John

That is a super image I was daft enough to look for this one a while back with my Tak 100 refractor. Just about managed to get a glimpse of it. Fascinating object though: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/350271-ngc-2419-a-very-very-distant-globular-cluster/

This is the only pre-2000 eyepiece that I own now. It just squeezes into the criteria having been launched in 1999. My particular example is probably around 15 years old perhaps ?

I found these links very helpful when I was initially trying to see the Horsehead Nebula: https://observing.skyhound.com/archives/jan/IC_434.html http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/000379.html

Very nice Michael. Has a real "classic" look to it

Fortunately the prices of Orion Optics scopes are (usually) somewhat more reasonable bought used. You can avoid that wait time and their "customer service" as well by buying used.

It's a huge object. Big binoculars and dark skies are probably the best bet for this one. Here is the moon and NGC 7000 to the same scale: With a really wide field / low power eyepiece and a good UHC filter you might make out the outline of the "gulf of mexico" area.

The forecast is clear here for most of tomorrow and right through the night but I have committed to a family virtual get together on Xmas eve evening so that will have to take preference.

Hi and welcome to the forum. 400m would be far enough to get a roughly accurate alignment of the finder. You can always "fine tune" it using a star at the beginning of a session. Carrying the scope around just take care not to bash it and it should be fine. If you take it on a car journey you will probably need to re-adjust the collimation of the primary and secondary mirrors again. Most likely the primary tilt because that is the heavier piece of glass. I tend to tweak the finder alignment and check the collimation each time I start a session with my dobsonian. It only takes a couple of minutes.

Thanks Stu. I don't recall having seen 3 planets in a scope field of view before

I just use a single polarising filter with my Lunt 1.25 inch Herschel wedge. On the bottom of the eyepiece, you can control the brightness of the image by rotating the eyepiece. The light comes through the wedge polarised in one plane so you just need the single polarising filter between it and the eyepiece.

I've been having a clear out and have come across my very early observing notes and sketches. Most of these date back to the 1983-85 period when I had just got my first scope - a 1960's Tasco 60mm refractor ! It is interesting to re-read my "early discoveries" and to re-capture just a touch of the excitement that I was feeling back then. I had forgotten the sketches that I used to do so I thought it worthwhile to scan a few for posterity. This first one was done in my pre-telescope days when I was just using mum and dads 8x30 binoculars (Prinz branded I seem to recall). Funny how I added the diffraction spikes to the stars in this one . It shows the comet Iras-Iraki-Alcock moving between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major over a period of 24 hours between the 9th and 10th of May 1983. This comet came closer to the Earth than any other had for 200 years at that time. The next sketches were all made using my 60mm Tasco refractor using the stock eyepieces at 45x, 66x or 133x. I'm surprised that I managed to capture some features on Mars with that small scope. I remember trying like anything to see the Cassini Division but never managed it with that scope, no matter how much I used "averted imagination" The Sun was clearly quite active back then. Like a good boy, I threw away the dangerous solar filter that came with the scope and used eyepiece projection onto a card screen selotaped to the projection screen that was provided with the scope. The details seen were pretty good for this basic equipment and inexperienced observer I guess. Quite enough to get me hooked and 37 years on I'm still doing this stuff. I really ought to do some more sketching though

The nearest that I have used are the Myriad 100's Steve, which Don Pensack assures me are the same optics as the APM / LUNT 100's but with a differently designed top / eye cup section. I was quite impressed with those. I ought to point out though, for completeness, that I was not using a coma corrector for the testing with my dobsonian and no field flattener with the refractors used https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/236613-skywatcher-myriad-100-110-degree-apparent-field-eyepieces/ I thought the 20mm was the most enjoyable to use.

This is a USA based TAL vendor. They might be able to help: http://talteleoptics.com/

I tend to feel that an interactive, iterative process involving questions and responses from both the enquirer and from experienced members is likely to result, ultimately, in better tailored options than a more structured, formulaic, approach. Yes, a number of the questions asked and answers given will involve some repetition but that process also provides the opportunity for the enquirer to learn about why certain choices have certain implications and also to build their relationship with the existing forum membership. SGL is after all an astronomy discussion forum

I've never used them but I would probably go for some of the Baader Morpheus as well because I've heard so many good things about them. I'd select 4 from the Morpheus range (14mm, 9mm, 6.5mm and 4.5mm perhaps) and also an APM / LUNT 20mm / 100 which could just be squeezed out of the budget I think.

Hi Ron, Very nice to hear from you again !

Today and this evening have been a total washout here as predicted Very glad that we been able to observe the pair quite a few times as they approached each other. Just as well that this is an event that unfolds over a period of time - more chances for us astronomers under highly variable winter skies to get some views in

That's very true.

I was serious as well - after a while on forums you can sort of tell

I'm not sure that they would be your "cup of tea" to be honest with you "try before you buy"

No window to view them today - solid cloud and rain all day and on into the night. Glad I saw them yesterday: 9 arc minutes vs 6 arc minutes - not a lot of difference ?

The scope will have a longish dovetail bar. The mounts use dovetail clamps but the stock clamps on the Skytee II are not very well made which is why most folks upgrade them.

Nice scopes - I've owned a couple in the past The EQ5 is OK for visual observing (steel tripod though). A Skytee II would hold it OK if you go alt-azimuth. Need to upgrade the dovetail clamp though, for a heavy scope like that.

Yes, in some cases the 2 inch "skirt" is there as a convenience to enable a 2 inch scope connection to be used for a heavy eyepiece. The optics in these cases are still 1.25" When the field stop of the eyepiece needs to be over 27mm, the 2 inch format barrel is required to accommodate that and the eyepiece is a "true" 2 inch one. This graph sets out the limits for the 1.25 inch barrel :

I did an outreach session at a school last year. We did some solar viewing in h-alpha and also tried an exercise with the children to try and demonstrate the scale of the solar system. Not a video or an app but something practical. We used a basketball to represent the Sun and a small bead to represent the Earth which were about the right relative sizes. We asked the children to think how far the Earth / bead might be from the Sun / Basketball on the same scale and they had some guesses by running off around the playground in small groups with beads (dropping their Earths a few times I might add - just as well that we had some spares !). We then positioned it at about the correct distance (about 20 metres away I think ?). We then produced a golf ball to act as Jupiter and they went running off again trying to work out where it would be relative to the Sun and Earth. The answer was somewhat further off than they expected - it was towards the edge of the school playing fields I seem to recall - a bit over 100 metres away. And finally we produced a cricket ball to represent the nearest star - Proxima Centauri and asked for guesses where that would need to be placed. The children knew that the nearest star would be a lot further away so came up with suggestions of nearby towns or even Scotland in one case. The answer did rather surprise them as it did us when we worked it out - the cricket ball would need to be in the middle of Africa to be on a similar scale and we would all need to get on an airplane to take it there ! Now the exact sizes of our representative objects might only be approximately right and similarly with the distances that we reckoned that they needed to be placed but the overall but I think that the whole exercise did at least start to illustrate the sort of scales that we are considering in astronomy. And, most importantly, it kept 8 and 9 year olds interested and active for the 30 minutes or so that it took to complete the exercise. We really enjoyed it as well