John

When I had an 8 inch F/5.9 dobsonian, I also had the 22mm Type 4 Nagler and it is a superb eyepiece

Another possibility would be the 28mm Nirvana which is also an 82 degree eyepiece.

Very encouraging 1ist light report

I like to try out new-to-me refractors on some tight binary stars including those of uneven brightness.

Stars such as Delta Cygni and Pi Aquilae are currently well placed for such trials.

From my own experience moving from a TAL 100 to an ED doublet, the difference between the TAL 100 and the Altair 102ed-r will be mostly in the control of false colour I think. The TAL 100's that I've had have had well figured objectives so will basically show most targets as well as the more expensive ED doublets will but with some false colour around the brighter targets.

The faster focal ratio of the Altair will open up options for wider fields of view than the F/10 TAL can achieve though and should be OK on a slightly lighter duty mount.

Must be something wrong with my TeleGizmo's cover. It's been through two owners and is around 8 years old and still in good shape and weather proof

1 hour ago, Merlin said:

Come now Peter, There's no such thing as a Dobsonian telescope. Let's be more specific and give credit to Issac Newton. As we know,John Dobson knocked up a simple push'an'pull altazimuth mounting, and he wasn' t the only one to knock one up. I always find it irritating when retailers refer to "Dobsonians", implying that Dobson invented a type of reflecting telescope, although he was a good mirror maker. 

You are correct of course but the term is in wide circulation throughout the astronomy world and has been for the past decade or more.

I suspect we are stuck with it

Do you have any suggestions for the original poster on suitable telescopes ?

2 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Pic in the ad shows the tube rings althpugh think you will want to change the dovetail bar.

Dew shield looks longer than the Messier 127L that I used to have and the objective cell looks different as well. The one above looks more like a 102mm to me

This was my Bresser 127L:

I have both O-III and UHC filters. The O-III filters get used a lot more.

Good advice above on not economizing on these sorts of filters as well. The low cost ones are noticeably less effective from my experience.

Great sketch Mike !

Interesting comparing one of Lowell's sketches to yours (see below). You can sort of see how he came to the "canals" idea. He just took the contrast of the linear features that bit further !

He had a scope 20 inches larger in aperture than yours though

Talking of which, I was at the Lowell Observatory this time last year - what a long time ago that now seems

Anyway, sketches. I've cropped and rotated yours to get a closer match, hope that is OK ?:

Percival Lowell, 1894:

Mike Hezzlewood 2020 (cropped and rotated):

It is probably best if this thread deals with @Steve Clay's issues with the Baader Steeltrack in his ED120 scope rather than open up a general discussion on other scopes, definitions etc.

I wish I could help myself but I use a Moonlite focuser with my ED120.

20 minutes ago, orions_boot said:

Do you still need a right angle finder if using a telrad or quick finder?  I was getting some funny looks across the room at the price of everything so I took a short cut and started with the quick finder which is better than half the price.  I have read a lot of people saying they never used a scope again since they started with one.

I find that it's very useful to have both types of finder on the scope. The Telrad / Quikfinder type to get to the right patch of the sky and then the optical finde (I prefer the RACI types) to get much more precisely to where the target is. I make sure that the optical finder is accurately aligned so that what is in the cross hairs is in the center of even a high power eyepiece.

It is quite possible to operate with just one or the other finder types but having both is the optimum in my opinion.

This is the top end of my 12 inch dobsonian:

You might find these threads of interest - they both involve the same scope that you are about to upgrade to:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/360946-preferred-focal-length-spacing-for-your-eyepiece-collection/

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/361886-help-with-my-eye-piece-set/

1 hour ago, Stardaze said:

Used the XW last night for the first time and really found the eye placement very strange. I do love the 8mm Ethos though, very different moving from that to the XW 5. I'll get used to it, I'm sure. Got an early glimpse of Mars which is encouraging for the month ahead.

They are very different eyepieces I agree. Do you have the eye cup in the "up" position ?

If you wear glasses when observing though, the eye cup should be twisted down.

Mine is a TeleGizmo's but not a £200 one:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telegizmos-telescope-covers/telegizmos_tg2d.html

I bought it used for around £30 I think.

Just now, Ruud said:

@John, I fell for Baader's suggestive advertising and feel stupid for it. Generally I am not stupid and I certainly do not thinks members here are stupid.

I mentioned the liquid before:

and:

and possibly elsewhere too.

So Baader's wonder is an overpriced product that does what it promises. At the same time I feel people should be warned against Baader's suggestive selling point that it contains two anti-fungal ingredients. Any alcohol kills spores.  Baader's wonder is just a mixture of two watered down alcohols: ethanol and propanol. 

I fell for it and wasted some money. I want to help others against doing the same. Like me, they may feel that they are buying a product with special additives that protect against and prevent lens fungus. They aren't.

They are just buying two watered down alcohols for a ridiculous price.

Is it so strange that I felt stupid for doing that?

 

Just don't imply that other peoples choices are stupid - OK ?

It's not much to ask is it ?

When I had a Bresser 127L refractor it had this type of finder shoe on the scope:

I replaced it with a Skywatcher compatible finder shoe that was designed for SCT scopes which looked like this:

The replacement used the same bolts and holes that the original Bresser one had used so no drilling needed.

I think the above finder shoe costs around £10 if you can find one.

I might still have it knocking around somewhere

Very nice session by the sound of it Mark

I was using my 12 inch dob as well last night. The views of Saturn and Jupiter were OK but a bit wobbly so I turned to planetary nebulae and globular clusters instead.

Unfortunately I was clouded out before Mars was in a decent observable position.

I'm still hoping for glimpses of Phobos and Deimos this opposition. 

I keep mine a bit above the outside temperature during a session. They are either inside or in their foam lined boxes. The foam seems to retain the heat a bit - keep the lib down between eyepiece changes and that seems to do the trick.

If an eyepiece gets cold it tends to mist up in the colder weather as your eye approaches the eye lens. Very frustrating as I've found when I've left an eyepiece in the scope for sometime during a cold session.

40 minutes ago, Ruud said:

I once was stupid enough to buy a bottle of Baader's liquid....

 

That's pretty rude isn't it ?

Deliberately posting that in a thread where you know that others have made the choice of the Baader product ?

By all means make difference choices and explain your reasoning but have some respect for other fellow members choices here, as per the forum Code of Conduct. Implying that others are "stupid" is not in keeping with that.

Thanks.

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

Last night's view of Mars was probably the best I've had so far this year. With my 180 Mak, I found I got the best view with a 0.9 Baader ND filter, and even at its current altitude, my ADC helped a bit with contrast. Best magnification was x250 once the scope had settled and Mars had risen a bit (24:00). I could see a few of the details that I'd captured in an image the night before I think including the albedo area around Olympus Mons.

Chris

It had clouded over here before Mars rose high enough to observe

Before then I had a really good session with my 12 inch dob on planetary nebulae and globular clusters.

54 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

.... its SW 150ED finder......  

Here as well. All going really well until that !

Nice dark night here and I'm busy touring the sky with my 12 inch dobsonian.

I was using Stellarium as my guide and had picked off a number of the brighter planetary nebulae.

The software was showing the planetary NGC 7354 in Cepheus which was well placed high in the sky. I can't recall observing this one before so hopped to it using a helpful triangle of stars with the variable star Delta Cephei at it's point.

After a little scanning around at 70x magnification I spotted a suspect faint blob. I was using a zoom eyepiece so I could just dial in some more magnification and at around 200x the pale roughly circular patch of light was quite nicely defined. It looked rather like a miniature version of M97, the Owl Nebula.

UHC and O-III filters made it pop out more and some suggestions of texture started to show across it's face.

So a nice planetary nebula which is new to me.

What I was a little surprised to find though was that NGC 7354 is not shown in my S&T Pocket Sky Atlas. While not the brightest PN, it was not too hard to find and, once found, stood out rather well I thought.

It's listed at magnitude 12ish on some web references with even fainter surface brightness but it did not seem that faint tonight. My estimate would be around mag 11ish.

It's well worth looking for if you have a 10 inch or larger aperture I think. I've added a finder chart from theskylive.com below showing it's general location:

46 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Thwarted here too. Lovely blue all day as you Dave.  Starts to get dark and Bam. It’s even trying to rain now.  Grim.  Really fancied a session as day off tomorrow....

 

That's bad luck.

I won't go on about my lovely clear dark skies here tonight then .....

I have the Baader Zeiss T2 prism diagonal which I use with my Tak FC100. The Tak is F/9 and the prism works excellently with that but I'm not sure that they are as suitable for faster refractors ?

Seeing a bit wobbly here as well but the view is OK.

Does make me hanker for the days when Jupiter was high in the sky though. The details that my 12 inch dob would show back then far surpass what can be made out with it this low in the sky

GRS seems a little smaller than in previous years perhaps ?

4 minutes ago, johninderby said:

+1 for the Baader Optical Wonder fluid. It simply works and I know it isn’t gping to harm the lens or objective that needs cleaning.

 

+2 for it. I've had a bottle and the micro fibre cloth for ages and they are still doing a great job.

Not an area that I'm interested in economizing in.