John

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:

Good thread this A timely reminder for me to dust off (metaphorically speaking) my Lunt HW and get some WL solar observation in with one of my fracs, now that there is something interesting to observe. I am not a regular solar observer and mostly used the HW for the outreach sessions that Bristol AS used to do and an local annual school visit. Those were really enjoyable but obviously have not been possible for the past 15 months so I've become a somewhat lapsed solar observer lately. Time to correct that I think Reading other threads on WL solar observing I see that O-III filters are being used to enhance the experience. Would that be in addition to the polarising filter that I use on the bottom of the eyepiece barrel or instead of it ? Cheers

I have Lumicon and Astronomik O-III and UHC filters and they do work very well on quite a few planetary nebulae I agree. Last night though I was happy with the unfiltered views

Thanks Mark. I must do some more white light solar observing now that there is some solar activity worth observing

Yes, I think so. I have observed this one with my 12 inch dob some years back and it didn't "blink" with that but I thought the smaller aperture might cause it to. I was observing at high power (150x plus) mostly though. I had forgotten how small NGC 6826 is - quite easily overlooked as a slightly bloated star at low magnifications. NGC 6884 even more so. Apparently the mix up over cataloguing of 6884 / 6766 was caused by Pickering (or one of his team) discovering it in 1883 and then Ralph Copeland discovered it again in 1884 and designated it 6766 !

Thanks ! I have not really followed planetary nebulae all that much during my observing to date but I'm lately becoming aware that there are plenty out there and that they are worth seeking out, even with smaller aperture scopes. Each one seems to have an individual character as well