John

I must have missed Marks original thread back in 2016

I'm just back from a society outreach session but, being a glutton for punishment, left my ED120 refractor out while I was away so that its all ready to observe now I'm back home.

I've just tried 7 Tau and got what I would call a "slightly notched pair" at 300x using the definitions below from David Knisely:

The further off, fainter star in this system was also visible.

So Marks 2016 post has inspired me tonight as well

I used to have a LVW 22mm for about 6 months. It was a lovely eyepiece. It probably ought to be on my "should not have been sold" list

Venus, Saturn and Jupiter, so far, with 11x70 binoculars.

Hoping to help some others see some stuff later this evening at a society outreach observing event 

Here CO is telling me that it is clear but that cloud will spread and not clear again until around 11:00 pm. Unfortunately it seems accurate looking at the cloud that is approaching from the north. I say unfortunately because I'm helping at a society outreach observing event this evening. I actually hope that CO does prove incorrect tonight !

6 minutes ago, Andrew_B said:

That's an odd problem to have.....

Yes, I was surprised that it occurred myself. I wonder if it is because my T2 prism barrel is smooth - no undercut

I observed Jupiter this evening with my 200mm Orion Optics newtonian. Similar results to yours. Last night Jupiter was a lot crisper with my 100mm refractor. I think the current altitude of Jupiter plus the seeing conditions tonight (we have the jetstream over much of the UK tonight) are hindering the views. Last night I suspect the seeing was better plus the refractor seems to cut through turbulence in the atmosphere.

Most of my planetary observing lately of Jupiter and Saturn has been with refractors despite having a couple of nice reflectors of significantly larger aperture. When those planets are better placed (ie: higher in the sky) the additional aperture of the reflectors will give them an advantage. I also observed Uranus tonight, which is a lot higher in the sky than Jupiter, and got a crisply defined view of the small (3.75 arc seconds in apparent diameter) disk of Uranus even at 348x magnification.

Probably nothing amiss with your scope, eyepieces etc, just the positioning of Jupiter (it will be lower still in Edinburgh) and the jetstream.

I have my 200mm F/6 newtonian out currently. I've put a new Rigel Quikfinder on it and so far aligning that with the 9x50 RACI plus having supper is all that has been achieved.

I have had quick looks at Polaris, Gamma Andromedae and Iota Cassiopeia so far to check the finder alignment, which seems OK.

Might get some more observing in later if some clear sky is available.

Fascinating movie

Are scopes of this spec aimed at NV users perhaps ?

6 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

That is what, like £5000 worth of fun?

 

I'd intend not to be the one paying for it !

That is an interesting new one

With a 4 inch focuser it would be fun to put the Explore Scientific 3 inch diagonal and 3 inch 30mm / 100 degree eyepiece on the scope and get a near-4 degree true field of view. M31 would look rather fine on a dark night I would think

Hello and welcome to the forum

There are quite a few fans of the long refractor on here who will chime in soon I expect.

For me, this one was just a bit too long and heavy - a 150mm F/12. I had dreams of being like the Victorian observers, at the end of a large, long elegant instrument.

The scope, though excellent, was just too much of a handful and needed a very heavy duty mount. Once setup it was there for the night. A nice idea but it turned out to be a little impractical. Really a scope of this type needs to be on a permanent mounting in an observatory I think.

It was fun for a while though

Now my longest refractors are a more modest F/9 and F/9.2.

That's the best looking tangent arm alt-az that I've seen for a long time

8 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Ditto, John! My wife and I had them at a large sports centre about 16miles from home, as our surgery haven't any, and to be honest were much less than helpful.. same with the flu jab which we had last week 🥴.

We got the flu jabs from Boots Chemist (25 miles away, but free) last weekend, and Covid Boosters yesterday at 6pm..with quite a long queue behind us.

We both had Moderna this time, so not sure what to expect..it's now been c23 hours and so far we feel a bit lethargic and with a sore jab arm.

Ironically, the forecast is for clearing skies tonight, but I'm not sure I'm going to be tempted, as it's gone very cold here today, and the pull of the log burner and post-supper Lindor truffles may just be too hard to resist!!😂

I hope you and yours feel back to normal soon.

Dave

Thanks Dave - we had Modena as well. Lindor truffles sound a nice way to recover !

More mundanely paracetamols seem to help but I'll probably resist the temptation to observe tonight even if the clouds do clear here. I may be doing an outreach event with Bristol AS tomorrow evening so I'll need some energy for that !

John

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I doubt that.. John's refractors have good, strong focusers.....

 

The focusers would cope OK I think, especially the Feathertouch on the TMB/LZOS 130 - it's in another league

Sorry for the intermittent involvement - we had our booster jabs yesterday and are feeling a little groggy today

26 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

That’s interesting John. Do you mean you replaced the Tak twist lock eyepiece fitting with a Baader twist lock fitting!

I use the Tak twist lock / visual back to hold the Baader Zeiss T2 prism but on the other side of the prism I have a Baader click lock T2-1.25 inch adapter. One of these:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-click-lock-125-inch-eyepiece-adapter-with-t-2-thread.html

The Tak silver ring clamp is where I have had issues. I guess having it sometimes hard to loosen is better than having uncertainly about it being tight enough though !

I often use 250x-300x on double stars sometimes as much as 400x. I tend to be drawn towards the closer pairings.

I seem to prefer the "sledgehammer to crack a nut" approach even with the wider ones

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

Hi John,

That's interesting..can I ask, why would you use your 24mm Panoptic in your refractors in preference to your Ethos 21mm?

Hi Dave. It's not really a preference thing but when I use my refractors I tend to have my 1.25 inch eyepiece case with me rather than the Ethos / Nagler 31 case. It's a simple as that.

When I want a really wide field with a refractor I do use the Ethos 21 or Nagler 31 of course but mostly I find that usually my refractor targets don't need that. From time to time I use the 13mm Ethos in the Tak FC100 and the views of star clusters are rather stunning and very immersive

Perhaps if I kept all my eyepieces in a single case they would get more even usage ?. I'd need a case with a strong handle though !

I've had just the same problem a number of times. Eventually I've been able to get enough purchase on the twist ring to loosen it but it's a bit annoying. I'm not too keen on the Tak 1.25 inch adapter for this reason. Luckily I leave the prism on the scope more or less permanently rather than swap it between scopes. I may move to another design of 1.25" adapter or maybe put a 2 inch barrel on the prism and dispense with the Tak 1.25 inch adapter altogether.

On the eyepiece end of the prism I have a Baader T2-1.25 inch twist lock adapter which works like a dream on all my 1.25 inch eyepieces.

With my refractors I would say that the 24mm Panoptic, the 5mm Pentax XW and the Nagler 2-4mm zoom get the most used.  I don't seem to do much medium magnification observing with those

With my 12 inch dob it is often the 21mm, 8mm  and 4.7mm Ethos's

6 hours ago, RobertI said:

So it seems that in an ideal world, we all need a 4” refractor fitted with a RACI finder and binoviewers, mounted on a lightweight but heavy duty altaz mount, with a comfy chair to sit on, complemented by a 12” dob with Nexus push-to. 
 

 

Yep, I could live with those scopes, and without the Nexus as well

Not sure about the "comfy chair" though

Just now, vagk said:

Can eyelashes-oil damage lens coatings ? And if yes, how long does it take to damage coatings?

They don't damage the coatings as far as I'm aware but they can cause a lack of clarity and additional light scatter to the views, which is not a good thing.

The Baader fluid and cloth mentioned above should clean them off.

9 minutes ago, 12green said:

I'm looking to upgrade my BST Starguiders for Lunar/Planetary observing. Will Vixen SLV 9/6mm give me that in F10 SCT

Smaller field of view but possibly a touch sharper with less light scatter. Small gains but welcome perhaps ?

The 6mm will give you 333x so might not get a lot of use, depending on the seeing conditions and target choice.

Really quick session tonight with the 100mm refractor, thanks to incoming cloud cover. Luckily the scope needs practically no cool down time and Jupiter looked nice and detailed at 180x. Pity it wasn't more than a 20 minute peek but I guess it's better than nothing, which is what I've had for the past week !

13 minutes ago, John said:

.... I'm not sure it will last !

 

 

 

Well I was right with that .......

Clouded out now and it looks rather solid. Talk about "smash and grab" astronomy !

Forecast is not too hopeful for the rest of tonight but does look better over the coming days as the colder weather arrives.

At least I saw something this evening.