John

Very nice Paul Does the Vixen GP do that ?

The Tak is F/9 so the Vixen can show a much wider field of view. I've owned the Vixen for over 10 years now - I'm rather attached to it. But, yes, the Tak does handle very high magnifications (200x plus) better than the Vixen does.

I agree. My 130mm F/9.2 performs fabulously. Probably the best optics I have ever observed through Oddly, my most "transparent" objective, photographically anyway, seems to be the ED120: I don't know what glass / coatings are used on the Nagler 31mm but the field lens of that seems to "disappear" as well.

I remember when that Vixen ED150 was reviewed in "Astronomy Now". I have probably still got that edition somewhere. I read the review and looked at the pics somewhat open mouthed then saw the price and my heart sank - it was way, way beyond my means back then, not to mention that only a handful were available Its great that today we can buy a decent quality ED doublet 6 inch refractor, "off the shelf", for around £1,500

Damian Peach did used to use refractors. A Vixen ED150 was one of them. One of the few of these that made it into the UK. He used it mainly for solar imaging I think. Quite impressive results with that and other refractors: http://damianpeach.com/solar.htm

The stock tripod is a weak link with a number of mounts that I can think of. Where possible I prefer to purchase the mount head on it's own a choose a suitable tripod for it. I have the tripod from an old Meade LXD55 mount at the moment. It is aluminum but of the thicker walled type and much sturdier than the latest flimsy ones. All metal fittings as well. It reminds me of the old Japan made aluminum tripod that my Vixen Super Polaris had. The LXD55 mount itself is long gone but I'm holding on to the tripod in case it comes in handy. It's EQ5 / Vixen GP compatible

Here are the specs on the scope from the Skywatcher web site. The colour scheme has changed recently but it is the same model: http://skywatcher.com/product/bk-909az3/

Really good to hear of another great ED150 I'm so glad Synta sorted this scope out and made sure that they were delivered in good shape after my unfortunate experiences with those very early ones. I'd love to try "good un" one day

On my SLR and now DSLR cameras position of the the focal plane of the camera is marked on the body with a symbol: I wonder if it would be useful to have the field stop position (which has to be at the focal plane of the eyepiece) marked similarly on the body or barrel of the eyepiece ?

Great result on Zeta Herc Rob and the other stuff. Proves that the 6 inch F/8 newtonian is still a top performing option

Should be good ! When you have a look at the filter, see if the word "Profil" is printed on it or not. Some seem to have that and some don't but I can't find out the significance of it Thanks

The shoulder of an eyepiece is where the (usually) black body section meets the 1.25 inch or 2 inch barrel. It usually is where the eyepiece rests when it is inserted into a diagonal or focuser drawtube. Field stop position is usually expressed in terms of mm above or below the shoulder. Tele Vue have a useful page of data on their eyepieces which includes a diagram to explain the various measurements. They refer to the shoulder as the "reference surface": http://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=214&plain=TRUE

I have one for my 12 inch dob. It is a simple disk of cardboard with a hole cut in it that is the maximum size that will miss the secondary support vanes and the secondary and it's support boss. The pattern is like this with the "E" measurement in my case being around 110mm in diameter. The mask is fixed over the open top end aperture of the tube. It works and the views I get are quite close to those that I get with my 102mm ED doublet refractor.

Class glass Matthew Your 2019 LZOS 130 F/9.24 is #122. My 2006 130 F/9.24 is #020. That's around 8 per year I reckon.

If you click on the image it takes you to a flickr page by Simon Spiers, who knows a bit about binoculars.

A form of Konig ?:

Two "90's" in action tonight - 90mm F/11 achromat refractor and 90mm maksutov-cassegrain. Very similar optical performance. Nice views of Saturn and Jupiter Both these scopes together cost less than 100 quid - don't tell the expensive ones that were left indoors tonight

I'm following these events under rather misty conditions here with two 90mm scopes - the mak-cassegrain and a F/11 achromat refractor (Celestron branded like the mak-cassegrain). Seeing is stable but detail hampered by mist and thin cloud. I could not see Europa itself but it's shadow is clear against the north equatorial belt. Great Red Spot has come on to the planets disk now. I'm getting 4 belts plus the darker polar areas. Suggestions of a couple of festoons from the NEB diagonally southwards. The views are very similar between these scopes as might be expected. There is a touch of false colour around the planet with the refractor and this contrasts with the totally CA free image from the mak-cassegrain. I feel that lack of CA gives the mak the edge on contrast and sharpness tonight. I'm about to loose Jupiter behind a tree but it's been nice seeing some of this unfold. Thanks for the heads up Chris

Two answers for the price of one

You need a pair of tube rings to fit the tube and a dovetail bar to fit in the mount jaws. Not sure about the tube ring diameter you need - maybe 101mm ? - ask FLO, they will know. I'm assuming your AVX clamp will fit the Vixen / Skywatcher dovetail bar rather than the wider Losmandy type. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/tube-rings/skywatcher-telescope-tube-rings.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/astro-essentials-dovetail-bars.html

These 3 should be close in the sky for a couple more nights at least so all is not lost ! Thin hazy cloud laying spoiling things here tonight. Neowise is visible but the other two not. Even the Ring Nebula is playing hard to get ! It's a double star evening currently and maybe Jupiter and Saturn later ?

I think some people find visual and / or imaging astronomy quite a lot harder than they thought it would be to get satisfactory results and this may well be the reason that they give up. I have often said on here that I don't feel that practical astronomy is a matter where many "quick wins" are available. A few perhaps but once those straightforward objects are observed or imaged then the challenge curve steepens quite suddently to get onto the successively more advanced levels. Spending lots of time on fine tuning equipment and skills, investing in more specialised items, late nights, poor seeing, increasing light pollution, there are a host of challenges and it's certainly not "plug and play"

Mine is F/6.5. Vixen didn't reveal the glass type used back then but the ED element is widely thought to be FPL-53. The colour correction would suggest that. The objective cell, tube rings and focuser design have not changed as far as I can tell.

Comets 2020 F/3 Neowise, 2019 U6 Lemmon and 2017 T2 Panstarrs are all in the same area of the sky tonight - Coma berenices / Bootes. The un-labelled one is Neowise, near Messier 64. Magnitudes vary between 5.8 and 10. Might be worth a look

The 14mm and 17.3mm seem closer than that to my XW's Not that it matters too much though, with those focal lengths.