dweller25

That’s nice 🙂👍

I’m keeping it deliberately vague 👍

Great sketches Mike. Yes it’s been a slow year so far for clear nights…..

Agreed, but which would give the best views ?

So that needs a 40” telescope then and I would have emigrate to Australia ☹️

Different Eyepieces have different eye relief, this is the distance you need to place your eye from the lens to get a good view. I wear glasses when observing so buy long eye relief eyepieces - typically around 20mm I think the BST have around 16mm eye relief which is OK for non spectacle wearers.

I have been mulling this over (because it’s cloudy - again 😩) 6” F/8 Newtonian or 4” F/10 achromat. What would you choose and why ?

SGL is a great place to share, gain knowledge and have fun.

As long as you don’t wear glasses when viewing these are good eyepieces…. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html Would suggest the 5mm for the planets to give x140. To calculate the magnification an eyepiece gives you divide the telescopes focal length (700mm in your scope) by the eyepiece focal length (5mm for the above eyepiece). For deepsky perhaps the 12mm giving x58 ?

Wow, I would love to see that 🤣

I don’t think that’s normal…

Good decision, would suggest Baader Maxbrights 👍

They are nice scopes 👍

Hello and welcome to SGL

Hello and welcome to SGL, you could try contacting First Light Optics for the rod.

No, you are just magnifying the received photons that have taken 650 years to arrive.

IF I did not have a bad back, my £2000 visual setup would be…. Bresser 12” Dob = £1036 Televue 8mm Delos = £383 giving x190 which is great for Jupiter. Pentax 7mm XW = £249 giving x218 which is great for Saturn. Televue 6mm Delos = £383 giving x254 which is great for Mars. Thats a total of £2051 Views probably the equivalent of an 8” APO 👍

Back to reality - Betelgeuse is a really stunning colour in an FS128 👍

This is probably someone being paid by youtube for the number of views they get - easy money based on gullible viewers !

Betelgeuse is around 650 light years away, so it would have had to have blown up 650 years ago for us to see it now - Question: what are the chances of that ? Answer: no one knows, not even Brian Cox ! This is probably someone being paid by youtube for the number of views they get - easy money based on gullible viewers !

I would suggest you buy a new Starfield 102 F/7. It has a proven track record and will have a guarantee for peace of mind.

I used a tin of Radiator enamel to fill in a couple of tiny marks on the FS - it was a very close match 👍

Also Craig when you are using an eyepiece it shows much less sky then when looking through just the star diagonal without the eyepiece, so you could just be off target.

Hello Craig and welcome to SGL. I would suggest you remove the focal reducer for now, then put the star diagonal into the back of the scope, then put the 40mm eyepiece into the star diagonal, that will give you a magnification of x50. Next, during the day point the telescope at a distant noticeable object a good mile away or more and look through the eyepiece and SLOWLY go through the entire focus range, clockwise and counter clockwise, this should at some point come to a focus - make sure you are not pointing the scope at the sky though or it will not work. This is just to get you used to finding a focus point, this will need changing under the night sky as objects are further away. What is the make of the star diagonal you are using ? Also, do you have a local Astro club who could give you advice ?

When it’s not being used ! It’s been exactly a month now since I last used it due to clouds 🤷🏻 My master plan is to wear it out from over use but it’s not going well, Hey ho …….. PS sorry about the click bait but it’s cloudy again 😱