John

1 hour ago, Peter Drew said:

...  Jim Muirden, Es Reid and Jon Owen also served time there as opticians.....   

Is that the same Jon / John Owen who produced a few F/10 6 inch triplet refractors ?

One thing that I get confused about is what the relationship between Intes and Intes Micro is

At one time Optical Vision Ltd used to list both Intes and Intes Micro ranges in their catalogue. Although the scopes looked quite similar, there did appear to be differences between the specs.

I felt that Intes Micro scopes were slightly better finished and had more extensive baffling and ventilation but there might have been other differences as well

Interesting scope Steve

I saw one a few years ago at the Norman Lockyer Observatory at Sidmouth. That one had a Hammerite mid blue coated tube and I can see a similar colour peeking out from beneath the white paint at one or two places on your scope.

I'll look forward to hearing, and seeing, more about it 

8 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Found a good clip of the self-destructing tape for our younger contributors:

 

Ohh, that takes me back !

9 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Colour corrected.

Many thanks

I've asked the moderators to change the colour of the text in your post - it comes out as grey for me and hard to read !

My only comment would be on the filter for nebulae. A UHC or O-III (ideally both) would be a much more effective choice than a CLS. You will want a 2 inch filter. Astronomik or Tele Vue have excellent UHC and O-III filters.

Personally I don't use a moon filter even with my 12 inch dobsonian but quite a few folks do find them useful.

33 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Does anyone know if it's possible to 3D print caps for Zeiss eyepieces?

I'm doing a set right now - would you like some ? 🤣

The 6 inch dob is an excellent choice as long as you have a reasonably clear horizon towards the south. With Saturn being currently low in the sky, a cluttered southern horizon can make getting it into the view tricky with the low slung dobsonian design.

If you have to peer over trees / houses / fences etc to see Saturn, a scope on a tallish tripod such as a refractor / mak-cassegrain / schmidt cassegrain might make life easier in this respect.

7 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

.... occasional momentary freezes into amazing clarity.....

 

That nice description sums up a lot of planetary observing for me. But those are the moments that make us come back to the eyepiece, over, and over again

18 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

I wonder if the BHF knew what they’d been given. It’s nice to imagine they had no idea and were astounded at the final price.

When I first retired I used to volunteer with a charity listing stuff for sale on e.bay and other sites. They used pretty standardized listing formats with little room for change to reflect the unusual nature of a particular item.

We did do some research on items that we suspected might be of value or rarity so we had an idea about their potential but the actual listings didn't vary much.

Most of the emphasis seemed to be on an accurate description of the condition of what was for sale to avoid negative feedback.

Overall this was a fruitful enterprise for the charity that I worked for. Maybe even more so over the past 18 months with charity shops being closed during lockdowns and struggling to get enough volunteers when they were able to open again ?

I've just been looking at Iota Cass with my 100mm refractor. At 300x the view was pretty much the same as with the 130mm except the stars were slightly dimmer and the airy disks a touch larger.

Very attractive triple.

18 minutes ago, Spile said:

True but you need 2” mode if you are going to easily use the matching Barlow. The BHZ is far more compliant in 2” mode as far as I am concerned.

I don't think the OP has the BHZ barlow

28 minutes ago, globular said:

Anyone want to club together for a 'time share' ownership?
12 of us at £200 each (ish)... and you get 1 month a year to enjoy them.
Maybe I should have thought of this more than 3 1/2 hours before the auction ends? 

I bet I'd get the rainy month !

27 minutes ago, Franklin said:

Was it called Vixen Sensor 102? 

I had a Vixen 4" on a fork in the 80'S and it was called "Sensor". Never heard of or seen one since?

Vixen used to have an equatorial mount called the "Sensor". Quite a heavy duty mount - even more so than the GPDX. It was also known as the "Saturn" mount.

One of their models had a 102mm F/15 refractor optical tube on the Sensor mount. Quite an impressive scope. Here is one branded Celestron:

I would pay £1,500 for them but not £2,000 and I think they will go for around that in the end, maybe a touch more.

4 hours ago, johninderby said:

The real bidding has yet to start. What will it reach by 21:27 this evening? 🤔

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373695113126?hash=item5701f6e7a6:g:7okAAOSwsmFhJATR

They seem to have jumped up a bit !

If you use the eyepiece in 1.25 inch mode you get the same results. The 2 inch barrel facility is a convenience - it does not turn the eyepiece into a 2 inch one.

You will need to use the 2 inch eyepiece adapter in the focuser drawtube. It looks like this:

This will put the focal plane of the eyepiece at the correct position so that you can reach focus within the range of travel of the focuser.

6 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Nice report John. Can’t remember looking at this one, but anyway I’ll add it to me to do doubles list on the next opportunity. 

It's quite an easy one to find:

56 minutes ago, Pixies said:

Was observing Iota Cas on Thursday night, but with the 8" dob. Seeing was OK but the view has been better in the past. I might give the  old secondary collimation a check soon. I love  the colour differences.

I have no chance of splitting it with the ST80, the magnification just isn't there. But have yet to try it with the Vixen 80. The Rayleigh limit of an 80mm aperture is 1.75  arc seconds, so it should be possible, shouldn't it?

I think it should be possible with a decent 80mm scope. I just about managed it with my ED120 stopped down to 52mm (as an experiment) back in May. The component stars were very dim though:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/377032-trying-to-split-izar-with-66mm/?do=findComment&comment=4085866

2 hours ago, wookie1965 said:

Just a quick one what mount have you got that 130mm on please.

It is a T-Rex heavy duty alt-azimuth. It's been out of production now for a few years and you don't see many around.

How many times have I observed the wonderful triple star Iota in Cassiopeia over the past, say, 15 years ?

Probably almost every time that I observe. The constellation is always above the horizon in the UK - one of 5 such constellations.

I first observed Iota when I got my first ED refractor, a Skywatcher ED100, which was just over 15 years ago now. Initially I found splitting the tighter pair of stars quite difficult but, back then, the highest power eyepiece I had was 166x and my experience in observing was limited.

Since then I have observed the triple star with many different instruments and split it many times. Sometimes the seeing has been mediocre or downright poor so the definition of the 3 stars has left a lot to be desired.

While obstructed scopes ie: newtonians, cassegrains etc split close multiple stars pretty well, to me it is the unobstructed refractor that produces the most satisfying views of these stellar treasures.

Last night it was my 130mm triplet refractors turn. This instrument is quite probably the best that I've owned or observed with in terms of pure optical quality. It has a LZOS (Russian) objective which have a superb reputation for both control of false colour and overall optical accuracy.

The fine objective lens and excellent construction of the scope enable it, under decent seeing conditions, to use magnifications that I had hitherto not experienced. The scope has a focal length of 1200mm (F/9.2). Last night, for tight double stars, my Nagler 2mm-4mm zoom eyepiece went straight into the diagonal and stayed there with 300x being the starting point for observing.

Naturally, very early in my session I turned the scope onto Iota Cassiopeia and the view was truly breathtaking. Moving the zoom eyepiece onto the 3mm setting boosted the image scale. 400x (nearly 80x per inch of aperture) and the 3 star system was really sharply defined. At this magnification the 2.7 arc seconds between the closer pair of stars seems quite a wide gap. It is actually a touch larger than Neptune's apparent diameter currently so the distant gas giant could fit between that pair of stars !

Even the 2mm zoom setting, for a dizzying 600x magnification, did not overpower the definition but 400x did provide the optimum balance of crispness, virtually no light scatter and the impression of a trio of tiny beads on a black velvet background. Just why I love using refractors on such targets.

I made a rough sketch (very rough) and this morning played around with some software to produce what I think is a decent representation of that view last night. It's not as good as the real thing of course - being at the eyepiece end of a large, long refractor on a warmish night with one of the finest binary stars in view takes some beating  

Of course there were many other targets last night including Saturn and Jupiter with the Io shadow transit but it was Iota in Cassiopeia that was in my mind as I drifted off to sleep last night

1 hour ago, John said:

Me too but a big chunk of cloud has just spoiled things. Hope it will move on soon.

Saturn was lovely earlier as well.

Seeing the moon itself in transit, rather than the shadow, is usually somewhat easier when it is close to the planets limb rather than when it's more central. The limb darkening effect helps to show the moon.

I caught some more of the Io shadow transit in gaps in the cloud until it was about 75% of the way across the disk, then the gaps closed.

When things were clear 200x (Ethos 6mm) was working excellently on both Saturn and Jupiter - very sharp indeed.

I found 200x worked pretty well on both Jupiter and Saturn tonight. Usually Saturn benefits from a little more magnification than Jupiter but not tonight.