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I've got tomorrow off. Hoping it stays clear and I can get out with the 102. Also hope it stays clear for the rest of you. Strong aurora tonight. Still to bright up here tho

Many thanks. I'll give this a try.

Clear skies here too. Seeing was bad earlier but seems to have settled down now. Solar earlier, with a very busy Sun but it wasn’t a ‘wow’ because of the poor seeing. Later on I switched to Astro mode and had a look at the Moon. Looking good, Hyginus Rille and Treisnecker Rilles particularly of note.

Vixen 102m, Herschel Wedge, 25mm and 12mm BST`s, single polarising filter and S21.

I'm ok with that stuff but mainly because I can watch a video or read a post and follow instructions. Coincidentally I was looking at a 4gb pi4 to flash astroberry on. Never done it, but it doesn't seem to be rocket surgery. Your link would mean I could do both but with only 1.5x the effort I like the neatness cable management of the asi air, but I also like Nina and chrome remote desktop works a charm. So maybe a nano windows pc on my scope and the pi4 server for my storage.

I don’t find tracking with a dob that difficult a task so I suspect that something with a push to system like the Starsense dobs will be fine instead of a full go to system. With regards to size the weight can be off putting long term so a dob without motors might get more use. Ed Ting estimates that once the initial excitement has worn off an 8” will get used twice as often as a 10”. I also suspect that this is something best not given as a surprise as your son may already have his own idea as to which direction he wants to go in terms of upgrading.

Finally got some clear skies and got the Vixen GP out for its first ‘light’ for me. Great to have simple tracking back for both solar and lunar observing.

I can recommend this, if you are familiar with IT, Linux, Raspberry Pi etc. : https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-openmediavault/ I use it with a USB 3.0 12TB WD Black HDD with real pleasure. Factory-made solutions are OK, but they are much more expensive.

Only just managed to get the ED120 outside now after a busy evening. Hope it stays clear for a while longer 🙂 The moon looks pretty splendid and it's pretty much right overhead so the seeing is good and steady.

As purely a visual observer I would go for a doublet I think. There are quite a few very positive reviews out there of the 125mm Stellamira and the same scope under different branding. The weight of the Stellamira makes it appealing to me as well.

Hope you get clear windows I just looked at the aurora alert and it's red now

Tonight's Aurora forecast is better than last night's and the weather is forecast to be clearer. So I'm hoping to get some more late season, Moonlit aurora.

I'm seriously looking at a nas server thing with spinning metal disks for storage. I massively underestimated data storage requirements. I'm crap and noob and even I regret deleting stuff. My plan is to have cern begging me to let them have a little of my server storage

Have you considered the physical aspects of both? I.e. length and weight. The sm125 being about half the weight but slightly longer. The height of my mount head is about 1700mm from the deck but the length of the sm125 makes visual near the zenith awkward but not impossible. Lifting the sm125 onto the mount at that mount height is not a challenge.

Sorry I misunderstood I'd love you to have a go. I'll check my SD cards, possible they are on there.

Difficult choice without looking through both at the same time. Both of these (My askar choice being a 103 or 120) are of interest due to providing a medium FL between my current scopes. For me it'd be the Askar because it's a triplet but that's because I image more than view.

After almost two years of illness post covid I am slowly getting back out with the telescope. Starting small and lightweight. The moon is looking great.

I am looking at buying myself a new refractor shortly and I can't decide which way to go. The two contenders are the StellaMira 125 doublet with FCD100 and lanthanum glass and the Askar 140 triplet with one ED element (type not disclosed). I have been reading reports from owners of both and both are said to perform very well for visual. The 140 is bino friendly with a 3.5" R&P focuser as opposed to the 2.5" of the SM 125. It's the question of whether the better glass type of the doublet will be better than the supposed better correction of the triplet with one ED element. This being a considerable purchase for me I want to make the best choice possible. Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks, I was trying to look for weight of Altair option. It was hyperion for wider fov. Morpheus would be better optically.

I had forgotten what observing was like somehow, especially solar! Quite gusty out there, and the seeing isn’t great but nice to be out. I finally got a chance to use the Vixen GP mount, very good to have simple tracking with minimal setup back in my life 😊. The mutt has a habit of dropping her ball against the tripod leg so I don’t forget she is there 🤪🤣

Nice shot...Quite a difficult subject I imagine. Mark.

Nice catch Paul !

Was an awesome eclipse, thanks for sharing.

Excellent work...

I still think its a decent lens for daylight - small, very light and cheap yeah its f8 and darker than my bias frames for astro anyway. Ill do as you say when i get a bit bored of my 72ed. gonna try the bahtinov mask from my 72ed on it - what could go wrong? btw i also thought i might have camera/sensor alignment issue because of those shapes, but after getting my 72ed, i think it was more of a vintage lens issue well, hopefully its ok for the moon btw, so maybe i should keep it for luna photography, which i never do?