John

Grabbed half an hour with a 100mm scope and the herschel wedge to view the Sun this afternoon. Rather hazy conditions. The 7.2mm - 21.5mm zoom eyepiece did a good job. Quite sharp views even at the upper end (125x). Apparently there are 3 active regions on the solar disk just now, AR12807, AR12808 and AR12809. Only AR12808 was showing anything visible to me today. A small spot with a roughly triangular umbra and close to that a tiny group of 3 spots that form a triangle. So something to view at least. Quite wide areas of faculae showing around AR12808 and in patches elsewhere. I could not see any sunspots associated with the other two active regions. Must remember to view the sun a bit more often as it becomes more active Images below of the Sun are from the Solar Monitor website.

Tim Gregory came to speak at the Bristol AS in 2019. Excellent speaker, every engaging and entertaining

It's going to be a tough one to spot from northern Europe I think ! I observed one of these a few years back - quite eerie to see this tiny dot of light creeping along against the backdrop of stars !

That's a good image for a mobile phone ! M82 has a couple of dust lanes across it which you can see with a larger scope at higher magnification and your image shows those. They were the 1st galaxies I ever spotted with a scope - my old 60mm Tasco refractor ! M82 might have been outside the field of view with your scope - you need a reasonably wide field and low magnification to get them both in. Good that your daughter is showing an interest as well

Yes, you do pay to use the classifieds and the forums. The Cloudynights forum is free to join and often the classifieds there carry the same adverts as Astromart. The problem with both for us is that they are predominately USA based sales and many sellers stipulate USA / Canada sales only and if they do sell over here, import duty and handling charges add a fair chunk to the price for the buyer.

I do 99% of my observing from a small patio which is about 3 metres away. The skies are around Bortle 5 / NELM 5 and a bit so not too bad. When times are normal I can go to my local astro society observatory site which is about 5 miles away. It is not much darker than my back yard but it does have a lower horizon to the South, which can be useful.

I'll have to get the toothbrush and Cif out for my Skytee II - It's looking rather "well used" too ! Great mounts though, real workhorses. Mine is very heavily used I guess you want longer slow motion cables to suit your long refractors ?. My Skytee II still has the original knobs on it but they can be quite a stretch to reach I got some lovely long ones with my T-Rex mount - I'll have to pop them on the Skytee II and give them a whirl on there.

They don't like the undercuts on most other eyepieces and accessories either, I've discovered. Great with smooth 1.25 inch barrels though.

Yes, that is the diagonal. I currently use it with the Baader click lock 1.25 inch eyepiece holder, a 15mm T2 extension to ensure that my longest eyepiece barrel does not contact the prism and on the scope side a T2 - 1.25 inch push fit adapter. Links below. I have used this diagonal in 2 inch mode with a 2 inch eyepiece holder and a 2 inch push fit adapter but currently I find that I just use 1.25 inch eyepieces with my Tak refractor. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-click-lock-125-inch-eyepiece-adapter-with-t-2-thread.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/baader-t2-extension-tube.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/diagonals/baader-nosepiece-125-t2.html I owned the Tele Vue 1.25 inch dielectric for a while and still have a couple of the 2 inch versions with other refractors. Very nicely made mirror diagonals. I didn't get a chance to compare it (the 1.25 inch) with the Baader prism though. In all honesty I can't see much in the way of performance difference between the Baader prism and my 2 inch Tele Vue and Astro Physics diagonals but that's probably just me I like the T2 prism diagonal on the Tak because it seems to suit the slender lines of the scope !

The set that I use with my refractors, which include the Takahashi FC100-DL are: Panoptic 24mm Delos 17.3mm Delos 14mm Pentax XW 10mm, 7mm, 5mm and 3.5mm Nagler zoom 2-4mm Of these, the Delos 17.3mm is probably not really needed because I tend to skip straight from the 24mm Panoptic to the 14mm Delos. The zoom to some extent doubles up on the 3.5mm Pentax XW as well but the versatility of the zoom is very valuable IMHO There are other choices of course (rather a lot !) but this is where I've ended up and I'm very content with them. My diagonal for the Tak is the Baader T2 Zeiss-standard prism. I mostly use 1.25 inch eyepieces with my refractors and keep the 2 inch ones for the 12 inch dob. @dweller25 makes a good point though, your current eyepieces are not bad by any means.

With my Tak FC100 my most used accessory is probably the Nagler zoom eyepiece. The 3mm-6mm is still available at a bit under your budget.

The star Regulus is bright - magnitude 1.4. The occultation by the much fainter asteroid would have caused a dip in the brightness of Regulus for a brief moment (less than a second).

Good find ! My admiration for this eyepiece has grown after some initial uncertainty. The night before last I just used that one eyepiece in my 12 inch dob for a whole session of galaxy hunting. Best eyepieces that ES have produced IMHO.

So did I

I observed 30+ galaxies the other night. I could not have sketched any of them, at least with any realism. Most were just a barely perceptible patch of light.

Interesting initial views from the experts at the Natural History Museum. They comment on the apparent similarities between this newly fallen meteorite material and the asteroid specimens returned from the Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx missions: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/march/uk-fireball-meteorite-has-been-recovered-driveway-gloucestershire.html Much more to come I'm sure, as the analysis of this material continues.

My Vixen ED102SS refractor fell off it's mount a couple of years ago onto our patio. It must have fallen about 5 feet onto the concrete Very fortunately the damage was limited to a paint scrape and a shallow dent at the end of the dew shield and a bent focuser pinion shaft. Both were repairable / replaceable and the optics / collimation were not effected. Obviously quite well built scopes ! I also dropped a Nagler 3mm - 6mm zoom onto concrete a few years ago from about 3 feet. Again I was very lucky and the damage was limited to a split rubber eye cup, which I managed to replace. Things could have turned out MUCH worse with both these incidents

If you do put a 30mm ES 100 eyepiece into the StellaMira 80mm ED F/10 do please post a photo - it's a 3 inch format eyepiece That aside, when actually observing you would expect the apparent size of the Moon to be larger given the additional magnification but when comparing eyepiece fields, I guess that the sim can only change the apparent size of the field of view rather than the target object. This is the un-edited version with the fields of view the correct relative sizes:

First Light Optics have provided a similar tool here: http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ One thing to bear in mind with these is that they are simulating the field of view, ie the area of sky that will be seen and the relative size of a particular target when using a particular scope / eyepiece combination but they won't simulate how bright or well resolved a particular target object will be when you actually observe it.

I think "best eyepiece" is the question that is often asked by folks before they realise just how much some of them cost !

I agree. It will be very interesting to see the results of the classification and analysis of this meteorite. It will join some of the most famous names in carbonaceous chondrite meteorite "falls" such as Allende (Mexico), Tagish Lake (Canada) and Murchison (Australia).

I did have a quick look at the Markarian's Chain before packing up. I counted at least 10 galaxies moving "down the line". Too cold and tired to be precise about the ID's though. I definitely got "The Face" and the "Eyes" plus the ones of mag 10-11 shown here:

A "witnessed fall" and a carbonaceous chondrite as well. The 28th February fireball did make it to the earth: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56326246 If any of this material ever makes it onto the market, the price will be pretty "astronomical"

Great shot Mark ! It looks as if you were looking towards Ursa Minor ? Quite a good evening for galaxy observing this evening

Excellent report - so much to see in that part of the sky ! I get goosebumps when looking at these faint smudges of light thinking how far and for how long the photons have travelled before hitting my mirrors and getting deflected into my eye