John

23 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

Thinking about it, that was exactly my reason for not getting on with it Stu.

I found the Ercole to be very finicky about exactly where I put the counterweight and found I spent too much time fiddling with the counterweight position to get maximum smoothness in the Az axis.

 

I've been in a similar position and let an Ercole go. I have another now and have learned about the importance of counterweighting to make the mount work well.

The quandary for me is whether I keep the Ercole (which cost me about £150 I recall) and the Skytee II (about £130 I think) or let both go and find another £250 or so for the AZ75 in due course

I'd have to be convinced that I could live without the slow motion controls that the Skytee II has. Lately I find I'm using them all the time

I'll await Stu's and Alan's reports with great interest

9 minutes ago, Stu said:

I suspect the decision to leave slo motion controls off is also a desire to keep the size and weight down as much as possible.

And the cost I would think.

If they had produced simply a smaller version of the AZ100, apart from a modest saving in the raw materials used, I reckon the production effort involved would be much the same.

Having seen the workmanship involved with the AZ100 worm drives and the aluminum wheel on both axis I can see that incorporating those in the AZ75, albeit on a slightly smaller scale would add a lot of work to the manufacture.

Where the AZ75 might gain some points would be if it can handle a reasonably heavy / long scope without the need for counterweighting. The Giro type mounts certainly need careful counterweighting to ensure smooth motions even with comparitively modest scopes on board from my experience.

29 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

I find slo-mos are absolutely critical for solar Ha observing, when you need to constantly manipulate the view to pick out best detail. Great that AZ75 can be used with push-to controls, and of course it looks superb, but would need slo-mos to make me consider replacing my Skytee

From the outset (ie: prior to the launch of the AZ100) I had hoped that a high quality version of the Skytee II might be produced, including slow motion controls and maybe allowing a slightly higher capacity instrument. I felt that the market would probably support a retail cost of £400-£600 for such a mount - somewhere in between that of Skytee II and the Giro Ercole and the £1K plus mounts such as the APM Maxload / T-Rex etc.

I guess the reality is that quality engineering and materials have costs associated with them that preclude that so some compromise is needed ?

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Will be interesting to see how it fares John. From what I’ve seen so far, the movement is very smooth, up a level from the Ercole so hopefully tracking at high power should be fine. As you say, you manage with your dob at very high powers with no problem 👍

I'm just recalling the reactions from members when I posted some info on a new alt-az that didn't have them a while back. But that was not a Rowan of course

I have to say that I don't use my Ercole much because of the lack of slow motion controls.

Before I got my Tak and TMB/LZOS I was happier without but those two scopes seem to eat high power so easily ........

Mind you, my dob is very much "push" driven and I get on OK with that at high power as well

1 minute ago, JeremyS said:

Looks great. But no Slo-Mos??? 🤔

That's a shame.

When I posted some info on another new alt-az mount a while back in a similar price bracket the lack of slow motion controls seemed an important factor for many who commented.

A decent 5 inch refractor may well show the propeller - it is a contrast feature and refractors are good at that

22 hours ago, RobertI said:

Interesting John. I wonder where the Skywatcher 120ED would come on his table?

Mr John says 70 points

Well that generated some interesting comments

I'd never heard of these ratings before so my post was in good faith and not intended to stir things up

I'm very happy with my scopes, even the ones that are "off the chart"

This is excellent news - just what the market has needed for some time IMHO

A really well engineered mount that sits between the Skytee II / Giro Ercole niche and the AZ100 / APM Maxload / niche.

As a visual astronomer I'm now 100% committed to the alt-azimuth mount in one form or another.

I have owned a number of equatorial mounts over the years, some very good, but for my, simple, observing preferences with setups that are quick and easy to put out and take in, I've found alt-azimuth mounts tick the boxes for me.

Some nice galaxies near Messier 13 as well

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/m13-and-galaxies/

I've recently come across this thread on the Cloudynights forum relating to comparative telescope performance rankings compiled by an amateur Japanese astronomer called Mr Yoshida:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/200130-2009-telescope-ranking-by-mr-yoshida/#entry2567240

I've not come across these before and wondered if anyone here knows any more ?

They certainly seem to stir up some debate amongst the "refractorholics" 

Here is a table of his more recent rankings. Some models appear more than once so I assume are different examples:

Excellent report - thanks for sharing it

I was observing The Dumbbell Nebula with my 120mm refractor last week and found that a UHC filter made quite a difference to the definition of it's shape. It took on a much clearer "hourglass" look with the filter in place.

Glasses worn for reading etc but not for observing. Eyepieces with their eye cups right up seems to enable me to find the correct eye position, mostly.

3 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Sorry - didn't want to sound like I thought you had no mechanical knowledge 😬

this might give a clue, or suggest some other scopes to ask about?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bobs-knobs-collimation/bobs-knobs-stellalyra-celestron-sky-watcher-newtonian-collimation-knobs.html#:~:text=Although not listed these are perfect for my Orion Optics (UK) 8" Europa Newtonian which although of some age is giving excellent service.

No problem at all - I used to have one of the scopes but, rather embarrassingly, I've forgotten the size of those bolts !

It's the primary collimation bolts that I'm interested in.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I have used a 150mm F/5 newtonian with tube rings and a dovetail bar on the AZ-4 alt-azimuth mount and it works in a similar manner to a dobsonian:

2 minutes ago, Pixies said:

John - can you measure across the flats of the nut? If you have callipers, can you measure the diameter of the bolt?

Thanks but I don't have the scope (yet) - I wondered if anyone else has one ?

I've not used a Panoptic 41mm but the Ethos 21 and Nagler 31 seem to fit my Astronomik and Lumicon 2 inch filters well

Does anyone know the size of the older primary collimation screws on the Orion Optics Europa newtonian primary cell ?

My memory is telling me M6 but I'm not 100% sure

These are the ones that I'm thinking of:

Many thanks if anyone can help

Another advantage of my bespoke dob mount.

12 hours ago, Stu said:

I bought a pair of Chinon Countryman 7x35 Extra Wide binoculars some years back, and a kind gentleman called @PeterW 3D printed me a pair of adaptors to hold to my 2” Lumicon UHC and OIII filters nicely over the objectives.

I haven’t used them for a while, so had a quick session last night, aiming to find the North America Nebula. It was somewhat challenging with a puppy running around causing lights to come and me taking pictures of the lovely orange Moon setting over the hill, so I never really got more than about ten minutes of dark adaptation.

The Milky Way was only very faintly visible, but even then once I got Deneb into view, I could immediately see the North America Nebula with the ten degree field of view. As I got more dark adapted the shape became clearer, although it never showed the classic Gulf of Mexico shape. With better dark adaptation I’m sure it would.

Panning towards the Elephant Trunk nebula, there seemed to be plenty more up there, though I wasn’t able to identify anything specific. Likewise heading through Sadr showed more patches of nebulosity.

The Veil was essentially a no, some very vague hints of the Witch’s Broom and a possible sight of the eastern veil but far more likely to be averted imagination!

A fun little session, and something I shall do more of.

Cool - I have a pair of those but I've not used mine other than for occasional birding. I'll have to give them a go at astro sometime

4 hours ago, Bridgehouse said:

Just dropped off by DPD…

Excited!

 

Very nice.

I've owned a couple of the 3-6mm Nagler zooms and now I have the 2-4mm. Great high power tools

4 hours ago, IB20 said:

Managed to get one of these, loving the retro glass right now. 

I used to have those. I had one with the Orion Ultrascopic branding and one branded Celestron Ultima. Both the same optically. Very nice glass, as you say.

The only series around at that time that I felt competed and perhaps even bettered slightly, the Tele Vue plossls

Hi and welcome to the forum

I've only owned and used one Tele Vue scope - a nice little Ranger which was later reviewed by Roger Vine here:

http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/TVRanger.htm

I've owned and used most of their eyepieces though !.

Hope you enjoy your return to the hobby