John

Unexpected clear, dark skies tonight. I got the ED120 refractor out and had a peruse of the usual suspect double stars in and around Orion. The seeing was decent "above the belt" (Orion's that is) but shaky lower down so Sirius was too much of a fuzzball to split this evening. Did get the tight pair of Tegmine / Zeta Cancri though so that is Phil Harringtons current "Cosmic Challenge" met https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/column/phil-harrington-s/cosmic-challenge-zeta-ζ-cancri-r3286 I decided to switch target type and have a go at some of the brighter galaxies, as the transparency seemed quite good. I popped the 24mm Panoptic eyepiece into the diagonal and set to work in Leo, starting with his "head" end and working backwards under his belly. I was quite pleased to get this haul with the 12cm aperture: NGC 2903 NCG 3190 and NGC 3193 - members of the "Leo Quartet" group. M 95, M 96, N 105 and NGC 3384 - these were all in the same field of view and very nice it was ! M 65, M 66 and NGC 3628 - the famous "Leo Triplet" and again a nice view. NGC 3628 (AKA The Hamburger) is more challenging than the other two with this scope. NGC 3489 NGC 3367 NGC 3412 NGC 3810 NGC 3705 So 15 Leo galaxies in all so far. None fainter than magnitude 11.5 but some quite challenging nonetheless in the smaller scope. Not my normal fare with this scope but it's fun to change tack from time to time

Well done ! You are lucky to have Sirius so high up down there. Here it's a "viewing between the trees / houses" job !

I've read about issues like this before with Bresser dobs. There should be an extension tube in between the focuser drawtube and the eyepiece I think. Does your scope have this ?

I use the Lunt 1.25 inch Herschel Wedge with my Takahashi, Vixen and Skywatcher ED refractors. No problems at all and no effect on the coatings. The heat is concentrated well away from the surfaces of the objective lens, where the Sun's rays are bought to focus by the objective so, in my case, 663mm or 900mm away.

Congratulations - excellent eyepiece ! Your others might not seem so good now ....... it's a sort of domino effect

Hello and welcome to the forum ! The 8 inch dobsonian is an excellent scope. Very popular on here and for good reason. In terms of what you can see, this post is worth a careful read and I think will give you some idea of the potential of your scope: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/ If you can observe away from street lights and other forms of light pollution you will see more where deep sky objects are concerned. The moon, the planets and double star observing are less affected by light pollution.

Not really, just comparing the weight of the AZ100 against that of my T-Rex. With the AZ100 I found that I needed 2 of those lovely shiny counterweights for my 130mm F/9.2 refractor so that is an additional 7.6kg so it looks like it would be a 17-18kg mount and then the tripod on top of that. Having played with the AZ100 I'm not surprised by these weights but it is useful to have confirmation because I didn't get a chance to weigh the mount plus the extra bits when I had one available. Many thanks to @Oldfort and @Stephenstargazer for the information

If the initial chart is correct I'm pretty much bang on the centre line. On the update though, the line has shifted south by 25 miles or so so I'm right on the northern edge. Probably worth a look anyway, if it is clear.

The Nagler zooms are incredibly useful eyepieces I find. What they give away in performance to specialist high power eyepieces is so slight that it is outweighed, IMHO, by the ability to instantly find tune the magnification.

Thanks again

If the TV version came with a neat blocker for that inverted "U" shaped notch in the 2 inch barrel and a flush grommet to fill the set screw hole then I might be interested. I assume that they are not as shiny on the interior as they are on the outside ?

Thanks very much ! I guess the EQ5 adapter, Nexus tray and cables don't add much - .5 kg perhaps ? So around 11 kg for the mount head, clamp and C/W bar - does that sound right ?

Could some kind soul with an AZ100 give me an idea of what the mount head plus a dual fit DT clamp on one side plus the Rowan DT bar and bracket might weigh in total ? I did actually have this combination when I was trying out the beta examples but I didn't weigh the whole setup that I was using, rather stupidly. Thanks

I suppose, in looking for a "lifelong" instrument, as well as considering what your interests are now you need to anticipate what they might be for the rest of your time in the hobby. Not easy !

I think that applies to many of the options we discuss

I've been using the Baader FT rings (28mm) on my Ethos eyepieces for years. They seem to both thread on and off the eyepiece barrels very smoothly and a variety of filter brands have screwed into them with no effort. Maybe the latest ones differ in spec a little I don't use Baader filters though.

Great thread - prompted me to try and recall what I've owned and gather some pics - while my memory still holds ! I think these are most of the ones that I've owned. One or two stock pics where I didn't have the scope long enough to take any Some I owned more than one of over the years eg: ST80's, ED80's, 150mm F/8's etc. Gold stars on the ones that I still have But I actually enjoyed them all

Me too. There was a phase when scopes came and went quite quickly here

What mount are you intending to use ? One thing about largish, long scopes is that they need pretty strong and capable mounts to allow them to perform.

A Belgian company that, for that model, use an Istar R30 objective lens: http://www.frtelescopes.com/ Here is a review of the objective in an Istar tube: http://www.istar-optical.com/istar-127-mm-(5”)-r30-f12-doublet-refractor-review.html Neil English on his Istar 127mm R30: https://neilenglish.net/5-inch-shootout-5-f-12-refractor-vs-a-5-1-f-5-reflector/ Hope that helps !

Good report ! That eyepiece looks identical in every respect to the Aero ED 30mm that I had recently. Including the lens coatings and the dust caps. They are nice and light for 2 inch eyepieces and the one I had worked well at F/7.5 and slower I thought.

If it wasn't for CN we would not have this thread. Markus Ludes (APM) posts there but not here. It's a different style of forum to SGL but there is much to be gleaned from it if you have some patience.

Amazing discoveries from beneath the Antarctic ice sheet: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56268439 If life can work things out there, I wonder where else in the solar system it might be lurking ?

It did come down quite hard looking at that landing again. I could see a little "bounce" of the nosecone through the vapours.

Well they will have learned a whole lot more - and it was a spectacular show from all perspectives !