John

When you folks have another look at the Veil Nebula, here is a handy guide to the various parts of it. See what of this you can see ! https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/explore-night-bob-king/explore-veil-nebula/ As you can see, there is lots to explore with just this one target under a dark sky

The North American Nebula is around 2 degrees x 2 degrees in size. It took me ages (years) to get a decent view of it. Turns out I was looking right through it all that time ! The Veil Nebula is a bit over 3 degrees overall. These are large targets

My advice is to keep asking questions on here. There is no such thing as a "silly" question as far as this forum is concerned plus we are totally independant - not trying to sell you anything

Nice report Baz

NA neb is very large. I find that I can only see bits of it with my scopes. The "Gulf of Mexico" part seems to be the best defined. Big binoculars under a really dark sky are probably more effective. The Pelican is next door to the NA neb and also large with low surface brightness. The Crescent I do find an O-III helps with and it's not quite as challenging as the above. I think keeping at it and looking for the darkest, most transparent skies to observe under is the best approach.

There may well be children of younger age around who can manage observing though a scope OK but I've not come across many of those. Some grown ups find it more challenging than they thought it might be as well !

I've done quite a few outreach sessions with children and I find that the younger ones struggle to see anything through a scope. I would say that 8-10 years and up is where they can adapt to the technique of one eye closed, keep the head still, don't touch the scope which is needed. We usually give the younger children binoculars and they seem to get on well with those.

Thanks Ed. I did that with the Radians and the 22mm Nagler T4 that I used to own and it did help.

I believe the track within which the ISS would be seen to pass across the moon is just 30 miles wide. I must have been pretty much bang in the centre of it luckily.

You can use the extension piece to move the eye cup a bit further away from the eye lens which might help with eye positioning Barry. Try it and see. I didn't get on with those "winged" eye cups but some people like them. The Morpheus is a 1.25" eyepiece. Some folks prefer using these larger eyepieces in a 2 inch fitting because they feel more secure which is why some have a hybrid barrel design. I would guess that the BST Barlow is the weak link in the optical train compared with the Morpheus optics.

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

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 ?

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.

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.

And here !

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