John

24 minutes ago, John said:

Interesting effect - my eye shows this looking more like Friar Tuck with my Tak 100 just now !

I'm probably looking at it from the wrong angle 🙄

 

I was looking at this angle - a different type of "face" - shows what tricks the mind can do with light and shadow !

Interesting effect - my eye shows this looking more like Friar Tuck with my Tak 100 just now !

I'm probably looking at it from the wrong angle 🙄

Maybe I need another 28mm aperture to get the wolf ? 😁

8 minutes ago, John said:

The so-called "straight wall" is not so straight under good seeing at 250x 😉

I can see why it's sometimes known as Huygens's Sword tonight.

 

Also, not far from the Rupas Recta, the crater Davy and it's famous chain of tiny pits - the Catena Davy. The larger ones resolvable with the 100mm frac, the smaller ones hinted at and form the curving line. Another of my favourites 🙂

The so-called "straight wall" is not so straight under good seeing at 250x 😉

I can see why it's sometimes known as Huygens's Sword tonight.

I've just managed to catch some of this event with a hurried deployment of my Tak FC100-DL after completely forgetting about it.

Nice to see at least some of the effect.

Thanks to @dweller25 for "bumping" the original thread as a memory jogger - my memory seemed to need more "jogging" than usual this evening though 🙄

Hats off to the Tak as well for being able to give sharp views at 250x straight out of the house !

It looks like one of the Beacon Hill Telescopes newtonians and their standard equatorial mount.

The finder looks like an early Orion Optics one.

Actually, the mount could be an old Orion Optics one as well - they were very similar to the Beacon Hill mounts.

I'd guess that it dates from the 1980's ?

The tripod is a photo one, not an original part. It's not going to do the scope and mount any favours at all in all honesty.

16 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Why a doublet over a triplet for visual John?

Cool down time and weight / balance. Triplets can be front heavy and tend to be heavier overall. Also, it's been known for a good ED doublet to have better colour correction than a triplet 😉

I need all my setups to be as portable as possible so weight is important. 

Also, within a given price bracket, I reckon you have more chance of getting 4 good optical surfaces than 6. Probably me being pessimistic though !

Superb lunar views at the moment 😁

Lovely fine detail such as the Rima Hadley cutting across the plain beneath Mons Hadley. The area of the landing site of Apollo 15 clearly on view.

I'm working on the basis that the Svbony zoom at 3mm is really giving around 3.5mm so that's 257x in the ED120 and sharp, sharp, sharp 🙂

4 hours ago, John said:

Tonight looks quite good here, after 9:00 pm 🤞

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.

6 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Some clear sky here but occasional showers and 45+mph winds put me off. Next few nights look promising though.

Tonight looks quite good here, after 9:00 pm 🤞

Some double stars and the moon with my 70mm F/6 ED this evening. Seeing not so great through. Moon was behind the house later so it was worth at least trying for some brighter DSO's. Despite the paltry aperture, I did manage to see M 65 and M 66 of the Leo Triplet group. NGC 3628 was not visible though, perhaps unsurprisingly given the small scope. As Meatloaf sang in 1977, "Two out of three, ain't bad" 🙂

13 minutes ago, IB20 said:

Here’s one for the diary. The next Mercury transit is due 13th November 2032! Almost certainly going to be a cloudy day! 🙃

 

The last one that I saw was on a pretty cloudy day as well. I got lucky with a few breaks in the clouds to snap some photos:

The Myriad has a somewhat more chunky eye cup design than the APM 100's.

4 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Well I found a member of my Astro club that owns a n22 t4 and had a look at it.

Then through it and with my glasses on, I cannot see the whole field stop without moving my lenses about.

Ho hum, time to ponder again.

Was that even with the top section of the eyepiece in the lowest position Alan ?

10 minutes ago, LukeTheNuke said:

It looks lovely! I've never owned a William Optics telescope, alas.

I like the idea of a big frac, and I was trying to persuade myself towards the Skywatcher ED150 just yesterday. But I think I am probably sticking at 120 mm as my biggest frac. I figure, it already feels fairly big to me, and not going higher gives me a good excuse for getting the Edge 8 SCT out.

I keep trying to talk myself into various new scopes, but I think it's just a dob larger than 10 inches where I have a proper gap. Of course, the Frac Fraternity may have different priorities to me!

I'm currently feeling that my 130mm F/9.2 is as large a refractor as I want to deal with. Like you, from time to time I look at 150's but, having tried some in the past, I'd probably go for a different design if I want to get more aperture again.

Impressive looking scope for an impressive price !

I sometimes wonder if these whopping refractors are designed to attract the crowds at astro shows, as much as anything else 🙄

I've not owned or used the 24mm ES 82 but I have owned the 22mm T4 and 20mm T5 Naglers. They were both excellent eyepieces although, personally, I found the 22mm Nagler more comfortable to use (more eye relief and a larger eye lens) and more immersive. I have read of a number of folks moving from a ~20mm / 100 degree eyepiece to the 22mm Nagler and being happy with the switch.

I went the other way but I guess the time might come when I reverse that move 🤔

There are other ~20mm ~80ish degree alternatives now as well such as the Stellalyra 20mm / 80:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-eyepieces/stellalyra-20mm-2-80-ler-uwa-eyepiece.html

I've not used one of those though.

On 14/03/2024 at 08:34, Nicola Fletcher said:

That’s absolutely brilliant 😂 talk about confusing members of the public - ‘Where do I look?’ Is a valid question! 

 

I’m glad you think that @dweller25. I had a hard time choosing between the two. I read everything online that I could and went for the 180. Cool-down time and mounting requirements were my biggest concerns. I got a clear plastic box for the scope and I just put it outside a few hours before use. I really like the fan on the front of it too and will get one for it. In the end, it would be ideal to try these scopes before you buy one but unfortunately I don’t have any neighbours that have both a 180’ and 210! 🙄

Thats a good solution to cool down.

And I already have the clear plastic box ......... 🤔

Just a quick look at the moon and a few double stars with my 3 inch F/16 refractor this evening. My first look at the moon with this scope - as I hoped, the slow focal ratio resulted in no false colour visible at all around the lunar limb. Craters along the terminator were filled with jet black shadows. Very sharp views at 171x. As I gazed at the lunar surface, I thought of an 11 year old Patrick Moore getting his first glimpses of the moon with his newly acquired 3 inch refractor back in 1934. He must have been mesmerised by the views 🙂

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

 I think I've achieved many of my desires as regards visual astro but the pup us one I'd like to tick off. It would however only be a tick as it isn't something that would wow me. The largest aperture I've used for this list is 6 inches, while the smallest 4 inches.

 Things I've wanted to see and achieved are:

Halley's comet,

Colour in the Orion Nebula (pearl green),

Veil nebula along with cirrus nebula,

Alpine Valley central rill,

Spokes in Saturn's B ring,

Streaks in Saturn's A ring,

Encke minima,

Encke gap,

Vortex within Jupiter's Great red spot,

White oval's on Jupiter, 

Festoons, garlands, and barges on Jupiter, 

Clouds on Venus,

Albedo detail on Mercury,

Albedo features and polar cap fracture on Mars.

Olympus Mons,

Detail on Uranus.

IC434, the notch of the horse head, and the Flame nebula,

Nebulosity enmeshing the Pleiades,

Spiral structure and bridging arm of M51,

Dark divide in M82, 

Spiral structure in M81, 

Bright spiral arm in M33, 

Dark dust lanes in M31. 

Veins in M1, 

The success list is seemingly endless, but I would like to see Halley's return, as well as Hale Bopp. I doubt I'll make it to the first as I'm already a bit long in the tooth, and I know I won't make it to the latter unless someone invents an everlasting life pill. May be the central star in M57 would be an achievable goal before I pop off, but I reckon I'll need at least a 7" and top class seeing to catch that!

 

Thats an impressive list Mike and it shows what can be done with perseverance and some skill.

I think it's good to list these things, even if we have achieved them ourselves, so that others, perhaps new to the hobby, can be aware what is possible with amateur equipment.

I can recall quite a few instances during my first couple of decades of observing when I learned that something amazing could actually be seen by an amateur with a modest telescope by reading about it in a book, magazine or more lately on a forum. What I thought was beyond the grasp of the amateur, was actually within my grasp, if I was prepared to push for it 🙂

I did a little testing and measurement of 1.25 inch diagonals, mirror vs prism, for @wookie1965 / Paul. 

After that, the cloud cover allowed a look at Iota Leonis with my Tak 100mm, and that was about it !

On 12/04/2024 at 19:29, wookie1965 said:

Probably about 2/3mm 5mm at most hopefully. 

I've been doing some measuring for you Paul.

I'm using my Tak FC100 so the focuser position at focus is not the same as your Vixen but the difference between using the 2 diagonal types should be the same. 

1st photo shows the 1.25 mirror diagonal (similar to your current one) with the Svbony 3-8 zoom at 3mm which is the setting that needs the most inwards focus. The eyepiece is at sharp focus on a star in Leo.

2nd photo shows the exactly same as above but using the Celestron 1.25 prism diagonal. You can see the additional in-focus gain that the prism gives which I measured at 15mm.

Hope that helps reassure you 🙂

10 minutes ago, quasar117 said:

...Should I see an airy disk both inside and outside of focus? As yesterday I could only see it when racking the focuser in.

If the seeing is not too good, the pattern of diffraction rings around the airy disk will not be well defined on one side of sharp focus as it is on the other. 

This test needs to be done at quite high magnification - around 200x for a 4 inch scope is good.

This is what a decent 4 inch refractor star test should look like under very good seeing conditions:

Under less than good seeing conditions, the image on one side of focus may well look "mushy" rather than showing well defined diffraction rings. You might still get a nice in focus image though.

Polaris is a good test star. 

9 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Do you know roughly what it would be at F5 for context?

Well, I believe that it is 4.8mm at F/6 so I guess F/5 will be somewhere in between - say around 3mm ?

There are formulae that can calculate it accurately but I don't recall them offhand.