John

The Astromaster 130 uses a parabolic primary mirror. F/5 is too fast for a spherical mirror to produce acceptable results.

For a spherical mirror to produce decent images it has to be F/7 - F8. The Skywatcher Explorer 130 I believe does use a spherical mirror but that is F/6.92. I think the Astromaster uses the same mirror set that is use in scopes such as the Heritage 130 and the Skywatcher Explorer 130P.

I've observed with a couple of Astromaster 130's and they can produce very good views. The finder scope was the weakest link with the scope.

I hope you are happy with your new scope though.

Those thoughts on the mount are very useful Stu. Thanks very much

Jeremy's point is a good one in that it raises the issue of other options and, dare I mention it, value for money.

The Scopetech Zero is quite an expensive item at £379 for the mount head. Are there lower cost options such as the AZ-5 and maybe others that folks should consider as well ?

If the scope was in collimation and what you were seeing though the eyepiece was consistently no better than those images I would say that something is amiss with the scope. My 60mm refractor gives better images than that.

Secondary offset is a normal feature of newtonians with focal ratios of F/6 and faster.

Jupiter, Saturn, the Milky Way and the rest of it will be visible tomorrow, next week, next month etc, etc. Comet Neowise will not come back for over 6,000 years. Make the most of it

I use the Gorilla tape on my Rigel Quickfinder base. It has worked fine. The finder base has been on my 12 inch dob for 4 years now with no sign of shifting.

I agree that the stock stuff supplied is not up to much.

8 minutes ago, Richard Wesson said:

Thank you John, was going to join Bristol AS then corona virus hit...Also hit my sailing sadly too!

Has anybody used Deer Leap for observing - it looks good to me but then I am pretty inexperienced!

We are still meeting though fortnightly zoom meetings but the virus has bought group and outreach observing sessions to a halt for now.

I know Deer Leap but I have not observed from there.

I'm fortunate that my garden has reasonably good views

Hi and welcome to the forum

One thing I've noticed from the photo you posted is that the latitude scale on the mount is set to around 25 degrees.

I don't know where you are located but this scale needs to be set to your latitude for the mount to track accurately. I've marked the scale in this crop of your photo. Apologies if you already know this !

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'm from Portishead so not so far away.

There are some fine observing sites on the Mendip Hills. Charterhouse has an observatory.

Bristol Astronomical Society has an observatory at Failand.

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Meant to say, it’s worth trying tomorrow morning as well if, like me, your Sunday am forecast is looking dodgy...

Good suggestion. Just got to sell the idea of 2 early hours sessions in a row to my other half now

5 hours ago, markse68 said:

Snap! I think i must have been giving my navel more than it’s fair share of my gazing at the time- or at least more than I usually am  odder still Hale Bopp was around the time i bought my first telescope- I remember first sights of Jupiter,Saturn and Moon, yet i can’t remember actually seeing the comet...🤔🤷‍♂️

I was telescope-less for a few years when my children were born and that included the period when Hale-Bopp was around. I probably got the odd glimpse of it with binoculars but for much of that time my mind was on other things

Probably the surest way to actually see them all would be to use decent sized binoculars. Much more versatile in terms of the stuff that is in awkward postions as well.

Observing Jupiter last night with my TAK 100 it was not atmospheric dispersion that I had to contend with but a very unstable atmosphere generally. It was like observing the planet through a stream of running water, even low power was poor.

I don't suppose an ADC would have helped with that ?

1 hour ago, Robindonne said:

Oke.  Well they might work then.  They are for a young girl traveling with her mak.   So not really a fast scope.   Thx for the information and opinions.  

For a Mak they should be fine.

I recently bought a low cost 25mm eyepiece as a travel eyepiece for my F/14 90mm mak and it is really sharp right across the field in that scope. I doubt it would do well in my F/5.3 dob but thats not the scope it will be used with.

4 hours ago, Mostafa said:

It is a Saxon eq1 mount with tripod and Saxon eq1 ra motor drive, made for each other.

Looks the same as the Skywatcher EQ1:

https://www.saxon.com.au/saxon-eq1-mount-with-tripod.html

A solar system feast !

Clear Outside is showing green from 10 pm on Sunday night through to the following morning as well

Rather frustrating amounts of clouds about in the wrong places tonight. Just a quick comet pic using the hedge to block a streetlight:

I have seen a meteor break up a few times but I've never heard any sound from one. Not yet anyway.

I seem to recall that they perform about as well as the Meade 4000's and 3000's but have a flashier body. They pushed the field of view out to 60 degrees but the design didn't really handle that well so the edge correction is lacking. If your scope is F/8 or slower they should be OK.

The HD60's were a different optical design and handled the 60 degree field somewhat better.

They are Series 5000 plossls.

I have owned a couple of them. They are fairly average performers I thought. The Meade HD60's (below) are much better:

5 minutes ago, LeeHore7 said:

... when looking through the ep it's just very overexposed due to chronic abberation and low down 

Something very wrong there and not with the eyepieces I think.

A 130mm scope will show good planetary details. I could see Cassini's Division in Saturns rings and a number of Jupiters cloud bands with a 90mm mak-cassegrain a couple of nights back. Not an expensive eyepiece either.

You are further south than I am by 150 miles. Jupiter and Saturn will be a bit higher in the sky than they are here.

One cheap way to get more detail on the moon and planets is to observe them as often as possible and for extended periods.

Its surprising how the eye starts to get "trained" and picking out the more subtle details becomes a little easier each time you observe a particular object.

An eyepiece upgrade can make a slight difference but gaining observing experience and skill somewhat more I reckon.

If it's off, it's not far off at all.

Interesting development.

This is TV responding to the needs of the evolving EEVA market presumably ?

"Extended Plossl" perhaps ?

1 hour ago, Stardaze said:

How much do you favour/use the 31 John? Is it your 'finder' EP mostly?

I used the 31 more before I got the Ethos 21 which shows almost as much sky but at a higher magnification.

The Nagler 31 is still a favourite for extended DSO's such as the Veil Nebula, N A Nebula etc. With my Vixen 102 F/6.5 ED refractor the big Nagler will show a 3.8 true field of view and the whole of the Veil Nebula complex

I occasionally use a 40mm 70 degrees eyepiece with my F/5.3 12 inch dob. I don't recall seeing the shadow of the secondary but the skies have been dark when I've done this so I might not have noticed it.

It is not the most effective eyepiece for DSO's in that scope though. The 31mm Nagler and 21mm Ethos are much preferred usually.

And this is my excuse for not getting a 41mm Panoptic