John

Great report and photos Stu - that last one of the moon is really excellent

There does seem to be another thread on this:

Thanks for that. I'll have a look for it as well !

Interesting that the latest brightness estimate is pretty much the same as the nova that we have been keeping track of in Cassiopeia.

Sounds a similar performer to the William Optics SWAN 20mm but at a better price. Fine in slow refractors, maks, SCT's etc.

It looks very similar to my 1960's Tasco 12 TE-5 which is a 60mm F/13.3.

They have it in the fork mount backwards and there seems to be some parts missing / damaged. Could be a low cost "fixer-upper".

1 hour ago, Nik271 said:

Excellent! Every time I tried Antares last year the seeing was hopeless, but I should give a try this weekend, it looks like a good calm spell.

I'm thinking  to use the 127 Mak, instead of my 180 Mak, it's more resistant to seeing and the 120mm aperture should be sufficient. Antares  reaches only 11 degrees altitude for me, so it will be all down to the seeing.   

It's not much higher here (North Somerset).

I have to catch Antares in a gap between the houses and trees. I have tried a few times over the past weeks but the image was "boiling" too much. Last night it was surprisingly calm.

Older thread revival !

I've just managed a split of Antares with my 100mm refractor. Position angle and relative brightness of secondary star looked correct. Given it's low altitude here I was surprised tonight how steady and well defined the image of Antares was. The secondary star (magnitude 5) looked very dim by comparison. The split is 2.6 arc seconds but it is the low altitude and major brightness difference between the stars that makes it such a tricky split. The mag 5 star was approximately due west of Antares.

Nice result and not one I was expecting

Edit: should have also mentioned that I was using 225x and 257x magnification.

The TAL tripods are pretty stable and look lovely as well.

Not sure they are quite as stable as an EQ6 steel tubed tripod though, if wookie1965 is thinking of putting a 127mm F/9.3 refractor on the mount

The TAL wooden tripod would be a bit lighter than the EQ6 steel tripod though.

Nova still looks around mag 6.7 tonight with a 100mm refractor at 37.5x under slightly hazy skies.

My experience comes from owning a Tak FC100-DL, a Skywatcher ED120 and a TMB/LZOS 130 F/9.2 triplet and comparing them over the past 5 years. They are all excellent refractors

The Tak and TMB / LZOS have better mechanical build quality than the Skywatcher (unsurprising given the price difference between these scopes) but the ED120's optics hold up very well against the Takahashi and LZOS objectives.

When I bought the Tak and the TMB/LZOS I thought that I would be letting the ED120 got to a new home but that's not going to happen.

Whether you will find anyone who has actually compared the 3 scopes you are specifically interested in remains to be seen.

If you want one of the very best made in it's aperture then the Tak 100DZ will be the choice. If you can afford a TSA120 as well then you won't be asking what might have been in a larger aperture either.

One thing in the astronomy equipment game that I have learned is that buying the best quality you can rarely seems to lead to any regrets.

Have fun making the decision

I have a well collimated laser and a cheshire eyepiece but I tend to use the cheshire eyepiece 99.9% of the time. My 12 inch dobsonian holds its collimation well and rarely needs more than a little tweak of the primary tilt. Often not even that. Despite that I do check the collimation at the start of each session and my first observation is usually Polaris for a quick star test at high power.

Having owned the scope for quite a few years now I've become accustomed to what the collimated view through the cheshire eyepiece looks like so can see immediately if it's out and which collimation screw to adjust.

I think what can catch people out is the small amount of adjustment that is required from a collimation screw to apply enough tilt to the mirror to make the necessary difference. Often it is a very small movement of the screw - sometimes literally just a touch, that does the trick.

Lovely looking scope Dave

Like you I drooled over the SP102M's back in the 1980's. I did manage to get a used one (branded Bresser) eventually and really enjoyed owning it - probably because I'd had to wait a long time to get it !

Yours looks like it's the same vintage as my ED102SS judging by the labelling and colour scheme.

8 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

Here is my image from Thornbury  near Bristol.

Well done Mark.

We were walking down at Sand Point this morning and didn't get a break in the clouds until around 1:00 pm so missed the show this time around

No luck here either. Quite thick and solid 100% cloud cover.

8 minutes ago, Stu said:

 

I do enjoy a good barge, so it’s good to hear there are some prominent ones around. Thanks!

Me too. They have been rather scarce on the giant planet of late so it is good to hear that some are showing again.

Nice image Mark

21 minutes ago, Broadymike said:

Problem with that is I currently only have a 4.5" newt. Can't really justify the real estate on the OTA for a 2nd finder. 

Is that a Celestron Astromaster by any chance ?

The RDF's on the Astromaster scopes are pretty poor in my opinion. Something like a Rigel Quikfinder illuminated reticule finder would be much better:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/rigel-quikfinder-compact-reflex-sight.html

With a low power eyepiece in the scope you might be able to get by quite well with just a decent IR finder on the scope. They can be adjusted quite accurately to match the direction of view through the main scope, which is more than can be said of the stock Astromaster finder.

I use both an illuminated reticule (IR) finder and a 9x50 right angle correct image (RACI) optical finder on my 12 inch dobsonian. I tend to use mostly the optical RACI  finders on my refractors but I do occasionally use an RDF on those.

When using the dobsonian I find that the IR finder (similar to an RDF) gets close to the target area then the optical finder achieves more precise positioning. For really challenging targets the final finding stage takes place through the scope with a low power / wide angle eyepiece.

I much prefer RACI optical finders to avoid the neck / back ache that the straight through type can cause.

I've owned two William Optics scopes, a Megrez 90 and a Zenithstar 70. Both seemed nicely made scopes but didn't really grab me so I let them go. I didn't keep them long enough to actually take any photos of them, unfortunately !

I'm going for a family walk tomorrow AM so I'll have a pair of eclipse glasses in my pocket just in case we get lucky !

It if was happening today, it would be OK -the orange has translated into blue skies with patches of fluffy cloud this morning. Tomorrow though ....... well let's hope it's incorrect

6 hours ago, astroavani said:

Excellent explanation colleague Barry.
Grateful for the Nik271 quote, these channels had already caught my attention for a long time, so much so that I published a small article on Astrobin that can be seen here: https://www.astrobin.com/321994/?nc=&nce=
It is a very interesting region that deserves to be selected as a priority target for all who enjoy lunar observation.

Excellent piece - many thanks for posting that link

30 minutes ago, M40 said:

One of my favourite places is the FOV calculator at the top of the forum (resources, astronomy tools, FOV calculator). If you select visual mode, input your telescope and eyepiece plus barlow, select solar system and Mars then add to view, the tool will give you some idea of what to expect. If you then change from Mars to Jupiter you will get an idea of the difference in size and what to expect. Have a play with it, it's a superb tool. 

That tool is excellent for comparing the field of view and the scale of the target object within it with various combinations of kit give but should be treated with caution with regards to it being a guide to the amount of detail that you will see - it tends to be rather optimistic !

1 hour ago, Grant93 said:

Very interesting read, gives me a few more ideas on what to observe next. What bortle class are you in may I ask?

Grant

According to "Clear Outside" I'm in Bortle 5. To be honest it varies quite a bit here, depending on the direction you are looking in because of the "glows" of Bristol to the East and Newport / Cardiff to the North West.

Nice report Doug

I had a quick look with my 12 inch dobsonian earlier. I'd estimate the same as last night so mag 6.7'ish.