John

They are very nice wide field eyepieces. Performance close to black and green things that cost a heck of a lot more

I was thinking of comparing my ED120 Skywatcher and my Tak FC100-DL. Both are doublets working at F/9. More practically, I can get them both on my Skytee II mount !

Nice glass in those ! I think it's closer to a 2.2x in practice.

That's a good idea. I have a similar range of refractors so could do a similar comparison sometime.

When I was trying out the Vixen SLV's for the forum (I tried the 20mm, 12mm and 6mm) I really liked them. The 6mm in particular was a very good high power eyepiece. I compared it to the Baader Genuine Ortho of that focal length a number of times on Saturn and Jupiter and could see no performance difference between the two. The SLV was a more comfortable eyepiece to use though with it's long eye relief and large eye lens.

I seem to be able to happily adapt to having slow motions (ie: my Skytee II and T-Rex) or not (ie: my 12 inch dob and Giro Ercole). I sometimes find them very useful but if they are not there, I'll do the job myself If slow motions are fitted then they must not judder, create additional vibrations or have more than a very small amount of backlash. Achieving the latter can be a challenge on the Skytee II but I've managed it after quite a bit of tweaking. The T-Rex slow motions are superb

I've been tempted to get one of those (or something like it) to try and replicate (to some extent) the views that Galileo might have had from his scopes. I can't see his neighbours house from here though, so perhaps it would be a waste of time

As I said in my post much earlier in this thread, it was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking down those steps to the lunar surface in 1969 that got me hooked on all things space related (I was 9 years old) and that led on to joining the school astronomy club a couple of years later. I didn't have a scope of my own for a few years after that but managed to borrow a couple from friends from time to time - 60mm Tasco refractors of course, which were about all that ordinary folks could afford back then I'm still not entirely sure if this hobby is really for me though - I'll give it another couple of decades and see if I really get hooked

When I've owned SCT's and mak-cassegrains in the past I've just used a dew shield rather than a heated dew band. My usual observing site is not that affected by dew usually though so the requirement might be "location dependant" When I used to take scopes to the SGL star parties which are on a riverside site, dew was much more of an issue and I seemed to need all the dew busting apparatus that I could get !

Great report Magnus At the risk of leading you and your 12 inch further astray, NGC 404, the "Mirach's Ghost" is a small galaxy close to it's namesake star and well worth a look when in that part of the sky and also you should look out for NGC 604, a small patch of light near a star right next door to Messier 33 - it's significance is that it is an HII star forming nebula within the Triangulum Galaxy, probably the easiest DSO "in another galaxy" to see

What a great mount / tripod !!! I had a demo of one at the International Astronomy Show a couple of years ago and it was very, very impressive

Do stars in the centre of the view look like this or is it just those towards the edges ?

Well, we did take this rather old and corny DVD with us and watched it on one of the cloudy nights Quite fun with a bottle of decent red to calm the nerves !

It looks the same as my old Meade Lightbridge 12 inch. The stock primary collimation springs needed upgrading on that and I found that the thin metal used for the cell construction flexed when the locking screws were tightened so I didn't use those. I replaced the collimation and locking screws on mine which also helped in adjustment accuracy although the latter still caused cell flex if used. I have to say that my simple Orion Optics cell (pictured in my last post) has proved a better one than the GSO type.

Before clouds spoiled things I was observing Jupiter last night with my 4 inch Vixen ED refractor. At 166x magnification Jupiter showed a nice large, if slightly flattened, disk. It's apparent diameter last night was a generous 48.2 arc seconds. The four Galilean moons (Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto) were strung out nicely in a line to one side of the planet. Observing them carefully at the same magnification showed each as a tiny but clear apparent disk. Each time I observe these moons at a reasonable level of magnification I can see a noticeable difference in the size of their disks. Last night, as on other occasions, I tried to work out which moon was which simply by noting the relative apparent diameters of their disks, sketching their positions and my "predictions" of which moon is which and then checking using Stellarium or Cartes du Ciel software to see the actual respective positions of the moons. Last night I got 2 out of 4 right, confusing Callisto and Io but finding Ganymede (the largest) and Europa (the smallest) clearly to show their identities through their apparent size in the eyepiece. What interested me last night was why and how we, as observers with modest telescopes, can actually do this I don't claim to be an exceptional observer and I have read reports from others quite often who spot these apparent size differences between Jupiter's major moons. Last night the actual angular sizes and brightness of the Galilean moons, according to Stellarium, were as follows: Ganymede = 01.78 arc seconds / magnitude 4.6 Callisto = 01.62 arc seconds / magnitude 5.8 Io = 01.23 arc seconds / magnitude 5.4 Europa = 01.05 arc seconds / magnitude 5.3 To put these in perspective, the maximum resolution of a 4 inch aperture scope is around 1.14 arc seconds I believe so all of these moons are far too small to really be resolved in such a scope. So why do we see differences in the apparent size of the moons with comparatively modest aperture scopes ?. Why is it quite obvious, with a little observation, which moon is Ganymede ?. Why does the somewhat smaller Europa appear just as that through the eyepiece ? My guess is that we are seeing a form of optical effect rather like the airy disk produced by a star but produced by a combination of the moons brightness, it's comparative apparent diameter at the time of observing and the aperture of the scope rather than the "true" disk of the moons. I'm not 100% sure of this at all though so would be very interested to hear other views

Not really a problem. I did not actually stay out too late each night - maybe until midnight ? Being on holiday we were not getting up too early each morning either.

I thought Messier 57 had more of a "ring" to it !!!! 🤣 More likely lingering effects of the excellent Dartmoor Brewery products though

Have we really been observing this nova for nearly 6 months ?!!! Nice view tonight with my ED102SS refractor at 28x. Nova looks to be magnitude 7.0 I reckon. Excellent view of the Messier 57 cluster AKA "Salt and Pepper", apparently, although Messier 37 also seems to have been dubbed that. M57 shows as a delicate fan shaped spray of resolved stars. Very nice. Edit: Messier 57 ???? - nope, it's Messier 52 of course !!!. Doh !!!

My little Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 is trying to see Saturn through some cloud cover tonight - ever the optimist !

I've forgotten what scope you have Stu ? My 12 inch Orion Optics has the older 3-point primary cell with fairly simple mirror clips and lateral nylon screws to hold the mirror central. I keep the clips slightly off the mirror surface and the 3 nylon screws gently touching the mirror to keep it's optical axis central. The mirror is resting on nylon pads but is not stuck to the cell. I don't use the locking screws unless taking the scope for a journey because they do impact the collimation. Other than that, mine holds collimation pretty well.

Collimation is key to resolving things, globular clusters included.

Our most southerly National Park: In the county of Devonshire (where I was born as it happens). 950 square km of granite uplands with deep wooded valleys.

These are really great scopes According to Markus Ludes at APM, demand and sales of the 130mm F/6 LZOS are around 4x-5x higher than for the F/9.2. That's unsurprising really given that the F/6 is so much more suitable for imaging as well as more of an "all rounder" for observing. As of this time last year, Markus said that the total production of F/9.2's would be likely to top out at around 130 units. The highest serial number that I've seen for sale to date is #123.

When I see discussion of using tablets / mobile phones while observing in the field I think of this. I've had just the same experience with a digital watch illuminator under a really dark sky - and that was on the other side of the field that I was observing in ! Until you have observed under really dark conditions and managed to get fully dark adapted, it is difficult to conceive how even dim lights can negatively impact the experience. But they really can.

It was one of my very best as well, in 40+ years in the hobby Next time we go there though, I will be very tempted to take a small wide angle scope as well