John

27 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

Ernest in Russia has measured the apparent fields of some of the Morpheus eyepieces:

4.5mm--78°

6.5mm--79°

9mm--78°

12.5mm--78°

14mm--78°

Alas, no 17.5mm measurement.

Makes a nice change to get a little more than the spec says

I agree with the above - a good quality UHC or O-III. Usually the advice is to go for the UHC first but personally I've found the O-III makes more of an impact. Having both in due course is the ideal of course 

I use these filters often with 100mm scopes so you don't need big apertures to get benefits from them

The F/5 achromats are just not designed for high power observing really. At low to medium powers on DSO's they are nice but above around 100x and they just don't really do to well.

If you wanted a better "all rounder" one of the Skywatcher ED80 Pro's could do a good job. Wide views and nice at 150x plus as well. 

Super collection Michael - something for all eventualities

The TAL Apolar 125 was a 6 element refractor that used a very novel optical layout and no ED glass as far as I know. It showed little or no CA when I tried one out:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/104408-tal-125r-apolar-apochromatic-refractor/

The obituary for the achromat has been written a few times over the past 20 years or so but they do seem to keep making a comeback

As has been said, using the 2 inch barrel makes no optical difference to the eyepiece but does enable 2 inch filters to be used and a 2 inch fitting might be considered more secure for a largish eyepiece.

That's why I'm going to have a look at these planets any opportunity I get over the coming 15-20 days. They are a lovely sight in the evening sky right now

Even at 1 degree separation I will easily get them both in the same field of view with my ED120 refractor and the 13mm Ethos eyepiece @ 70x. Alternatively I could use the 8mm Ethos with the ED102 refractor at 83x.

With the stocks so low currently I honestly feel that it might be better to defer the purchase of a scope for a few months and perhaps go for some good books and / or a pair of decent 10x50 binoculars to continue to feed the interest ?

What is still left in stock are probably not the best choices and you could end up being disappointed rather than encouraged by the results you get.

8 minutes ago, DAVE AMENDALL said:

.... But one must not forget the supporting Hymn books such as:    The Observer's Book of Astronomy by Patrick Moore published by  Fredrick Warne & Co 1962.  pocket edition hardback.  ....Dave 

That's the one that got me started

It was actually given to my brother but I nicked it !

I've still got it somewhere, must dig it out.

I slightly more controversial one that I personally enjoyed was "The Light Hearted Astronomer" by Ken Fulton. I appreciate that it is not everyone's cup of tea though.

The sold tube is a little lighter than the flex tube version. Not by much though.

I just preferred the darker background sky that a 21mm or 31mm eyepiece gave me over a 40mm in my F/5.3 12 inch dob. I let my 40mm Aero ED go to a new home recently for this reason - each time I tried it, I much preferred the views with the shorter focal length eyepieces in terms of background sky and the contrast of deep sky objects against it

When I have seen the "secondary shadow" it has been a vague and ill defined darker patch rather than anything firmer than that. Not that I used the 40mm in the 12 inch dob very often for the reasons described earlier in this post.

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

Always thought the Opticstar achros were a good buy as the optics were decent and had a good focuser for not a lot more than some of the basic achros from other places. 

http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Telescopes-Opticstar.asp?p=0_10_1_1_90

http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Telescopes-Opticstar.asp?p=0_10_1_1_65

 

They look good but I've not been 100% sure about the quality of the objectives since reading Neil English's experiences with the 80mm F/5. He got a poor one unfortunately. He put the objective from a Skywatcher ST80 into the tube and then was much happier with the scope.

Back in 2017 the cost of ED glass was:

FPL-51 = 11x BK7

FPL-55 = 15x BK7

FPL-53 = 18x BK7

I believe the relative costs are similar today.

Given the above you would have thought that the glass used in the objective would be the principle determining factor on the overall cost of a scope

The EQ3-2 Pro has the same fitting as the EQ5 and HEQ5 which are also the same as the Vixen GP I think. This is the tripod top from an EQ5:

The bolt in the centre is M10.

It's worth a look anytime now if you get a clear sky. The chances of a clear sky at the time they are actually closest has to be slim given the conditions recently.

While I'm looking forward to seeing them close together, I've been in this hobby long enough not to pin too much on such events

As it happens my 1st scope cost me £45 as well. I bought it around 40 years ago and I still have it. It did a great job of getting me hooked on astronomy. I even managed to see some galaxies with the thing as well as the planets !

2 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

Thank you John. It certainly wasn't anything spectacular but was great to finally get back out.

I have read that some folks on. Here have managed to get jupiter & Saturn in the same FOV already. I am surprised I didn't mange to achieve this.

This evening they were 1.26 degrees apart. The 30mm Aero ED should just about fit them both in the FoV with hardly any room to spare. The 17.5mm Morpheus shows a true field of .88 of a degree so it's time is yet to come, as it were.

here.

Looks set that way this evening so I won't need to repeat last nights "jack-in-the-box" performance.

A short session is better than no session - nice report Barry

21 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

Another alternative is leaving everything setup under a cover. I use GoTo on a heavy mount and a reasonably large scope. Everything is left outside, polar aligned and star aligned. With a good cover I have never suffered from water ingress etc and I can be on my first target within 10 minutes and no lifting in and out of the house at all

I do have a cover that I can use if it looks like there might be a shower but I use this mostly for outreach observing. My scopes are all used on un-driven alt-az mounts so no alignment is needed. I do most of my observing from our small patio so leaving a large setup in place for some time is not really practical.

Interesting to hear what works for you though

6 minutes ago, Beulah said:

Yep, you could have a serious KO experience if you forget you have that setup installed in the Feathertouch! 😁

It can also come in handy though

The nice thing about the Telrad and the Quikfinder is that they were designed for astronomers by astronomers. Most of the other designs of illuminated reticule / RDF finder I've used were a bit too bright even at their dimmest setting. 

The Quikfinder has 2 illuminated reticule rings, marking 2 degrees and .5 of a degree against the sky. The Telrad has 3 rings, the extra one is at 4 degrees.

The Quickfinder has a variable reticule pulse option which some like and others don't. This is available for the Telrad as an extra I believe. I don't use that myself.

I've owned a few Telrads but with my 12 inch dobsonian I wanted to keep the nose weight down to a minimum so I went for the Quikfinder and find that it works well for rough aiming. Most of my more detailed "finding" is then done with the 9x50 RACI optical finder:

This is one of the more detailed reviews of the Tak FC100-DZ around. It includes some info on dimensions:

http://scopeviews.co.uk/TakFC-100DZ.htm