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Didn't they used to be FPL53 ? They are now stated as being an equivalent glass type. I mention this as I was considering a SW150ED and noticed this. Needless to say the 150 is just too big and heavy for me 🙄.

Yes, it would need to be a redesigned obsey for a Parks Newtonian. I'd probably build a rotating building. It wouldn't take me long if a Parks came my way. At present my Newtonian collection is quite minimal. I have a 4.5" Newt' which is a nice little scope, made by a long gone local telescope company, yet the telescope itself is still going strong more than 30 years down the line. And I have a 6" given to me by paulastro. I have also had a couple of lovely larger apertures, a 10" on loan from Peter Drew which was very nice optically, though I didn't enjoy the OO dob mount one bit, and a 8" F6 which I used on my observatory equatorial. It was very nice but my 4" apo was more pleasurable to use so the 8" was moved on. The best Newtonian I've ever owned was a 6" F10 made by my friend Phil. I told him I didn't want a spider, so he made it with an optically flat window to hold the secondary. Double stars in that scope were droolworthy! The problem with it was I'd mounted it on a steel pier with three welded feet. The pier itself was an sizeable old oxygen bottle that the chunky equatorial was bolted to. The whole thing was dragged out of my garage onto my drive, which was a bit of a task. Phil also painted the tube with black hammerite using a brush. It looked crubish and couldn't love it despite trying hard. My current 6".

But where did this uniform motion originate? Olly

I notice there’s a Sky Rover version online for around £275 new. Obviously it’s the same basic scope and an excellent price, but they don’t specify FPL-53, which the other brands do. Just say ‘super ED glass’ or something similar - might be worth checking.

I’m not picking up much field curvature at all - maybe it complements the opposite field curvature in my scopes? The 3-8 works well in all three of my refractors in this respect. In the F/6 60ED for example, just a tiny shift of the focus is needed at 3.5mm to make edge stars sharp. On the issue of parfocality, it’s very close to parfocal through the range. I don’t need to refocus between 8mm and 5mm, but below that, a small tweak required.

No clipping. See image. If I touched the left handle here, I would start clipping the black immediatly. The righthand one could tolerate some adjustment, but for this purpose I always use the handle in the middle. Zoom in heavily on a neutral spot in the background. 200-400%. Choose one channel, and move the slider in the middle a little bit while prewiev is enabled. I rarely move more than 0.05%. There is no right or wrong way in dealing with this issue; this is how I do it.

My Mars Timetable:

That’s Astronomy for ya 🤣

The OP jonbossley is a visual observer as per his first light report. He returned the scope due to image shift at high magnification. This apparently can be rectified by adjustment screws on the focuser, although this shouldn't need to be done with a new scope.

Plus, there might be a martian dust storm to obscure the features, as there was in 2018 🙄

It's a Starlight Express SX-EFAO 'electronic focuser with internal active optics'. HTH, Steve

I have only briefly looked through a newish ED120. Mine is one of the very early ones (gold tube / cream trim) and is an excellent scope. The newer one seemed good too but it was only a short look that I had. No chance of a proper comparison. It's quite possible that the coatings have changed during the life of the model (around 18 years and counting I think) but I don't think the glass types used in the objective will have changed.

The Altair does focus but I needed an extra few mm to focus when using high mag eyepieces, I bought a low profile 2-1.25" adapter and got an extra 11mm having no shoulder on the adapter. But if you say the Skywatcher/ Opticron is just as good I will just sell the Tal with the Altair in. Thanks John appreciate that. I found this so definitely comparable think I will stick with it and leave the Altair one on the Tal. Paul

But angular diameter at opposition will not be the best 🙁

That's why I counted only 63... 😏

Unfortunately, StarXTerminator doesn’t eliminate just stars.

At least Mars and Jupiter will be high in the sky until 2027, see this from @Stu

I guess then that we need to hear from other Sigma 40mm F/1.4 Ar users if they get coma like that. Such as: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/824952-sigma-40mm-a-f14-star-test/ Looks like you have a lens at the far end of Sigma's QC range. Michael

That's a very interesting observation, John. So, the seasoned planetary observer might be "cycling" their kit between larger mirrors and smaller lenses, on a scale of several years. Or, perhaps more likely, they buy the new kit to suit the current planetary placements, but somehow "forget" to sell what they already have 😊

I'm afraid this is indicative of a de-contacted etalon, the etalon plates are held together by molecular fusion and cannot easily be re-contacted other than by the manufacturer. ☹️

That is nice James

Thank you Elp. I will follow what you have suggested tonight if clear. Many thanks to everyone who has commented

Thanks John Indeed, I started saving up, on a slow trajectory from early 2021 towards planned purchase, late 2024, as I am essentially a planet person, and checked when jupiter would be high in the sky again , back in early 2021. I even have my wife's permission to buy a 'special' scope. Not exactly mentioned the mount, plus AP accessories, but given I originally intended to get a C9.25 evolution, you're already talking around 2.5K anyway. So, what's a K (ish) more, between friends. 🤔😉. Initially the cost of the mount and vanilla 200pds would be < 2.5K anyway. It's adding AP stuff that increases cost. If all goes well, I'll have saved 4k by September. So, the budget will cover most of the things I'd like. Do you think a used SW120ED will be as good as newest version? I've heard some things about different coatings? But, what will stop me, is if things go sideways on job front, as I can't really justify that sort of expenditure then, even though I've tried to ring fence it and keep it separate from other expenses. Fingers crossed. 🤞

Thank you all for your comments Am really happy with this @FenlandPaul @davew it looked like Lindisfarne Castle was unlit. Yes, a disheartening first go, am not sure why I posted it. Shows its not easy! @Saganite I am Paul, cheers.

Exactly the boy could have lost the sight in his right eye. Why does the owner of the scope not put a solar filter over the main tube.