John

This one is new to me - the NOA CT-20 from South Korea. The author of this review (Bill Paolini) seems impressed !: https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/user-reviews/field-test-the-noh-ct-20-alt-az-mount-r3313 20kg carrying capacity from a 2kg mount head is quite impressive There is a heavier duty one as well: http://www.nohsmount.com/entry5.html

Just on the filters, I was happy with just an O-III (Astronomik) for a couple of years with my 12 inch dob. I have now also added a good UHC filter but the O-III gets much more use and has noticably more "oomph" especially on targets such as the Veil Nebula which is an absolute "must see" with a good sized dobsonian. With my 12 inch dob, which has a focal length of 1590mm, my most used eyepieces are 21mm, 13mm, 8mm, 6mm and 4.7mm. All Tele Vue Ethos's.

One traditional approach to eyepiece focal length progression is a 1.4x - 1.5x step for each focal length. 1.4x nearly fits with the Morpheus focal lengths apart from the 14mm which seems to be an "in between" focal length. Others favour a 1.6x step - I guess it depends on the scope focal ratio as to what works best ?

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

Ohh, that takes me back !

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.

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.

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

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.

I don't think the OP has the BHZ barlow

I bet I'd get the rainy month !

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.

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.

It's quite an easy one to find:

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

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.