John

Had a quick look with my 12 inch dob earlier. Same for estimate for me. It's still very much "with us" isn't it ?

Agreed on both counts. If the teflon pads are correctly positioned, the motion against the formica-type surface can be very smooth and yet controlled. My 12 inch dob uses just that approach.

Sorry about the rather naff re-working of the Greek legend but I could not resist I had my 12 inch dobsonian out for a couple of hours this evening, when darkness eventually fell. I spent most of my observing time in Hercules re-visiting the globular clusters and planetary nebulae that I had observed with my 120mm refractor a few nights back. The constellation was pretty high in the sky so the views of the brighter pair of globular clusters (M 92 and M 13) were pretty spectacular with the much larger aperture. At 338x magnification M 13 takes up around half the field of view and M 92 not much less. Stars resolved right into cores of both clusters. A bonus that the larger aperture bought to M 13 was a view of the galaxy NGC 6207 around half a degree to the north east which lies 2,000 times further away from us than the grand globular cluster. At 122x magnification both could be seen in the same field of view with the cluster resembling a tight stellar swarm and the galaxy a small, softly glowing oval. Always a "stand out" view for me in Hercules The fainter and more distant globular NGC 6229, while not as impressive as it's illustrious neighbours, was easy to see and some faint star resolution was visible in the outer fringes of that one at 199x magnification. Dropping back down to the area of sky beneath the "keystone" of Hercules, the small but quite bright planetary nebula NGC 6210 was quite easy to pick up and seemed to me to resemble a smaller version of the Cats Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) in Draco. A quick visit to Draco to have a peek at the Cats Eye confirmed this similarity in form if not in apparent size. I've a busy day tomorrow so could not make this a long session. I did want to try and find something new (to me) in Hercules though and Stellarium suggested that the galaxy NGC 6166 might be possible and well positioned. Well this distant galaxy was quite hard work to find tonight. Finding the correct spot in the sky was straightforward enough but actually seeing any trace of the galaxy, somewhat harder. Eventually I thought I was getting traces of a faint suspect glow in the right place at 94x magnification. Jumping up to 199x did not really help but a spot in between, at 122x (13mm eyepiece) confirmed the lower power glimpses with a little more conviction. It's surface brightness is around magnitude 12 I think but possibly a little less. NGC 6166 is one of the more distant galaxies that I've observed - it's distance from us is given as around 490 million light years away. So that was a new object to end this session with Well ...... not quite. I could not resist a few minutes gazing at the Ring Nebula in Lyra, which was now well up in the sky and starting to look rather splendid. A future challenge will be to try and spot the central star in this famous planetary nebula, but not tonight. Just, relax, enjoy the views for a while and then time to pack up.

It looks in excellent shape ! While .965 inch fitting, those eyepieces are pretty good quality. The H.M (Huygenian-Mittenzwey) is a little tight on eye relief though. I've owned a couple of Vixen 102's and the dew shield pushed on and off the objective cell with those, with felt pads to hold it in place. Not sure about the 80M though

I take your point - when I remember, I try and just use the aperture and scope type now.

Good report Nick ! I've been exploring the same area with my 100mm and 120mm refractors recently and there is a lot to see I managed to get NGC 6884 with my 120mm. It's not that hard to see but it is pretty small - until you turn up the magnification !

Nice report Stu - good to get a scope under some darker skies I'll bet "..the one I’m not supposed to mention by name..." Whats the secret - have I missed something Last I recall you had 3 ~4 inch scopes - the Vixen, the Tak and the TV Genesis. Or do you have another now as well ?

I've come across this review of the Vixen Custom 80M on an Italian website which may be of interest (it's very favourable !): https://www.dark-star.it/astronomia-articoli-e-test/test-strumentali/vixen-custom-80m/

Nice scope ! The Custom 80M was originally an alt-azimuth model, mounted on Vixens Custom D altaz mount I seem to recall. Of course the optical tube can subsequently be mounted on practically any other mount type. Your example looks to be in excellent condition. Hope you enjoy it's sharp optics

To be honest, you might get more out of the scope / observing with a little planning and having some targets / locations in mind when you star using the scope. Telescopes present a surprisingly small "window" of the sky in the eyepiece even at low magnifications. Apart from seeing quite a few more stars, you might not find anything more interesting to observe by just scanning around. Binoculars are probably better for that.

Many scopes can take either 1.25 inch or 2 inch eyepieces. The larger size are used for low power / wide angle views. Most medium to high power eyepieces are in the 1.25 inch format and an adapter is provided with the scope to enable those to be used. Generally, any brand of eyepiece can be used in any brand of scope. Depending on the specs of the scope, some eyepieces work a bit better than others.

Stepping over the recumbent drunkards laying around our patio tonight ..... ED120 frac @ 37.5x = nova is very close in brightness to the mag 7.15 star HD 220167 to my eye. Definitely a bit brighter than HD 220270. So mag 7.3 perhaps ?

I can't answer all your questions (others will I'm sure) but: - a 90 degree diagonal is not usually used with a dob. They require inwards focuser travel which dobs don't usually have so eyepieces will not reach focus. - Be aware that using a 21/20mm 100 degree eyepiece with the Powermates creates a very long and heavy stack hanging out of the focuser. The combination works, optically speaking, but will put a lot of strain on the focuser. Here I was playing with an Explore Scientific 20mm / 100 which is a similar size to an Ethos 21mm:

So you are back to using the stock 45 degree prism again ? What scope are we talking about here ?

The Moonlite, used with the Vixen flange, was pretty much the same optical length as the original Vixen focuser.

I think the closest you can get to seeing as wide a true field of view as the (presumably 1.25 inch) 40mm eyepiece shows but at significantly higher magnification, would be the 17mm Tele Vue Ethos which would deliver 88x magnification, assuming (from the magnifications that you give) that the scope concerned has a focal length of 1,500mm. The 17mm Ethos is a 2 inch fitting eyepiece and costs £729.00 currently

I had a BST Starguider 25mm for a while - as an eyepiece to use with a travel scope. It seemed to work pretty well with the travel scope (a 70mm F/6.8 refractor) showing mostly sharp stars across the field of view. It was not well enough corrected towards the field edges to be fully satisfying with my F/5.3 12 inch dobsonian though. I think I would have preferred a good 25mm plossl over the Starguider in that scope. Luckily I have the 24mm Panoptic which is excellent. Of the lower-than-Panoptic-cost wide angle eyepieces that I've owned and used around that focal length I think the Maxvision 24mm / 68 and the Explore Scientific 24mm / 68 were the nicest. The Maxvision is sadly now no longer in production but if you can find one they offer very good "max field in 1.25 inch" performance, even in quite fast scopes. The Explore Scientific 24mm / 68 is pretty much as good as the 24mm Panoptic in terms of performance but it a slightly bulkier package.

I'm 6 foot tall. I like to stand when observing. This is my 12 inch dobsonian. The base was custom made to suit my eye height. This has been the best scope I've owned in the 35+ years I've been in this hobby (I've owned many !). I've seen more with it than with any other scope that I own. I use very wide angle eyepieces at low, medium and high magnifications which make tracking just that little bit easier. What suits me might not suit you though so continue to ask questions and think about the various options available

Well done for seeing Jupiter ! There are 4 Jovian moons visible in amateur equipment (scopes and binoculars) so the 5th was certainly a star. HD 210845 was the right brightness and in the position to pass as a "5th moon" early this morning.

Great report and some excellent targets ! The O-III filters really earn their keep during sessions like that

Nova observed with 130mm refractor this evening at 50x. It still seems a little brighter than HD220770 so I'd estimate magnitude 7.5 or thereabouts, again.

This is still my situation so I can't help on the 2 inch versions. Still using my 1.25 inch eyepiece set with the Tak - I do think that they suit the F/9 scope well and the 24mm Panoptic gives a 1.81 degree true field which fits most things in. I have other options if I want to go wider .....

My 1.25 inch Lunt wedge works fine with my ED120 refractor. I've often used it at outreach events with this scope as well. The heat sink on the back of the wedge body gets quite warm but that's what it is supposed to do. It does not get too hot to touch or anything like that. I've not used my wedge with a larger aperture than the 120mm though.

Unless the solar bug really bites, that is my situation. I do have a nice Astronomik O-III filter that I could try with / without the polarising filter.

Thanks for the heads up Nik Not a promising forecast here either today so I suspect I'll miss this conjunction as well, unless I get extremely lucky It's amazing how often, even if the rest of the sky is clear, that there is an unhelpful cloud bank off to the west (down the Severn Estuary in my case) that gets in the way ! Last years conjunction was also close (.9 of a degree) but clouded out for the actual closest approach as well. I snapped with my old mobile at the scope eyepiece these a couple of days before: