John

I've not yet done it convincingly with the Tak FC100 F/9. Maybe tonight ?. Quite a bit of thin cloud about currently though, hope it clears off

I think they are used quite a lot for astro. I've owned a few of that design over the years. In their stock state the LED is too bright really for astro even on it's lowest setting but that can be dimmed down I believe. Once they get branded as astro devices, the price seems to rise - funny that ! https://www.365astronomy.com/optical-accessories-1/finder-,-guider-and-polarscopes/finderscopes-brackets/365Astronomy-Deluxe-Multi-Reticle-Red-Dot-Finderscope-Metal-Body-RED-GREEN-LED-wide-base

I see very subtle greenish tints in the central parts of the Orion Nebula with my 12 inch scope. Not so apparent with my smaller aperture scopes. Nothing like the images you see - very subtle indeed.

Nothing wrong with solar projection. I used that method with my old 60mm refractor to show the transit of Venus to my childrens friends back in 2004. I even snapped a photo of the event I think. The simple huygens eyepieces that came with those scopes were ideal for solar projection. Todays more complex designs would not fare too well I think

Worth a go with seeing conditions good currently and the separation more or less at it's max. I split it last night with the ED120. I'm going to have a go with the 100mm tonight

Yep - when things are going well, time just slips by

Great report - the seeing was 1st class last night

I got it last night with my ED120. Great seeing last night

Most deep sky observing is done at low to medium magnifications. Not all, but most. So 40x - 100x or similar ? The Orion Nebula is quite a large object - a large as the full moon, so high magnifications just show parts of it:

It sounds like you have seen the central part of the Orion nebula and the Trapezium cluster. You were using a lot of magnification (300x !). To see the whole of the nebula you need to use much less magnification - about 50x is fine so a 25mm eyepiece (no barlow) will do the job.

I don't think any refractor short of (maybe) an ED120 would give you a better experience for planetary observing than your 127mm mak-cassegrain.

Great young space enthusiast here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-leicestershire-56445616

That's a neat trick - I'll have to try that

Hope you get one of the zooms gratis in return for your input Steve

It's shame if the two major forums feel that each other might "trash talk" each other. I've been a member of both SGL and CN for a similar amount of time and found them both very useful but in different ways and with different styles. I'm sure we used to have a rule on here about not rubbishing other forums and likewise on CN. I'd like to think that mutual respect still exists.

Not tonight Jeremy. Monday night is ED120 night Just had a look at the Nova V1405 Cas with the ED120. I think it has dimmed very slightly. It's still brighter than the nearby mag 9.0 star but not quite to the extent it was when I last observed it. The latest AAVSO visual report says mag 8.0 which seems reasonable.

The Pup star is visible tonight with my ED120 refractor at 225x and 257x. Nice, steady, seeing tonight

I've just split Sirius reasonably easily with my ED120 at 225x = the seeing is GOOD

Should be able to have a peek at this again later. Nice clear evening here

I have a Tak FC100-DL (the F/9 version) and a very good Skywatcher ED120 and tend to agree with this. The FC100-DL gets very close to the performance of the ED120 on the moon, planets and double stars. The ED120 goes a little deeper on DSO's. The FC100 is a superb scope and but it's not really been a "game changer" compared with the humble ED120, not to me at least. I'm glad I own it though

That looks like the Celestron Regal Zoom. One of our members, @Louis D uses those with a binoviewer in astro scopes I seem to recall, and seems to think quite highly of them.

Thank you very much Alexander. I have found Stellarium to be an essential part of my astronomy toolkit for many years now

It seems to have been fairly consistent at magnitude 7.7 - 7.9 or thereabouts for the past week. Very cloudy here tonight so I won't be able to check up on it this evening.

No point in worrying about it. I observe all year round. Just have to wait longer for darkness during BST.

I think we will be seeing a lot of stuff that was bought during the lockdown period up for sale over the coming months. Normally these folks would have to take a "hit" of around 30-35% of the value to sell on even if the gear is virtually unused. The current scarcity of new equipment and recent price rises will likely soften this "hit" though, until supplies start to come through again. The buyers here and on the UK Astro Buy & Sell site will generally be pretty savvy on price so with either avoid what they perceive as overpriced items or, at best, will make a lower offer. E.bay is a bit of a "law unto itself" price-wise and I see lots of stuff on there which is, IMHO unrealistically priced and some of the auctions seem to end at a figure which is surprisingly close to the normal retail price. The thing to do is to produce a comprehensive and accurate description of the kit and a good set of photos and offer it for sale at a price that seems reasonable to you. Don't use the "offers invited" ploy though, potential buyers tend to avoid that and it's not actually allowed on the classifieds section here.