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Posts posted by John
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Played around in Orion and Gemini with the 100mm frac before supper. Finding out how well the Baader 2inch Click Lock diagonal would do on some tighter doubles and E & F Trapezium. Pretty well as it happens 🙂
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6 hours ago, Louis D said:
In my experience, my 6" f/5 Newtonian runs huge circles around my 80mm (3.1") f/5 refractor. To equate them in performance in any way is a complete insult to the Newtonian.
Maybe things were different in the UK in the 1950's though ?
I suspect Sir Patrick's advice stemmed from that era.
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5 hours ago, John said:
I can see where the moon is from the glow shining dimly through the thick cloud cover. Can barely tell the phase though. Not worth getting a scope out 😒
Next clear patch is forecast here on the 5th of March ........
Much to my surprise, I have actually had an hour observing the moon this evening. Mostly playing around with 1.25 inch and 2 inch eyepieces and a couple of diagonals to see what works best with my 100mm F/9 refractor. Some fun on a night which I thought would be a write off 🙂
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I well and truly scratched my quality refractor itch back in 2016 when I bought a new Tak FC100-DL and a pre-owned TMB/LZOS 130 F/9.2 triplet within a couple of months of each other. First time I had needed to have anything astronomical as specified items in our house insurance 😬
No regrets though - nothing like trying things for yourself if you get the chance 🙂
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I can see where the moon is from the glow shining dimly through the thick cloud cover. Can barely tell the phase though. Not worth getting a scope out 😒
Next clear patch is forecast here on the 5th of March ........
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The ED 80 / 600 would work well on a Porta 2 mount. I used a 102mm / 663mm on a Porta 1 and that was fine so the 80mm should be good.
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Seeing galaxies and nebulae in the same sky as a bright moon is really, really difficult - even the brightest ones get washed out very easily by any light pollution whether man-made or moon-made.
It is important to get the finder scope lined up accurately with the view through the main scope. Otherwise finding anything becomes pure luck and it's a big sky out there !
You can do this in daylight using a distant target (100's of meters off) such as a chimney pot or top of a telegraph pole. Get the target in the middle of the view in the main scope using the 25mm eyepiece (no barlow lens). It will probably be upside down but don't worry about that. Then, lock the scope in place and use the adjustment screws on the finder scope to get the target right in the centre of the cross hairs in the finder eyepiece. As long as you don't knock the finder, it should then be aligned when you next use the scope so what you see in the finder should be visible in the main scope eyepiece.
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1 hour ago, peanutcol said:
Hi all, total newbie here that only bought a telescope last week. Off eBay a Astrolux 76/700. £20. The blurb on a website says this, This complete telescope package has 76mm optics that will show hundreds of lunar craters in addition to the rings of Saturn and polar ice caps on Mars. Brighter galaxies and nebulae are also well within the reach of this affordable Newtonian telescope.
IS this a truthful statement and are things like this actually visa le with this scope. I struggled and failed to see the Orion nebula last night.
My first scope was a 60mm refractor. It's capabilities were similar to the 76mm reflector. With some effort and practice I was able to see the targets listed. Aside from the moon, you need to work at it, learn where the targets are in the sky and which eyepieces to use. What you are seeing will seem small and faint but such things can be seen with such a scope.
I made these sketches using my 60mm refractor 40 years ago. The Sun was observed safely by projecting the image onto white card:
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6 hours ago, vlaiv said:
Indeed, however, you will find that most 6" F/8 newtonians come with 1.25" focusers while most 4" F/10 achromats come with 2" focusers...
The Skywatcher 150P F/8 dobsonian uses a 2 inch focuser. The 150PL OTA or EQ mount version uses 1.25 inch. An odd variation I always thought 🤔
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4 hours ago, bosun21 said:
I understand what you mean now. Thanks 👍.
Just don't try and look at the tip of a Herons beak with it ! 😁
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1 hour ago, Stu said:
Thanks for the heads up. Pretty close to me so I’ll likely make a trip down to take a look.
Hope to see you there Stu 🙂
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43 minutes ago, bosun21 said:
The 30mm, 24mm and the 10mm are the ones that i have owned and found them to be very good. The 10mm in particular is light and compact with sharp images over its 60° FOV. The 30mm speaks for itself with everyone who owns one.
I've come across eyepieces that speak for themselves before - they usually say "buy me" 🙄
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Just now, quasar117 said:
With regards to looking after them is beeswax best or an oil?
Probably remiss of me but I've not needed to treat it with anything so far. I guess mine is about a decade old now 🤔
It still seems to look fine.
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2 hours ago, quasar117 said:
That I will 👍.
I'm currently looking at a used AZ4 that I could regrease and working nice and smooth.
More alternatives if you can live without slow motion controls: Tele Optic Giro mount or Altair Sabre. Both would give you more capacity than the AZ-4, thinking of possible future scopes.
Just a thought - you may have had too many of those already !
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I have enough refractors so I'd go for the F/8 6 inch newtonian I think.
I always liked the classic looks of the TAL 2M 🙂
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That is excellent news 😄
I always enjoy my visits to the NLO 👍
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I think these single arm alt-azimuth mounts need to be designed and engineered really well to be able to hold a 4 inch F/7 or longer refractor steady at higher magnifications.
The AZ-4 does well for all it's simplicity because it's arm is not as long as some and is not ventilated - it's a solid shape with cast in strengthening spokes. Those "cut away" style long armed mounts will cope with short tube scopes fine but the moment arm forces created by longer tubes create that much more stress on the head and tripod hub areas.
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I found SGL over 18 years ago now.
Just before that I found the CN forum and joined that but it seemed a daunting place to interact with given my level of experience (very little !) back then. SGL seemed much more accessible and comfortable for a relative newcomer to telescopes and observing.
While the membership of SGL has increased substantially over the years, the style and "feel", for want of a better word, of discussion has remained largely the same.
I often liken communication on SGL to a group of friends discussing shared interests over a beer in a pub, which suits me very well 🙂
I still visit the CN forum quite frequently and post there from time to time but SGL has had to put up with many, many times as many posts from me - but please take that as a compliment 🙂
I spend a lot of time here and it's proved an invaluable, and probably essential, part of my enjoyment of astronomy.
Having played a part in moderating the forum for a while I know the care and thought that goes into that behind-the-scenes so it's nice to know that we and the forum are in such good hands
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I had an AVX for a while but it didn't seem noisy to me. I didn't use the GOTO facility though so I was not doing big slews with it, just using the drive system to track the scope.
I'm no expert on EQ mounts but the AVX seemed a decent mount to me. Quite a high capacity for it's weight. It did a decent job with my 130mm F/9.2 triplet refractor on board.
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Nothing like that applies to my astro society. We welcome new members. No vetting or approval process.
No Vulcans though, obviously 😉
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4 minutes ago, jock1958 said:
Hi Paul what’s the FLO version of the Skytee 2 and how does it differ from other versions?
Until an affordable quality replacement comes along I’ll soldier on with my 8 year old ST 2.Yep - my old ST 2 does a sterling job with my 100mm - 120mm refractors. The fit and finish is a little basic but it just works.
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2 minutes ago, quasar117 said:
Can't seem to find an AZ4 that doesn't comes on its own without the steel tripod. As I already have a sturdy tripod. Do you think the AZ4 can be mounted on other tripods with M10 stud or is a proprietary mount that can only fit on the Skywatcher 1.75" steel tripod?
I've fitted the AZ-4 to a variety of different tripods. As long as they have the M10 screw it seems to fit. The mount works better with an EQ5 / HEQ5 tripod hub though because they have that round ~60mm recess in the top. The AZ-4 is a slightly awkward design IMHO because it does not fully fit into that 60mm recess but I guess that is the way it was designed ?
I hope you find the AZ-4 up to the job. Personally I think it might be pretty much on it's limit with a 102mm F/7 refractor at the high powers that such scopes are capable of supporting.
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I have used Ethos eyepieces for high (and low) power observing for a decade or so with dobs and refractors.
Personally I think they are superb eyepieces in both these roles. I currently have the 21mm, 13mm, 8mm, 6mm and the 4.7mm in the series. I would like to get the 3.7mm again - I rather miss it 🙄
There are excellent alternatives of course so you have good and less expensive options as well if they are of interest.
@JeremyS has discovered the virtues of Ethos eyepieces relatively recently and I believe is really enjoying them as well 🙂
NB: I have used the 2x Powermate with the 13mm and 8mm as well in the past and the performance was still exceedingly good. The resulting "stack" in the focuser gets rather long though.
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Advice on an Ethos for high power observing
in Discussions - Eyepieces
Posted
Thats true. The 8mm and 6mm Ethos are actually a little lighter than their Delos counterparts.