sheets. Maybe even spray it with a small bit of soap added to the water
Got a Z10 dob coming tomorrow and ordering the flocking today. Thanks for a great video! Very helpful.
A flocking good job...
4 years later, have you noticed any issues? Did the adhesive wear off? How often did you had to clean the inside again? What about bubbles forming? Was the contrast gain significant for visual observation? Thank you for the video!
Thanks, I’m attempting this in the summer. What was the name of the alcohol you used to clean inside. Also, anything you would have done differently.
I have my flocking material and just need to find the time to get at it. Thanks for the video 👍
Great vid. I have a 300mm Newt to flock. Watching this, I think I'm going to reroll the flocking inside out and leave it for a few weeks. Hopefully the material will take up the reverse curvature so when installing, the curve will work for me and not against me.
Mike, thanks and good luck 😉. Re-rolling sounds like a good idea, can you let me/us know how it works out?
Roger that.
@@mikenicholson3274 cap
Certainly will be doing this to mine! I also don't like the fact the primary mirror has to cover over the rear, my other reflector has flocking over the rear of the mirror.
Awesome video! i wonder, can this flocking material also prevent condensation? i have quite a problem with condensation inside the tube and drying up pollen.
Nice Job Mike.
Hi could you tell me what flocking product you buy and where to get it. Thank you in upfront, kind regards
Showing how the material was place in the tube would have been useful, and really the only reason I watched you video, oh well?
yes you got better at it. thanks for sharing
Hi! Great job, congrats! and thank you for the video. One question: I have a 8" newtonian, and received my first CCDs mopno cameras a week ago. Great in many ways, but I have a problem with rings in my flat frames. With my dslr I didn't notice this. My question is, since I once tried to clean the back end of the tube and unfortunately made it shinier than it was before, could the rings (actually more like long arcs that go from side to side of the image and curve around the center) be caused by the reflections inside the tube? (I tested the cameras with and without filters/filter wheel) and the flats, once stretched, show this horrible curve gradients.
What do you think? What was the difference between before and after your work in your photos?
Thanks a lot if you have a minute to answer. Clear skies!
Hi Diego , that sounds more like an alignment issue than reflections to me. Not sure why they would show on flats, but I would check collimating and focuser squareness .. I presume it’s not Coma - present in many Newtonians and can be corrected by a corrector lens? But I think you would know what this looks like? Good luck 😉
I think you are right, it wasn't collimated properly, things look much better since the last thorough collimation a few days ago. And I probably need to lear to take good flats yet.
No, it wasn't coma, even though my images show lots of coma and I need a corrector for that too. I'm curious, what differences do you notice before and after the flocking? Thanks again for your time.
Diego, contrast is much better after flocking, and less issues with stray light sources showing as flares
Awesome. I think I have a little job to do ahead. This video will come in handy. Thank you very much!
Ok, following these instructions now on my 8". Wish me luck ;)
Good video , well explained on the flocking :) Something I need to do as well on my 8" .
could you let me know what the dew heater is you are using on your secondary please .
Hi there, thanks for that. The secondary dew heater is home made, but works a treat. I have the video clips and photos around to make a short vid, I'll see if i can get it done this weekend ;-)
Thanks , would appreciate that :)
Hi. What is the material you used? What is it called? What brand? Thanks!
You can buy it from First Light Optics in the UK, typically used on gaming tables etc. unbranded, but search 'black velour flocking material' ~£7.50 per metre, two packs needed
Hello, I noticed how dirty your rag was after you wiped out the inside of the tube. I would imagine that the flocking would collect dust and such, have you had any issues with the flocking giving you grief or becoming dirty since you’ve installed it? Thanks for your efforts and taking the time to make these vids, they are very helpful.
hi sorry for my late reply. The water from cleaning was dirty, although i think it was actually mostly the coating from the tube rather than dust/dirt. Since flocking I haven't seen any issues with further contamination, i keep the tube lid in place and store horizontally, but when i next clean the mirrors i will use the opportunity to also vacuum the inside of the tube. HTH, Mike
Excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't a good quality flat black paint have done the same thing?
It was already matt black painted, so i did see improvement by using the flocking material.
thanx for showing how it really goes on. better to cut in sections, why not? it All has that sticky backing.
Hello.Is there an alternative way of flocking the telescope by painting it with some matt black paint? It would seem easier to do.Thanks
Lita Catalin, hi. On mine the tube already had some dark paint, I never tried it with ‘blackboard’ paint or similar, but I guess it’s a reasonable idea! As long as you strip it down completely it should work fine. I wasn’t expecting the felt to be so difficult, although it certainly got easier as it progressed, and a year later I’m still happy with the results. Let me know how it works out 😊
Great work
Mikey j where are you. Are you still into astronomy. Love your videos and copied a few like the pier one. I now have a pier with the twinwall drainage pipe. Just wondering if you’re still going to be making more videos. Please 👍
LAshotts hi and thanks! I’m still here and apart from the summer lack of darkness very much into astronomy. I had a few things happen in my personal life end of last year that kicked my confidence a bit and vids weren’t top of my list to get sorted. I appreciate your feedback and willl make an effort to get some stuff out - I had several lined up, but just didn’t finish them!
See you soon 😉👍🏻
MikeyJ oh brilliant mikey that’s great to hear. Hope all is well now and I will be waiting in anticipation for future videos. Best regards lee.
New subscriber. Love your channel. Just getting in to using my new 6" Newtonian and trying to find some nice new eyepieces for it.
Cheers.
thanks for the feedback. I have a video on my eyepieces, did you find it yet?
I did. I've watched it a few times. It's how I found your channel. It was very helpful.
I got a 23mm and a10mm 60* wide angle from Orion with my scope. And also a shorty barlow in the kit. I never even knew that you could upgrade or change them! Then I dived deep in to the rabbit hole.
I spent about a 100 hours researching eye pieces. I have a little money to spend. My brother who just died bought the telescope for me as his last xmas gift to me, and he also left me some cash. So I don't feel too bad about spending maybe a few hundred on eyepieces. The idea being I will really get the best out of the scope, so it's not really an extravagance.
I'm in for the long haul with astronomy. I've studied it for years, and I have a deep passion for it. As I can see you do too. Learning a lot from your videos by the way, thanks.
These are the eyepieces that I thought I would get:
1: Explore Scientific 68° Argon Purged Eyepiece 24mm 1.25"
2: Meade 07740 Series 5000 1.25-Inch Wide Angle 5.5mm
3: Baader Hyperion 8-24 mm Zoom
That should be enough to be getting on with!
Part of my reasoning is the fact that I first learned with a 23mm and a 10mm. So the ES and the Meade are in the same ballpark. I use the 10mm with the barlow and am very happy with the results (hey, I don't know any better - I'm a kid in the candy store with my first scope and the heavens unfolding before me).
So I can use ES for one end of the spectrum and the Meade for the other. Then the Baader can fill in the gap and when I know what I am doing I can maybe get a more specific lens. They are also kind of classics and the folks at CN seem to love them. So I know they will get some use for sure.
I am also considering a Televue 3x barlow. But I will wait until I know more and get some more advice. I know that those 3 eyepieces will reveal whole new worlds again.
There are mixed views on the shorty barlow, but once I can see for myself with a couple of high quality lenses, oops, eyepieces :-), then I'll be able to make a better decision.
I know that even those 3 eyepieces would be a dream for some people who couldn't afford them. But I don't think it's being greedy to try and get the best out of my scope. I'll probably need a better range finder at some point as well. And it looks like my scope being a Newtonian I might need one of those Televue ParaCorrs as well. But I'm in no rush.
And at some point I am going to want to get a good digital camera and a new EQ mount. My aim is to get in to Astrophotography eventually. I've been an amateur photographer since a young kid.
I don't even want to start thinking about getting a new Telescope until I've learned the trade and absolutely maxed out its potential. I probably won't be able to afford anything much better than what I already have, but I can go up a step. I want to know what I am doing by that point.
Thanks again for your channel. Loads of great information on here. Very impressed. I've only subbed to a few Astronomy channels as I don't want to overload myself. I can do that at CN! :-)
Much appreciated.
Is your scop a 250pds ?
Can u just paint it using black Matt paint?
Paints aren't good for light hitting surface in shallow angle.
Even in direct angle "black" paints reflect percent or couple and when incidence angle increases, reflectivity increases lot.
Only wya to avoid that is to have complex, very "textured" surface.
ruclips.net/video/wwlg9t1yZh4/видео.html
Another here:
ruclips.net/video/z3sIYCMgL4E/видео.html
If I might make a general suggestion for a video for you to do (apologies if you have already done it and I missed it). I know that you said you were a photographer, so obviously you have a pretty advanced idea of apertures and depth of field etc. etc.
One thing I found a severe lack of was a video just explaining the general and quite counter-intuitive principals between the focal length and the depth of field stuff. Maybe not explaining it well. I mean the relationship between the magnification and the width of the field you can observe. I've found a fair bit of information on this in articles but no youtube video. It's probably there somewhere and I just missed it. The ones I did find weren't that amazing.
Very often most people would imagine with a higher magnification that things get bigger, but they don't, they get smaller, in one sense. You probably know better what I mean than I do. I'm still trying to get my head around it.
But obviously, people using lower focal length eyepieces to observe certain phenomena, even DSO stuff, means that it's an important concept. I've gotten so confused by reading CN and everyone talking about their favourite eyepieces to observe the same stuff. It varies quite a bit even with pro stargazers.
Didn't explain that well at all. I'm figuring it out anyway. For so long I just used Sky Map Pro and did it all by naked eye observation. So just having this basic telescope is absolute joy for me. It's an Orion StarSeeker IV. I'm very happy with it.
Excuse the ramble.
Perhaps when you do a video about observing a specific cluster or whatever, you could mention the best eyepiece to view it with, that kind of thing. Or just a general video telling people use a 25mm for open clusters, use a 10mm for planets. Sorry if I got that wrong. You get the picture.
Anyway, having a lot of fun just figuring it all out by myself. Knowledge hard won is not so easily forgotten. But it's nice to get some pointers along the way.
Oh and apologies if I got any concepts wrong. I'm a total noob. Always happy to be corrected. I just wrote this very quickly so I might be talking rubbish.
Thanks for the comments and suggestions 123ubuntu666. Great idea, (although i had better research my own ideas to make sure i have it right!). I agree the whole 'thing' around aperture, magnification, focal ratio and resolution is a convoluted topic. Let me have a think about how to demonstrate and explain it and we'll see ;-)
Thanks. It was just an off the cuff suggestion. More thinking out loud.
I'm sure you could really do the subject justice if anyone could. You have a very calm and lucid manner when explaining things.
Respect to you.
Friendly advice: you should breathe through your nose when you're recording.
I recommend re-rolling the felt before use, re-roll it so the black is on the inside and the removable backing is on the outside, let it sit for a week or so so that the curve of the felt matches the curve of the telescope instead of being backwards. Should make the job easier.
Martyn, thanks for the feedback, listening to it now I see what you mean about the breathing! I set up with a lavaliere microphone, improved sound quality but perhaps too sensitive. Rerolling the material I did try, but it’s not so easy, as the backing is a lot thinner and doesn’t roll easily. Hope you still found it useful despite the distraction!
Should have rolled it the opposite way, then cut off the excess once the inner circumference is covered.. Anyway, coulda shoulda woulda.. ; )
Starts at 9.46
Woww
It’s so disappointing that a fine manufacturer like Sky-Watcher are producing such poor quality optics. Light leeks, lose focuser, questionable secondary mounting system, sad, really sad. I just ordered a 10” unit and it’s not a Sky-Watcher.
Well, they are made to a budget and price point, and remarkably good value for money. If you want to pay more there are always options. What did you buy? I have the SW Quattro 10” now, in carbon fibre. It’s a great instrument