John

No problem. There is a lot to learn

Roland Christian - founder of Astro-Physics. Most of my stuff (90% ?) has been bought on the used market. I could not have afforded it all otherwise

I've run an Orion Optics 10 inch F/4.8 on a Giro-type alt-azimuth mount. That was a nice rig and easy to set up and use but the OO tubes are lighter than their chinese counterparts. The AZ100 would certainly cope with it easily. If you are after DSO's the additional light gathering of the 250mm over the 200mm is worth having I feel. I have owned a Skywatcher 250PX dob but never used that OTA on an alt-az mount.

Good report ! I'm finding Uranus by it's position at the top of a triangle with two stars in Cetus at the bottom. Uranus is the brightest thing in that particular patch of the sky:

I wonder if I could fit something similar to my ES 92 / 17mm ?. I've grown to like the eyepiece but what would really clinch it would be having the eye cup just a few mm further out.

Great looking setup - congratulations Good to see really effective baffling in a scope. The focuser looks the business as well !

Well I have a clear conscience I've recently sold a number of items, all in excellent condition and at prices of 50%-60% of the retail. All sold quickly and I'm pleased that they will be continuing to give good service under new ownership

Another plus point for the Delos eye cup adjustment are the calibration marks etched on the eyepiece barrel. Once you know where you like them and where your wife likes them, it is much easier to get the position spot on. With the XW you have to sort of remember how many twists. This image is from Matthew Hodgson's great review: The full review can be found here: http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2014/05/04/televue-delos-eyepiece-review/

Hi Mark, I think a Skytee II with upgraded clamps and on a 2 inch steel or Berlebach tripod would cope with that. Counterweights on the shaft opposite the scope would be needed I think. The stock 1.75 inch tripod might be a bit on the light / short side. If he can do without slow motion controls, the Giro Ercole would be another option. A strong tripod helps to get the most from these mounts when they are well loaded up. The above will not be entirely vibration free but if the optical tube is balanced they should be quite useable.

Sloppy description of the operation by me ! I did try and find a video to illustrate but could not find one quickly. It's not a difficult operation but I would not want to have to do it repeatedly during a session. Even with the XW's it would be a chore to have to adjust the eye cup position by more than a small amount each time a different observer uses the scope. Obvious solution: a set of Delos for him and a set of XW's for her

The Delos uses a system where the whole top section of the eyepiece slides in and out and is locked in place by twisting the top and bottom of the eyepiece in opposite directions. I have both Delos and XW's and I reckon the XW's are a bit easier to adjust quickly. There is not a lot in it but the Delos is a 2-handed operation whereas the XW's can be done with one.

The prism or diagonal needed to get the right angled view takes up some of the light path of the finder objective which means that finder body needs to be quite a bit shorter for the eyepiece to reach focus. You would need to chop a section off the body of a straight through finder to get it to work with the right angled prism or diagonal.

I'm wondering how the spacer increases the eye relief unless it is an optical device of some type ?. A barlow lens will increase eye relief but that is an optical device of course. I can see that it will raise the position of the eye cup though. Maybe some folks find the eye cup a little too close to the eye lens without the spacer ?. There is a similar situation with the Tele Vue 32mm plossl which is somewhat easier to use for the non-glasses wearer with the TV Eye cup Extender in place. I figure that the spacer ring supplied with the Morpheus works in a similar way ? I have the 14mm Delos by the way but I don't have an SCT. I find that the longer focal leghth Delos and XW's are very similar in performance and ease of use. I've not used a Morpheus.

Understood. Practicality is vitally important. On the subject of eyepieces, I use a Hyperflex 7.2 - 21.5mm zoom often combined with a Baader 2.25x Q-Turret barlow very often with my refractors. With a wider angle / low power eyepiece to compliment it, those 3 items are often all I use during a session. The nearest I have to the spec of the refractor you are getting is my Vixen ED102SS which is F/6.5. A very versatile instrument

It depends what you want to look at. If you have a really strong interest in the deep sky then the larger aperture that you can get with the dobsonian is the way to go IMHO. If you favour planets, the moon and double stars with the chance of getting some "nice" views of the brighter deep sky objects then a refractor does the job really well. I have 4 superb refractors from 100mm to 130mm in aperture and I love using them but I'll have to be honest and say that the vast majority of my "firsts" and "wows" have come when using 10 inch or 12 inch newtonians, usually on a dobsonian mount. I'm risking the ire of the refractor lovers (of which I'm one !) of course but that's my honest opinion after 40 years of observing with instruments of many differing designs

A good test will be the ease with which you can see the E & F stars in the Trapezium Group (Theta 1 Orionis) within Messier 42. Personally I've found that they can be really quite challenging in my 100mm / 102mm refractors but regularly visible in my ED120 and larger scopes. It's a good old Autumn / Winter challenge Tip: finding the "goldilocks" magnification seems to be important with these

Well they are free to ask what they like of course but prospective buyers are free not to buy as well. So the market will decide what is a "fair" price I think. We have had this a few times (not particularly here but generally in the secondhand market) when a popular product goes out of production, the demand increases as the availability drops and the used prices rise for a while. Usually this is a temporary thing and prices settle back down after a while. This happened with the Baader Genuine Ortho eyepieces when production ceased rather suddenly a few years ago. Used prices popped up from around £50.00 to over £100.00 for a while but then settled back down again. A few really high end products that are out of production still command prices that are more than their original retail cost eg: Zeiss ZAO orthos, Pentax XO eyepieces. TMB Supermonocentrics. In this case I think the market sustains such prices because these products were simply the best of their kind (and still are) and those who have the funds will pay what it takes to acquire them. Vixen HR eyepieces might be the next in this category although the Takahashi TAO eyepieces are still readily available and of very similar quality.

Great report and a wonderful combination of telescope and mount Steve I hope your injury continues to make some gradual improvement and I'm so pleased that the excellent Rowan AZ100 will enable you to continue to own and operate Andromeda

Same here

I have both the E21 and the N31 but use the E21 a lot more with my 12 inch dob.

The moon itself is fascinating. Then there are the planets which are not affected by the moon being in the sky. Double stars likewise. Open and globular clusters and the brighter planetary nebulae. Lots to explore even when the moon is high and bright

Thats a good plan but you need a good quality barlow to ensure that you don't introduce some unwanted aberrations.

I think that formation is the Montes Riphaeus: https://the-moon.us/wiki/Montes_Riphaeus

Excellent report. Yes, they certainly are very versatile scopes

Managed to get a couple of Uranian moons but no Martians. Clouds starting to interfere now so I'll probably pack up soon. Did manage to pick up Messier 33 - the Triangulum Galaxy and specifically NGC 604, the H II star forming region in that galaxy. Had some fun observing this fascinating patch of light at high power and trying UHC and O-III filters to see what difference they made. Not a lot tonight was my conclusion ! I'll try this again when the sky is darker. At 220x this immense nebula was nice and clear next to a magnitude 11 foreground star. Brighter surface magnitude than it's host galaxy I reckon. Probably a good place to call it a night