John

The baffle is fixed to the inside of the corrector plate with special adhesive. If it has been badly placed or has moved it is not something that can be fixed by the owner really. If the scope was new then it is definitely a return issue.

I have heard of these baffles shifting when a scope has been subject to very, very hot conditions, laid on it's side for long periods (months).

I didn't like the instajust feature of the Radian's and T4 Naglers and find the system that the Delos (and presumably Delites) use much better.

Once I've found "my" position though, that's it. The top section of the eyepiece is locked in place and stays there.

The issue with the instajust system on the Radian's and T4's was that it could slip out of place too easily as you pick the eyepiece up by the top section and even make you feel as if you had dropped the eyepiece as the internal barrel slipped down a few notches

3 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

@John Well done! I’m a bit puzzled why the ISS doesn’t appear as a silhouette in your pictures. There’s probably a really obvious reason. 

I was a bit surprised myself but I assume that it was highly illuminated by the Sun at that point in it's path across the sky ?

4 minutes ago, markse68 said:

I had a go at the double double tonight- it’s been ages since I last looked at it. I had a clean split at 80x with my 20mm ep and it was split at 64x with my 25mm ortho but I find with bright stars and longer fl eps that I get a kind of flaring almost like astigmatism and i’m not sure what’s the cause- it may be my eyes I guess. It’s not the star shapes as such but some optical anomaly i think that prevent splitting at lower powers

What scope were you using Mark ?

Another view of Neowise tonight with the 11x70's. Now in Coma Berenices. Still a decent comet in binoculars but its fading now. Tail seemed shorter as well tonight although that might have been the mediocre sky transparency.

Seems a long time ago that I first saw it - 6th of July in fact. By gosh that was exciting !:

I think Vixen are using the lightweight Skywatcher / Synta aluminum tripod for the Porta II. I agree that the tripod with the Porta I was much better. At least you can move the Porta II to another, better, tripod though.

Does the Porta II still use those plastic slow motion controls that the Porta I used ?. They were quite poor.

3 hours ago, Greymouser said:

It's OK guys, you can get very similar, but cheaper elsewhere.

So less of a worry that you are buying rubbish?

 It is in stock in the UK too, but not the pink one. Telescope house. 

I can't believe this thread is still running

I think I added a post early on to say that I would not have mentioned it if the scope had been priced at £25 or so.

The Telescope House one has a better price and, IMHO, a nicer colour

Got the split of Epsilon Lyrae with a Celestron 90mm mak-cassegrain at 90x tonight. Lower and the slightly wider pair stayed split but the closer pair became heavily notched but not quite split.

These little scopes are a lot of fun !

Don't know if this will upload and display but it's an animated GIF of the only 2 frames that I took which show the ISS. I've arrowed the ISS in red in both frames:

As you can see the moon was just starting to pass behind some trees foliage !

Went right across the disk here but darn hard to capture in an image. I watched it pass across the face of the moon through the viewfinder of the DSLR connected to my 1250mm FL mak-cassegrain. It shot across in just a second - fast moving tiny bright patch of light. I think two of my frames caught it as a bright feature but my camera only shoots at 6 FPS max and my reactions are probably not great

If I have caught anything worth posting I'll stick it up but I'm no imager. It was fun trying though and I did see it at least

Stellarium was spot on with it's prediction of the ISS lunar transit tonight as well.

Pretty much through the centre of the Moons disk here, but .......... the moon is very likely to be behind some huge chestnut trees when it happens

If filters are used the optical quality needs to be good enough that nothing undesirable is added to the view, eg: light scatter. Splitting tight doubles is a test of the whole optical system, and the observers eye !

Personally I have not found that filters help with double star splitting - even the really challenging ones such as Sirius.

People do use green filters for star testing scopes because you get a cleaner definition of the airy disk and diffraction rings.

5 minutes ago, davekelley said:

It's totally forecast clear here! 

 

And here !

34 minutes ago, Mark at Beaufort said:

...John I did not appreciate you had a f/11 achromatic frac....

I didn't really intend to get one Mark but I can't resist a bargain, unfortunately

I think Mikes scope has something to do with it

I agreed a strict 4 scope limit with my wife a few years back.

I've currently got 8 ..............

But several of them are "projects" which I'm tinkering with and will sell them on real soon of course 

(Stock Astronomers Excuse #27)

Closer inspection of AR12768 reveals a split umbra but little or no penumbra.

Two active regions on the solar disk at the moment and both have produced sunspots.

AR12767 has a nice spot associated with it showing a well defined penumbra and a reasonably complex umbra structure.

AR12768 has a small dark spot but rather nice faculae complex nearby, towards the solar limb.

Well worth a look

I'm using a 90mm F/11 achromat refractor today with a Lunt 1.25" Herschel Wedge and a 7.2mm - 21.5mm zoom eyepiece fitted with a single polarising filter.

Views are clear and stable up to around 100x-120x.

Here is a solarmonitor.org white light image from this morning:

13 hours ago, Dantooine said:

That’ll be your Nagler 31 🤔

Yes.

As @garryblueboy says above though, the Panoptics are fine eyepieces. You do need to draw a line somewhere especially as this is supposed to be a "minimalist" set.

Otherwise we would all have full sets of Ethos, a Docter 12.5mm, A couple of Nikon NAV HW's, a set of Delos, a set of Zeiss ZAO II's and a Leica ASPH zoom and VIP barlow so we have every situation covered to the highest possible standard

Actually I think one or two members might have already reached that point ........    

My "minimalist set" is a zoom, a barlow and a 25mm 58 degree fixed focal length. Total cost around £100 I suspect

Sounds like a job for the 12 inch dob tonight

Thanks Jeremy

Last night I managed to split both pairs of Epsilon Lyrae with a 90mm F/11 refractor (cheapie !) at 74x. I was using a 7.2- 21.5mm zoom and gradually adjusting until I could just see the thin black gap between the star pairs.

I got Pi Aquilie with the scope as well but that needed 180x !

I use these guidelines when I'm working out whether I've got a split or not although I sometimes also throw in the terms "snowman" and "peanut" because that's what not-quite split sometimes looks like !

The above pairs were clearly "split" to me last night (and a few others too):

I like the arrangement that Baader use in the 1.25 - T2 click lock adapter:

The 3 grip bars that run along the eyepiece barrel seem to be immune from getting snagged on undercuts and also hold barrels with a taper on them well too.

I wonder why they don't use this system in their 2 inch adapters as well ?

Perhaps it would be too bulky to implement in the larger diameter

2 hours ago, paulastro said:

I think what would meet the bill would be a SW AZ6 - a beefed up, larger scale AZ5!  🌝

I still think there is a niche for a decently made alt-azimuth mount that sits somewhere between the Skytee II / Giro Ercole and the £1K + mounts in capacity and cost. The Bray Tablet used to sit around there as did the Giro XXL but those are long gone now.

I did wonder if the AZ100 might be it but that has ended up in the £1K plus bracket once you have a tripod, clamp, counterweight bar and weight. A wonderfully made mount and I can see why it is priced as it is.

But there is still a yawning gap to be filled IMHO.

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

This is what a zoom EP would be useful for!

Yes, very.

I find that my Tak 100 is just getting into its stride at 200x and sails up to 300x fairly easily on the right targets. I was using 450x on the Moon with this scope last night when observing crater chains. Most of the time it was less than this but the "crazy" magnification was surprisingly sharp though it does get a bit dim.

My Vixen ED102 F/6.5 starts to run out of puff at about 200x - 250x though so I guess the figuring and polish of the Tak is a bit better