John

Great stuff - you have to pinch yourself to believe what you are watching sometimes !

The altitude locking rod idea was OK but incorporating the slow motion control into the rod compromised it's rigidity somewhat. It was a nice idea though. The "flex" gets progressively worse as you near the end of the altitude slow motion travel. You kind of got used to such quirks though, it was just so exciting to be using a telescope ! Having set my old 60mm Tasco up last Summer and observed with it again, I realized just what I used to put up with back in the early days of observing. The objective was good quality but the focuser and mount were quite trying by todays standards.

I used to have an Orion Optics 10 inch newtonian which had similarly projecting primary adjusting and locking screws screws. To enable it to be stood on it's mirror end I added 3 hard rubber furniture feet to the bottom of the mirror cell, spaced in between the collimation screw pairs. These feet were a bit taller than the screws projected so I could stand the scope on it's mirror end without affecting the collimation. Over the years that I've owned newtonians of different brands I've found it best to only use the locking screws when transporting the scope in a car. Once you have the primary tilt adjusted correctly, applying the locking screws can change the collimation a little, which is annoying, so I leave them loose unless the scope is being transpored somewhere. I'm going to need to re-adjust the collimation then anyway.

I think finding things in the sky and having an idea of whether or not what they have found is what they were looking for are the most challenging aspects of beginning visual astronomy. Most images online or in publications are very misleading when it comes to giving an idea of what a target object might actually look like visually through the eyepiece. This website is more help and aims to try and get quite close to what you will actually see. Even then, it is a little optimistic for those who lack experience and / or who observe under light polluted skies. But it is better than images I think: http://www.deepskywatch.com/Articles/what-can-i-see-through-telescope.html

I find the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas very useful at the scope. I tend to refer to the more detailed ones indoors. Pity the Pocket Sky Atlas is hard to get hold of.

If you are on a budget, the best performance per £ spent will come from an ortho I think. The Baader Classic orthos offer amazing performance for their <£50 cost IMHO. If you can splash out, there are wide angle eyepieces that get very, very close to ortho performance such as the Tele Vue DeLite's and Delos and the Pentax XW's. These also the observing comforts of long eye relief, a large eye lens and a wider apparent field.

I've still got mine - the 12TE-5 Mostly identical to the 9TE-5 that you have bought except that the 12TE-5 is 800mm focal length. I've lost the "Worlds Beyond" booklet and the maps etc, unfortunately but otherwise it's complete and in it's wooden trunk. I borrowed a 60mm Astral on the equatorial mount (I think it was a Prinz branded one ?) from a mate a few years before I could afford my own. I spent a happy summer observing and sketching Jupiter from my bedroom window with that scope. Yours looks a very complete and original set

This thread is titled "in praise of the AZ-4 mount" - maybe folks who want to knock it should wait for another to come along (or start their own) called "What I don't like about the AZ-4" ? I'm sure glad that I don't post gear reviews here now

That's interesting. The ones that I've owned have all used the teflon ring approach. Quite a change if they have moved to using bearings. You would have thought that they might have called it the "Mk II" with a change like that ? Was yours a new one ?

Great stuff DV ! 52 Orionis is a real tough one if the conditions are less than very good. Needs a lot of magnification to I've found !

The Skytee II / TS AZ5 mentioned earlier in this thread would do the job for you. My ED120 F/7.5 weighs around 15 lbs all up and the Skytee II handles it well without the need of a counterweight. Not the most sophisticated mount but it's robust and effective. You will need an EQ5 / HEQ5 compatible tripod - if your SW 2" is that fitting then you are all set.

Excellent choice - my copy is heavily used. I love the way the authors invite you to question how things were formed and why they might be as they are. Takes you on a real voyage of discovery !

Can you rotate the tube of your scope so that the diffraction spikes are at a different angle ?

Excellent diagonal - I use one with my FC100-DL

I've found this with a few newtonian primary cell designs. I leave the lock screws undone on my 12 inch dob now, unless it's going in the car somewhere.

There are two faint stars near Sirius that I've found quite important to being able to have a chance to see the Pup star itself. I have circled them in my sketch below (refractor view). One is the one that @Nik271 refers to in his post above. If you can see these two, you have a shout at seeing the Pup star, when the glare of Sirius A is at a minimum. Over the years I have tried filters, using the field stop edge and occulting bars but eventually it was just looking carefully under the better seeing conditions using a magnification that gave a decent image scale (250x or thereabouts seems to be good) that did the trick. As I've become more accustomed to spotting the Pup star and as the gap between it and Sirius A has gradually opened up, I've been able to see it with smaller apertures. I managed some brief glimpses of the Pup with my 100mm refractor a couple of nights ago. Rather fleeting though. If I did not know what I was looking for, I would have missed them.

The separation is 11 arc seconds. You can use the separation between Rigel A and B as a rough guide to the "scale" in the eyepiece - the separation there is 9.7 arc seconds but Rigel B is on the other side. The glare from Sirius usually extends around 10 arc seconds or more around the star, so Sirius B has to shine (well, glimmer) though that.

Hi, I recognize most of your stars. I've rotated the sketch that I made with my 120 refractor to match the orientation of yours and arrowed Sirius B. Hope that helps a bit ?:

That part of the UK had a notable meteorite fall a few many years ago. The Aldsworth meteorite fell at 4:30 pm on 4th August 1835: http://www.meteoritehistory.info/UKIRELAND/ENGL.HTM#aldsw It will be interesting to see if anybody finds a fragment of this latest fall.

Well it looked OK here earlier but went downhill quite fast - about as long as it took the 130 triplet to cool down Still, I've had quit a few nights in a row when I've been able to observe so a break won't do any harm.

I was in a similar position back in 2016. I don't image so I was looking for a "lifetime" visual scope and already had a decent 12 inch dobsonian so went for a refractor. I was dithering between a Tele Vue NP101 and a Takahashi FC100. I already had a nice and quite fast Vixen ED 102mm so I was attracted to the Tak FC100-DL which was made in limited numbers at F/9. The one I purchased was one of the last of the first run of these that was available in the UK at that time. No regrets at all about the purchase. Having some budget left over, I did then go on to find a 2nd "lifetime" refractor which I could not resist - a TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet which have a bit of a reputation. So I ended up with a "2 for 1" lifetime scope deal ! I think the TSA 120 that you mention stands out to me as an exceptional refractor, certainly for visual. I'm no imager but it would seem to have a lot of potential in that area as well. There is certainly something about the history and culture of the company and their way of doing things that makes ownership of one of their instruments very appealing. Have fun working through the options

This interpretation is 10 years old so thinking might have moved on:

And braces !!!

I bring them in and let them warm up with the caps off.

It's funny how you can happily get by with fewer focal lengths when you use 100 degree eyepieces. I'm not quite sure why it is, but that is how I've found it Probably just as well, given the cost of the things !