John

That looks a nice result 🙂 I only observe through my HW. To find the sun I usually remove the eyepiece and look into the empty HW eyepiece tube moving the scope until the sun illuminates the prism. Popping the eyepiece back in usually finds the sun to be in the field of view.

My Lunt 1.25 HW seems to work in the same way as the Hercules one ie: an ND filter fitted at the bottom of the eyepiece drawtube. I use a single polarising filter on the end of the eyepiece and turn the eyepiece to adjust the final brightness of the image. The light coming through a HW is already polarised on one plane so the single polarising filter is all that is needed on the eyepiece. I'm not keen on green solar observing so I don't use a solar continuum filter.

Thanks Jeremy. Is yours the 180 or 210 ? How long does it take before it's worth observing with ? Thanks 🙂

I had a short session lunar observing with my 130mm refractor earlier. Then cloud. Then a clear patch for 20 minutes so a few double stars. Then more cloud, a short clear break, more cloud, and repeat with more cloud added for fun. I've had better sessions although the seeing was good, when there was any ! I don't use it anywhere near as much as I would like but what really surprises me each time I do use the 130 (LZOS objective) is how composed the image stays with stupidly high magnifications. It seems to be barely coasting along at 200x. At 250x - 300x it's getting into it's stride and at 343x tonight double stars such as Porrima, Izar, Zeta Herculis and Delta Cygni were just so clearly defined. I could have probably pushed up to 400x plus if I'd had clear sky for longer 🙄 Still, much better than no observing at all 🙂

I'm interested by Mewlons, probably the 180 more than the 210. My only hesitation is the potential cool down time. My LZOS 130mm triplet takes around 40 minutes to cool on a cold night. It's kept in a centrally heated room as are my other scopes. I could deal with a little longer time to cool but would not fancy having to wait a couple of hours. Other than that doubt, a Mewlon 180 is a very attractive prospect 🙂

Different "lawn cannon" this evening for some more lunar enjoyment (I hope !) 🙂

I can see why the velcro fastening arrangement has put you off even if the filter does work OK. I've ended up with a Lunt Herschel Wedge (1.25 inch) for my white light solar observing. My astro society much prefers them for outreach and I prefer them for home use as well.

I own a Nagler 31 and I've used an XW 30. Never used a Masuyama. If I was buying for my Tak 100mm F/9 and had to stick with Japan / Taiwan production then it would be the XW 30 because of the weight difference I think. More often with that scope I'm content with the true field that my Panoptic 24mm gives though. For my Vixen 102mm F/6.5 I use the Nagler 31 (which is made in Taiwan) and it seems to suit that stumpier refractor. If you can consider of production outside the areas you specify, the 30mm UFF's get lots of praise on here and other forums. This is the Stellalyra one: StellaLyra 30mm Ultra Flat Field 2" Eyepiece | First Light Optics Another option which will show almost as much sky is the APM XWA 20mm 100 degree but that is again made in areas outside your preferred ones.

Summer sale, delivery ..... when ????

Nice moon this evening. Many lovely features. The Rupes Altai escarpment is looking very nicely defined as are the crater pair Messier and Messier A in the Mare Fecunditatis. Much more to see as well 🙂

A bit of moon watching this evening with the Tak FC100-DL and the Ethos 6mm for 150x wide lunar vistas 😁

M27's nebulosity responds well to a good quality UHC filter 🙂 If you want to see it's central star though, the filter needs to be left off.

I don't find that I need additional dew prevention equipment for my refractors when used in my back yard but I do if I use them at my society observatory which is only around 6 miles away and rather more dew prone. I've never found that I needed heated elements etc even there - an Astrozap dew shield extension does the trick.

Agreed - AR3664 has been a memorable sight, coupled with the aurora a few days ago, plus some nice warm weather, a memorable week for us astronomers 😀

Thick cloud cover here - it would need to be a very strong display to be seen though that !

I looked at Delta Cygni as well last night. It's one of my favourites in that part of the sky 🙂 No aurora here either last night. Still recovering from the previous night though so won't forget that in a hurry !

Both will work but an O-III has quite a lot more impact on the Veil Nebula. It's a big target so low magnification and as wide a field of view as possible are the way to go (as well as the filter and a dark sky).

I used to think that the northern horizon was where to look but last night the direction to look was up - the "pillars" of the aurora seemed to be pointing towards the zenith. I was surprised at the large scale of the thing with large swathes of the sky being covered at times. Rather cloudy here and no sign of similar levels of activity, as yet.

The Veil Nebula ? I'm only visual but it's a summer highlight for me, year after year 🙂 So much of it as well - it's like half a dozen nebulae in one complex !

Busy day entertaining grandchildren today but I did get a quiet half hour late afternoon to point my Vixen 102 refractor at the Sun. Might be my last view of the magnificent AR3664 😢 For the late afternoon the seeing seemed quite steady here:

Yep - just started to see those "pillars" of light again here too. Glad I don't have to be up early !

A night to remember 😁 What did we do to deserve this ? - put up with all that rubbish weather over the past few months I guess 😁

It's the sheer scale of the thing that amazes me. In the past I've been searching for something happening towards the northern horizon. This stuff covers most of the sky and we seem to be right underneath it !!!!

Stunning display here in North Somerset. I've never seen anything like it ! Pinks, greens, blues and violet hues. Immense waves of colour extending towards the zenith. Constantly changing. Sometimes vague, sometimes very distinct. Just saw a meteor flash through the colours above Deneb. The media is going to be full of this tomorrow morning 😁

Sort of bands of subtle pink and occasional greenish right across the sky here. They change all the time, sometimes stronger, sometimes fading away. My other half has confirmed what I'm seeing. Nice to see this together 😄