dweller25

Good grief @JeremyS, how many Taks do you need ? 😂😂😂

Nice drawing 👍

I tried all the semi-apo filters and found them to be lacking. For CA a cheap light yellow filter was just as good. I did see a slight contrast benefit from the Baader Neodymium filter.

How’s the collimation on your Tal ?

Well, you could try the 10mm eyepiece and the x3 barlow together. If your scope focal length is 750mm, then the magnification will be : Mag=(750x3)/10 Mag=(2250)/10 Mag=225 Which is a good power for Mars. Cool the scope well before viewing.

Thanks 😊

Updated the image - my drawing on black digital background 🙂

Hello @semitte and welcome to SGL. You have a very good telescope and you are doing nothing wrong except perhaps you are expecting to see the planets like the photos in books ? For best planetary results : 1. Cool your scope down by taking both end caps off and pointing the scope down to allow warm air to escape - do this for at least an hour before observing. 2. Once cooled - Check the collimation of your scope and adjust if necessary. 3. Try not to observe on concrete as it retains heat - grass is best and don’t observe over heat sources like neighbours roofs. 4. Observe when the planets are due south which is when they are at their highest elevation. The planets need quite a lot of magnification, use your zoom to achieve the following : Jupiter x180 (11mm setting) Saturn x200 (10mm setting) Mars x230 (9mm setting) Jupiter and Saturn are very low at the moment and past this years closest approach, so not showing much detail, but Mars is climbing quite high by midnight now so you should see some surface detail. Your local sky seeing conditions may vary nightly, some better than others and this will affect your scopes performance. Do spend lots of time over many nights at the eyepiece observing and waiting for those brief moments of calm seeing which show more detail. The more you observe the more you will see 👍 Hope that helps 🙂

Maybe someone chopped the legs down ? Great equatorial head 👍

Fantastic, well done 😀👍

I believe Vixen made three HAL tripods, the short 110, the medium 130 and the taller 150.

That’s a very impressive image 👍 What scope did you use ?

I’m guessing a Skytee 2 might be a good option for a C9.25 ?

I bought a C9.25 after reading many online reports of it being a bit special. Well - you should not believe all you read - it performed like a 9” scope but was nothing special and it was heavy. I sold it and bought a C8 that was very good and light too - stupidly sold it !!!! I have also had three Skywatcher 8” Dobs, one was poor, one was good and one was stunningly sharp - sold that too !!!! I found the 8” Dob was the most portable, followed by the 8” SCT. The best Dob gave slightly better views than the very good SCT. I did find the variation in optical quality frustrating. Hope that helps

I believe It’s a HAL 110

Fine scope and great image 👍

The middle shot is excellent 👍

I’ve known for a while that living in a river based valley just north of Manchester adversely affects my seeing conditions - confirmed when I take my scope to France where I see what it is really capable of 😁 Yes, it would be great when we are Covid free to get together for an observing session - when that will be I don’t know 🙁 I will bring the biscuits 👍

Thanks Jeremy, enjoyed doing it 😀👍

Excellent drawings davehei and jonathan 👍

That’s a terrific sketch Mike, I can not come close to what you see - I should have gone to Specsavers 😂

After a day of changeable weather the late evening sky mostly cleared of clouds so out I went. Seeing was quite good. Mars is climbing quite high now so the view at 22:30 BST was the best I have had so far of Mars this time around. The polar cap is very small now and seems to have lost it’s intense whiteness. Syrtis Major and Mare Cimmerium were the most prominent features. Overall a nice view of the Red planet 😀 Takahashi FC100-DZ, Binoviewers at x217

That’s a great iPhone shot 👍

Excellent images 🙂👍

Brilliant images and anim 👍