John

I use O-III, UHC and occasionallly H-b filters from my bortle 5 garden with my 12 inch dob. The H-b is of limited use but the UHC and especially the O-III's have quite an effect on the supernova remnants, planetary nebulae and many emission nebulae. It's worth reading up on effective exit pupils to get the best from these filters because this can make quite a difference to the overall impact. Get it right and the illustration below is not an exaggeration: It is worth getting good quality filters though. The cheaper ones are noticeably less effective I've found to my cost in the past

Hi, I have a Tak FC100-DL. I don't find that need the original long extension tube. I use the stock Tak 2 inch visual back plus the 1.25 inch Tak step down adapter into a Baader T2 Zeiss Prism diagonal (which may well have a similar light path length to the Tak prism). I find this arrangement allows all my eyepieces (Delos, Pentax XW's and a Nagler zoom) to come to focus with plenty of drawtube travel in hand both directions: If the Baader click-lock and M72-68 adapter has a similar optical length to the Tak 2 inch visual back then you should be OK to use the Tak 1.25" step down adapter if you have it or alternatively something like a Tele Vue "Hi Hat" 1.25" adapter.

Great report Mike Rubbish here - there are a few stars showing at last but it's too late to set up a scope ! Glad you had a good one though !

It is supposed to clear here at around 1:00 am for a couple of hours then cloud over again If I'm still up I'll pop out with binoculars for a quick look if it does clear.

Hi, I think the very best advice given on this forum to folks in your position is to get the great book "Making Every Photo Count" by Steve Richards: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html Apologies if you have already read this but it really is a great starting point for would be imagers

I can't help on the eye relief issue although I believe the Morpheus design generally comes closeer to delivering the full claimed eye relief than many other designs. If you are planning to use them for binoviewing it's worth checking out if they will work for you. I notice someone selling a Morpheus 17.5 on UK AB&S who bought a pair with the same thing in mind but found difficulties: https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=169727

Nice selection of gear Sounds like you have your own version of "eyepiece olympics" going on there. May the best ones win ! Actually they are all pretty good - I think it boils down to small things swaying the verdict at that level.

Sorry Dave - getting a bit "stir crazy" here 🤪

You need to get a grip on yourself Dave .......

Less. It may be easier to see M33 in a 50mm finder scope than in your main 8 inch scope, ironically. It appears as a faint hazy patch framed by a rhomboid formed by 4 faintish stars. This is M33 at 27x with a 130mm newtonian, drawing by Martijn Straub:

I tend to avoid electrics and tech associated with astro equipment. My DIY skills and tools are limited as well. My gear is off the peg and manually operated. I am very curious about the sky though so enjoy hunting for targets using star charts, finder scopes and low power eyepieces. I have learned to collimate a scope reasonably well I think and I know when I see a good star test. I have learned how to star hop and have a reasonable repertoir of objects that I can find from memory now. Not much of a list really

M33 is another where the stated magnitude is very misleading as a guide to potential visibility because it is an extended object and the actual surface brightness of the galaxy is much lower than the integrated magnitude figure of 5.7. As a face on spiral it does have a core but the brightness of that area is not much greater than that of the spiral arms that surround it. I have never seen M33 naked eye but I have seen it with 7x35 binoculars on a dark night here. Through scopes quite often and it is worth finding because it is one of the very few galaxies that contain deep sky objects (nebulae in this case) that can be seen fairly readily with amateur scopes, the star forming HII region NGC 604 in particular. The trick is to find M33 in the first place though !

Here are my two cases - the 1.25 inch set and the 2 inch set. I've edited out the case handles because it's a family forum I'm impressed by those who have managed to get down to minimalist collections. I have tried but I'm weak where eyepieces are concerned I have a gap in the top left of the 1.25 inch case as well - that's going to have to be filled with something

Where you notice additional aperture is the resolution of deep sky objects such as globular clusters (actually particularly those). On high resolution targets such as the moon, planets and double stars, the difference will be less and the 200P with it's F/6 focal ratio and smaller secondary might even have the edge.

I've owned and used lots of the Skywatcher dobs. Optically they are very good. I doubt the Bresser is any better in terms of optical performance. What the Bresser does have though is a better designed mounting arrangement and a better quality focuser. The finder mounts on the Bressers are not as good as the Skywatchers in my opinion. I have owned a couple of the EQ5 Skywatcher 200P's as well. These are F/5 rather than the F/6 of the dobsonian so need a little more care in collimation and are harsher on lower cost eyepieces. Being a visual only observer, I don't find the equatorial mounts provide any benefits and the viewing angles and portability are impacted negatively. Form imaging though, the equatorial mount has big advantages over the dobsonian. These are all decent, well tried and tested scopes though, with their own strengths and weaknesses, as all scopes have. Unless you have access to extremely dark skies I'm not sure the views of most deep sky objects will "blow you away". They will be slightly brighter and more extensive smudges of light than smaller aperture scopes show (being realistic here !). Jupiter and Saturn can be very nice with such scopes - when they are conveniently placed in the sky (which they are not really, currently). Pick the one that fits your budget best I would suggest

Thanks for the update. Good to know that you now have a nice clean scope to enjoy and be proud of

When I've compared my Vixen ED102SS (which was the predecessor to the ED103S I think and F/6.5 rather than F/7.7) to my Tak FC100-DL the main differences that I've noted are: - The star test of the Vixen shows a slightly brighter and thicker 1st diffraction ring around mag 3 and brighter stars than the Tak does. One practical upshot of this is that the Tak handles very close, uneven brightness double stars a little more easily. - The Vixen takes quite a bit longer to cool down fully than the Tak does. - The Tak images remain sharp at higher magnifications than with the Vixen. The Vixen generally seems to be maxed out at around 225x whereas the Tak stays sharp up to 280x and even 300x on a good night. I would be interested to see how the F/7.7 ED103S compares with the F/8 Tak FC100-DZ

I had a nice view of M1 a couple of nights back with my 12 inch dob. I was using a 17mm 92 degree eyepiece (94x) and an Astronomik UHC filter. Some hints of that filamentary structure were starting to show against the more nebulous areas and that "S" slightly on it's side shape was subtly indicated. This is not my sketch but shows the structure:

Pretty much as I thought - many times more than the scope cost me

Amazing looking scope ! Is that the 228mm achromat objective ? The DM6 mount by the look of it - they are strong !

Not specifying the glass types ????? Oh, they won't like that on another forum that I can think of But I guess it does provided the excuse for long threads making guesses !

The seeing was quite good here (North Somerset) last night despite the cold. There can be very local issues that can spoil that though and it's when you try and use higher magnifications that you notice where the "drop off" occurs. Lots of central heating plumes in a certain direction, for example, can cause localised poor seeing. Your collimation looks a little off but not by much. I usually check and collimate my scope at a 45 degree angle rather than horizontal.

I find that collimation is not affected particularly by the cold but eyepieces that get cold can mist up very quickly from the body heat from your eye. This is not apparent until you try and view something and it is frustrating when suddenly what was clear can't be bought to sharp focus. For this reason I keep my eyepieces a few degrees warmer than the outside temperature. If I leave one in the scope for a while I try and remember to pop it back in the case to warm up for a bit.

Yep - you can get a "3 for 1" deal with a low power eyepiece M110 is quite a bit fainter than M31 and M32 though, especially if there is some light pollution around. Nice triple galaxy possibility though.

Nice shots folks. Interesting object. I managed to track it down visually with my 100mm refractor a while back. Quite hard work with that aperture, visually !: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/350271-ngc-2419-a-very-very-distant-globular-cluster/