John

Yep - a Fullerscope "Export Edition" (ie: more deluxe) from around the early 1980's I would think. The mount is the Fullerscopes Mk III equatorial.

Steve Collingwood is compiling a history of the company here:

https://www.bcftelescopes.co.uk/

One of my favourite setups for the Veil is my 4 inch F/6.5 refractor and the 31mm Nagler hand grenade with an O-III filter. That gives a 3.8 degree true field so the whole of the Veil complex fits in there. Good for the N A Nebula too.

There are other great combinations as well though

Exciting stuff !

Looks pretty much vertical as well.

I wonder who will get the short straw for the first to approach the landed spaceship ?

Not for quite a few hours I would think !

I used to have the 4mm Nirvana (the flat top version again) and found that to be an excellent high power eyepiece.

I've never taken so much interest in venting sequences !

10 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

The 22T4 Nagler is held in very high regard I understand John, yet noted that @Louis Dfound there to be some kidney beaning evident in that model too. Was it something you noticed yourself?

Apologies to the OP for slightly veering away from the EP under debate, but it’s interesting that even some high-end EP’s seem prone to this too.

 

It was such a long time ago (13 years ago, maybe) that I owned the 22T4 that I honestly can't recall

I remember it being an easy to use eyepiece with good eye relief and a nice big eye lens to gaze into. One of the first premium eyepieces that I owned.

4 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

For what it's worth I recently sent in a 12" dob mirror for a new hilux coating, and it was back with me 6 days after I sent it off and in perfect condition. That's the one and only dealing I've had with OOUK.  

I'm thinking of having my 12" OO mirror done at some point - can you give me an idea of the cost ?

A PM would be fine, if you get a moment

4 minutes ago, Louis D said:

The ES-92s were pretty easy for me to get used to.  I never got on with the 17mm or 12mm Nagler T4s very well.  It turns out the latter two have strong SAEP.  The 22mm NT4 is pretty decent to use.

I'm wondering if the 16mm Nirvana has undiagnosed SAEP.  It makes the field of view all but impossible to hold once the field stop pops into view.

I'm still learning how to make the best of the 17mm ES 92. The 12mm I just could not get on with so I let that one go. I had the 22mm T4 Nagler many years back and liked that one.

As we so often say on here (including earlier in this very thread) eyepiece preferences are a very personal thing. What works wonderfully for one person may well be just not suit another at all.

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

A 2” stainless steel tripod may help, I would think the mount will cope ok. @John may be able to comment if he has used his 130mm f9.2 on his ST2, which I believe he has.

Yes I have used the 130mm F/9.2 on the Skytee. That was on a Berlebach Uni 28 tripod though which adds both height and stability over the stock 1.75 inch tripod. I think a 2 inch steel tripod would be much better than the 1.75 inch one. The difference does not sound much but the 2 inch steel tripods (EQ6 type) are much more solid and taller than the 1.75 inch ones.

My 130mm F/9.2 is a little heavier than the Bresser 127L ( a bit over 9kg) but around the same length. The Skytee II did a decent job of carrying the scope but it was not without some vibration at higher magnifications which could take a few seconds to dampen out. Eventually I decided to move the scope to a heavier duty alt-azimuth mount.

I have owned a Bresser 127L in the past but not when I had a Skytee II mount so I've not tried the exact pairing. On a 2 inch steel tripod I reckon they would work OK together but I have doubts if the 1.75 inch tripod is used.

Ultra-wide (80+ degrees) and Hyper-wide (90+ degrees) eyepieces do take a bit of getting used to I've found. If you wear glasses when observing the 60 - 76 degree ranges are likely to be more comfortable because their eye relief is usually longer than the wider eyepieces.

I used to have a Nirvana 16mm which I quite liked but mine had a different eye cup design to the current version:

With the above design the eye cup twists up and down. Maybe the newer design with the folding rubber eyecup (I assume it folds ?) combined with 12mm of eye relief (not all of which is usable) does not help eye positioning ease ?

These are pluck foam inners in Maplin and Jessops cases. Rather than removing the foam chunks, I break the cubes in the shape of the eyepiece then push the block down with the eyepiece being held in place by the case lid foam spikes. After a little time neat depressions form into which the eyepieces fit nicely. If I change my eyepieces (which I used to do often ) the foam blocks can be pulled gently back up and a new depression formed for the new eyepiece. These cases and the foam inners have lasted for years this way. Rather worried that I have a small space in the 1.25 inch case that needs filling

I keep my eyepieces a bit above outside temperature to stop them misting / dewing up. The heat of the eyeball can mist up a cold eyepiece in seconds.

I've just weighed my ED120. The OTA excluding a diagonal and finder but including tube rings, a dovetail bar and the Moonlight focuser comes in at 5.7kg.

Hope that helps a bit.

Great report !

The Veil is an absolute favourite of mine as well - a good O-III filter really does bring it to life in a way that no other filter can.

Such a lot of detail to see as well - truly a multi-element target and the more you study it, the more you elements can see:

When you say "resolvable" it can be visible as a faint point of light in scopes from 90mm and upwards in aperture. It will not resolve as a disk though, in even the largest telescopes, amateur or professional. Stars are just too far away to be seen as anything other than a point of light.

I'd better dig out my Lunt Herschel Wedge. I've not used it for some time

8 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

I have arranged an event for Herefordshire Astronomical Society at a park on the edge of the City. Hope to use the PST plus another scope for white light.

Are you going to project the image via a laptop screen or similar Mark ?

There are far graver things in this world currently to feel insecure about than telescopes for goodness sake

I knew that I'd regret posting in this thread again.

15 minutes ago, Jonk said:

No time, but my guess would be at the very least, an hour from now. Probably 2 or 3, depending on any issues.

If you keep an eye on the stream, typically, launch has been around 45 minutes after 'tank farm activity' is shown on the status list.

Thanks - I was going to ask the same question but @Laurieast beat me to it !

40 minutes ago, jetstream said:

I wonder why you keep so much money tied up in your 2 premium scopes then?

As I said, I enjoy owning and using them. Plus I've no other plans that need funding currently so I might as well hang onto them.

19 minutes ago, Paul M said:

Ah, panic over! It's orbit's inclination is only 41.5 deg, so never overhead the UK

 

As Douglas Adams would have put it, this is now an SEP - Someone Else's Problem !

34 minutes ago, Marki said:

In the interest of full disclosre I don't own a Tak, so my opinion as a lowly APM LZOS owner may be irrelevant ;).

I've owned a Tak and a TMB / LZOS for the past 5 years. They are very much in the same league IMHO.

To my observing eye the 130mm LZOS delivers very similar optical performance characteristics to the 100mm Tak but with the additional "punch" that you would expect from 30% more aperture.

What has been a (pleasant) surprise is that my Skywatcher ED120 has not been significantly outclassed by either of them. Maybe my ED120 is a particularly good one ?

I've enjoyed using the premium refractors but as I posted earlier in this thread, they have not really revolutionised the hobby for me or anything like that. They are just nice to own and use and probably at or close to the best optical performance that their respective apertures can deliver.

I have no idea what formula you could use to determine whether any performance differences are worth a particular price difference though

What I suppose is reassuring in one sense is that had I not been in a position to own and use these expensive instruments, I now realise my enjoyment of the hobby of astronomy would not have suffered particularly. But without trying them for myself for some time, I might not have known that, and that's the "catch 22"

We probably ought to be thankful both for premium brands for continuing to make very high quality instruments available for those to want and can afford them AND to manufacturers such as Synta, GSO, etc who make really good quality instruments available that are accessible to many more people.

We need our Skylab protection helmets again:

I have quite a few pairs of binoculars but most are used for birding / wildlife.

The ones I use for astronomy are:

10x50 Helios Naturesport

8x56 Opticron Vega II

11x70 Opticron ZCF

51 minutes ago, Stu said:

...To my regret, I’ve never maintained an observing log, the closest I get are my reports on SGL. I do sometimes go back to those to recall what I saw and with which scope.

I'm just the same I'm afraid

Much respect to those, like Rob, who do keep good records though