John

The view will be small as it is with all the planets.

The blurriness could be seeing conditions which have been very variable due to the Jetstream. You sometimes only see good detail and contrast for fleeting moments between the less distinct views. That is often the nature of planetary observing.

Spending some time at the eyepiece gives you more chance of seeing these moments of sharp and contrasty views.

One other issue could be the collimation of the scope. I only say "could" because it might not be this. If the collimation of an SCT is out the sharpness and contrast visible are reduced.

You might benefit from a 10mm or an 8mm eyepiece to boost the image scale of the planets but if the view is blurry at lower magnifications, using higher ones will only make this worse.

An SCT typically needs 30-40 minutes of cooling down time if it's kept in the house. More for the larger apertures.

Were you getting any dewing on the corrector plate ?. Without dew sheilds / dew bands, this can be a common issue with SCT's.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Light pollution will not affect the views of the planets much.

Can you say a bit more about how you were disappointed with the views of Mars with the Nexstar Evolution 150mm ?

You should get something that looks a bit like this with the scope cooled down and using around 200x magnification (an eyepiece of around 7.5mm focal length):

Seeing the contrast of the features does take some practice.

These so called "ball" eyepieces have been discussed quite often on the Cloudynights forum. I seem to recall at least one member has made their own version as mentioned in that thread.

I do have an old Antares HD ortho 6mm which is missing it's lenses. If I can find a suitable glass ball I guess I could have a try

Great idea - nicely executed

The best names in eyepieces do seem to have difficulty with dust caps don't they ?

The Tele Vue dual-fit 2 inch ones are not the best either

Very interesting comparison report Rob and a nice sketch as well.

Thanks for posting it

I have read a bit about these eyepieces from Siebert. You don't see many on this side of the pond though.

I nearly bought a 6" F/15. I went for the F/12 instead. When I met with John from Peak2Valley to collect the scope he also had the F/15 in his van. It was packed in one of the  the longest boxes I'd ever seen 

I was glad that I went for the F/12 - even that posed a lot of challenges to get mounted well. I think I concluded that the best place for these long, large aperture refractors is permanently mounted on a massive mount in an observatory.

It was fun "having a go" with one though

It did go to a good home with someone who did have the hardware and experience to handle it.

I've been in the hobby for around 40 years now so there have been quite a few great events

Of all of them though, none is more precious to me than the total eclipse of 1999. We had rented a cottage in Marazion for that week and we were able to be be on the beach there with the BBC film crew as the eclipse unfolded. Yes, it was largely clouded but the atmosphere was fantastic and experiencing the darkness sweeping in and across us as the lights winked on on St Michaels Mount and around Mounts Bay was simply magical. Being there with my family was even more so and my kids still go on about that experience today.

I had read about the 1999 total eclipse in "The Observers Book of Astronomy" when I was around 12 years old. I waited 27 years to see it, and it was largely cloudy. But that's the way sometimes with this hobby and I would not have missed being there for the world 

We are somewhere in this photo:

Some superb scopes featured in this thread

As I mentioned John Pons in my earlier post I thought that I'd add some pics of his creations:

5 hours ago, Barry-W-Fenner said:

You have a clear sky! Fair play John. I set the 12" dob up here and the conditions were terrible.  Like viewing through water. Now the cloud has rolled in..

My seeing ended up not great in the end Baz then clouds rolled in here as well. Ah, well

Things did get a bit better but not really as nice as previous nights this week. I guess the Jetstream might be responsible ?

It's clouded over now and that looks pretty solid so I've packed up the scope.

The seeing thus far is not co-operating. I'll keep at it for a while longer but so far the Martian features are rather indistinct and keep breaking up as the atmosphere (of Earth) intervenes

Can't win them all !

Waiting for Mars ......

Amazing !

Reminds me of John Pon's creations.

When I see scopes like that I wonder how they put it all together. My Istar 150mm F/12 was a pretty awkward thing to get onto a mount - goodness knows what something much bigger and longer is like

Thanks for posting this

9 minutes ago, johninderby said:

The 10” Bresser OTA is about 13kg and the OO12 f5.3 is aboit 16kg. The Bresser has steel tube but is much lighter than a SW250px which is about 16 or 17kg I think.

I thought the Synta 250PX OTA weighs around 13kg as well ?. The one I used to have did. Perhaps they have put on weight ?

No matter - the Bresser 10 inch dobsonian is a very fine all round instrument as a number of SGL members are finding out

The Orion Optics dobs are made a bit more manageable through their lighter weight. My 12 inch F/5.3 weighs about the same as the Bresser 10 inch dob.

Another clear night forecast here tonight

Interesting to think that Mars, though gradually dwindling in size, is still a couple of arc seconds larger now than it will be at it's maximum at it's next opposition 2 years from now. 10 days from now it will be around the size it will reach in December 2022 and after that it continues to shrink. It won't appear this large again until 2033. 

The time to observe Mars is NOW

12 inch dobs are usually a surprising step up again in terms of size and weight. Your scope is nearly as large as you are !.

1 minute ago, HollyHound said:

That's what I'm hoping for and also I was really (pleasantly) surprised how easy it was to setup and use... such a simple alt/az system, stable and smooth 👍

My 12 inch dob is as quick, if not quicker to set up than any of my refractors. Imagine what sort size / cost of mount a 10 or 12 inch optical tube would need to enable steady observing at 300x or more ?. The dobsonian mount, though simple, does just that. Great design.

Personally I think the best advice is to use your scope as often as possible on a wide range of targets.

Seeing more detail is more often a case of developing observing skills and experience and being out when the seeing conditions are good. These factors have the most influence over what you can see in my experience.

Excellent stuff !

10 inches of aperture gives masses of observing potential for years of pleasure.

I love my refractors but it's my big dob that has provided the vast majority of my "firsts" and "wows" over the years

Thats another improvement then. The older design used rather prominent nuts on the inside of the tube which intruded into the operating aperture additionally to the foil spacers. I reversed the screws on mine so the nuts were on the outside but it looks as if that issue has been addressed. Perhaps the spacers have been replaced with a large "O" ring as well - I don't see the spacers on your photos ?

Does the new version have the 3 nuts and bolts holding the objective cell onto the tube with the nuts on the inside ?

I've owned a Bresser 127L and a Meade AR5 - they were identical. The Bresser had better optics than the Meade did but I think that was sample variation as the scopes clearly came from the same manufacturer.

The 127L was a nice 5 inch achromat refractor. False colour well controlled at F/9.4 and a collimatable objective cell. They have changed the colour scheme now but I think it's the same scope. The focuser on the current version is better than the one that I had I believe. The 127L is the middle one of these:

Many, many congratulations - fabulous scope !