John

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

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

I've been using refractors for the past 40 years - what do you want to know ? Joking apart, this is a good resource: http://www.astronomynow.com/books/Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope.html

I think you would find the planetary views with an F/9 ED 100 refractor (eg: Skywatcher ED100) somewhat of an improvement over your current achomat. I moved from a good achromat (100mm F/10 TAL) to the ED100 and noticed that the ED scope was sharper, more contrasty and supported higher magnifications. No disrespect to the TAL 100 which is a very good achromat but the ED doublets are a step up in my opinion.

I've owned the 30mm and 40mm Aero ED's and found they worked fine with my Lumicon and Astronomik filters

I've found that my refractors are punching above their weight on the planets because of their low altitude currently. On the deeper sky, the refractors (100mm - 130mm) do very well for their aperture but my 12 inch dob pushes substantially deeper and fainter and resolves globular clusters much more impressively. My skies are Bortle 5, generally.

The signs that you might need to pay attention to collimation are if you often read reports on forums from folks who have the same equipment as you do but seem to be able to regularly see more detail / tighter resolution on the moon / double stars / planets or if you look through a similar scope to yours at a star party or similar and the views seem noticeably better than your scope is delivering. I've looked through 8 inch SCT's that have been struggling to split the "double double" epsilon lyrae, for example. Some collimation adjustment and this showpiece binary pair becomes a clear and easy split.

Excellent report Stu I'm on holiday enjoying some good weather on the Isle of Wight but with no scope but it was nice to be reminded about whats going on up there ! I'll be looking forward to observing again when I get back home.

On holiday with no scope here so hope those who can, get some good views !

I have used the UK Astro Buy & Sell website many, many times to buy & sell equipment over the past 15 years and it has worked out extremely well https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/

Buying new items (which I rarely do) has invariably cost me money over the years when I've decided to part with the item. The used items I've bought and later sold have generally not cost me much apart from the postage costs. I could probably have made a profit on some sales because I've had some great buys but I don't feel that's a good thing to do so I've just recovered my outlay and given someone else the benefit of a great value buy as well I have seen Zeiss ZAO orthos being sold at substantially more than they were retailed and sometimes also TMB Supermonocentrics and the Pentax XO's at but I think they are exceptions. I really don't think astronomy equipment is a good place to invest if you hope to make a profit of any sort from it. It's a great thing to invest in to have some fun with though

Nice report of an interesting feature The Propeller looks great with my 12 inch dob at 265x on a dark night. Through my smaller aperture scopes it's not very distinctive at all.

Yes, I've waited to see that. Quite nice seeing now although Jupiter is now getting lower in altitude. Some "clumpiness" in the S Temperate Belt but nothing that looks specifically "oval-like" with my 100mm scope tonight. I was using the 130mm last time I saw them though. Hope it keeps good for you

I'm probably going to pack in soon regardless of the conditions. I've got quite a bit of driving to do tomorrow. Hope it stays good for those who stay out

Similar here. I was wondering if any of those pale oval features in the S hemisphere would be showing as the GRS rotates out of sight. Just waiting for Europa's shadow now.

I agree 100%

Yes - that's just the sort of scope that I meant. Personally I'd go for a 100mm refractor (or more) over an 80mm or a 90mm. I've owned nice 80's and 90's but found that they did not quite show enough to hold my interest for long. Something like an ED 102mm F/7 for versatility as I think was suggested earlier in this thread. That's just my preferences though. Yours are what matter much more in this thread

I'm sure that these 80mm refractors are lovely things but the original posters scope should show all that they do and more besides and catch challenging stuff like Neptune's moon Triton which is simply beyond a 4 inch refractor no matter how good it's optics are. Having a small refractor AND a medium aperture scope is a great way to go though

The seeing is good here with lots of intricate detail but there is a large back of cloud that keeps swallowing up Jupiter so I'm getting small excerpts rather than a continuous show.

I've bought and sold many items there over the years and with no issues that I can recall. Use a common sense approach and clear communications with the seller as John suggests above. While some items might be on SGL as well, many are not.

Europa stayed visible against the disk for quite a while. It's very hard to spot now though and the sporadic cloud cover is not helping. I think the moons are visible during the early part of their crossing of the Jovian disk because of the effect limb darkening which allows the moon to stand out better against the limb areas of the planet than it does as it moves more onto the disk. Whether I get much more observing is in the lap of the cloud gods just now. Some is a lot better than none though

Europa has just started it's transit of Jupiter's disk. With the GRS nearing the central meridian and a small dark barge on the top of the NEB plus decent seeing for a change, it's all looking rather nice Europa's shadow starts it's transit at around 23:40 hrs I think. Might not stay clear so I'd better enjoy it while I can !

Long scopes need sturdier mounts than short ones of the same aperture even if the weight of the scope is easily within the mounts capacity. Long tubes exert a lot of force on the mount and tripod.

Assuming that all is in working order and the optics are in good condition that is a real bargain for $500 plus some gas. Assuming that it is the 8 inch, even the optical tube alone is well worth that. It looks like the Nexstar 8i model with an upgraded tripod. Lots of information on these here: https://www.nexstarsite.com/