John

The AZ-3 mount and it's tripod hub are an integrated unit. You can change the tripod legs if you can find some which will fit but the hub really has to stay with the head which limits the options.

The Pentax XW's differ in optical design and characteristics across their focal lengths. I too got hooked on them with the 10mm (loaned by First Light Optics). They also loaned me a 30mm XW to compare and review. That was nice but it did not make the impression that the 10mm XW had. Currently I have the 10, 7, 5 and 3.5 XW's and feel that they are the best of the range for my scopes and preferences

Thanks very much for sharing that Neil. I think I can try and tread in your footsteps with the gear I have. It's the processing that I get foxed by Please don't tell anyone on here though - they will think I'm getting interested in imaging and we can't have that !

More from my past. 1st pic, the Altair Sabre. Very nice to look at and it worked well but the 130mm F/9.2 was too much for it no matter how I adjusted things. 2nd pic, the Tele Optic Giro III. Simple, well made, lightweight and just did it's job without any fuss 3rd pic the old AZ-3. Has it's faults but can be made to work decently well with a short tube scope on board (C5 in this case). Very light - this set up could be carried with one hand. 4th pic, Slik Master Classic photo tripod with my old TV Ranger on board. A really nice "old school" photo tripod capable of carrying a small astro scope rather well I found. 5th pic, my Tasco 12-TR 60mm on it's fork alt-az mount which I call "mr wobbles" for reasons that became clear to me again when I recently dusted this setup off and used it again. 6th pic AZ-4. Good solid, simple mount for the Vixen ED102SS F/6.5.

Very nice stuff ! I had a DwarfStar mount for a while when I had my Tele Vue Ranger. Really neat little mount and surprisingly capable

That looks great Neil - some nice detail of the tail structure. I'd like to try the same next time I age a chance - could you let me know the approach you used ? I know practically nothing about astro imaging I ought to say !

The Meade 10 will be a modest upgrade if it is a decent one and in good collimation. Its not going to be a big upgrade in performance though. You would also be trading a very portable and easy to handle 8 inch setup for a very heavy and unwieldy setup. Both the Meade 10 inch and the CGEM DX mount are really heavy items. We have a couple of 10 inch Meade's in my Astro Society and having set them up myself a couple of times, I'm always surprised how much heavier they are than the 8 inch SCT's.

Hi and welcome to the forum Was the scope not insured by the sender ? I use Hermes a lot. Never had a problem with them but I do insure most things I send just in case.

If you are going to get the 2 inch diagonal to fit the 18mm ES 82 I would definitely consider a longer focal length 2 inch eyepiece as well. An 18mm 82 degrees eyepiece barely justifies the 2 inch barrel fitting. I would be thinking about getting something in the 26mm - 30mm range with an 82 degree field of view to really exploit what the 2 inch format can deliver. In the 8 inch SCT an 18mm 82 degree eyepiece gives you a true field of .74 degrees. A 28mm 82 (for example) shows you over 50% more sky. You will appreciate that when observing some of the larger deep sky objects and pairs of objects such as M81 and M82 which it's lovely to have in the same field of view. Unless you are going to buy a wide field scope to compliment the SCT of course.

CO is telling me that I have "red" and 100% cloud cover for the next 24 hours so I won't need to set my alarm

StellaMira Losmandy plate for use on my 130mm triplet refractor. Lovely quality item. It sits really nicely and securely in the ADM clamp on the T-Rex mount. Just got to bolt it to the tube rings on the scope now. Many thanks @HollyHound

The "window" of visibility is quite short between the time it rises and when dawning light overcomes it. It's not a daylight comet yet !

I wonder how the Aero ED 40 would do compared to the XW 40mm ? I picked up my Aero 40 (well a clone of it) for peanuts really but it's proved a good performer even with my F/5.3 dobsonian. Unless someone lends me an XW40 I'm not going to find out. I'm not going to risk $400 for an eyepiece that won't get lot of use. I feel a little for the folks who paid big prices for the 2 inch XW's during the period when they were out of production. I saw silly prices being asked for the XW 30 and 40 at one time - substantially more than they cost new now.

There is a photo with measurements on FLO's site but the measurements are not the ones that are really needed - the centre to centre distance between the mounting holes ! Glad you got it sorted anyway Steve

Clouded NE horizon here at 3:00 am so went back to bed. Still cloudy when I woke again so no go here today. Good to hear that others are getting sightings in though It might not be Hale-Bopp II but it's the best over the past 7 years apparently so well worth discussion and reporting IMHO. Also you never quite know what it's going to do next ......

I bought a WO DT bar last year from that range and it turned out to be slightly narrower than my other Vixen type bars. The ADM clamp would not grasp it firmly. Not really what was wanted ! FLO did their usual quick return though. Why can't manufacturers stick to an accepted standard, at least when it comes to mounting arrangements

You need holes at 35mm centres for the Skytee II and many other alt az mounts. Looking at the WO diagram (blue image on FLO's page) it is difficult to see if it has that

See if you can find the "disperse clouds" function. I'm going to need it if I'm going to see comet Neowise again this morning

Hi, I think your 130 Astromaster should do quite a lot better on the moon and planets than the 90mm F/5.5 refractor will. The 90mm F/5.5 achromat refractor will produce quite a lot of chromatic aberration which limits its usefulness at high powers. The 130mm Astromaster F/5 newtonian optics gather much more light, have better resolution and are apochromatic so do not have issues with chromatic aberration. If you want a refractor that is good for the moon and planets you need to look at something around 102mm and with a focal length of around 1000mm so F/9.8 or F/10.

Orthoscopic is a set of characteristics rather than an optical design I believe. Maybe thats where Vixen were coming from ? TMB called their Paragon superwide eyepieces "Orthoscopic". Today I understand that the same optical layout is found in the Aero ED range and clones.

I found a shorter focal length eyepiece with a wider AFoV showed as much sky and a darker background sky when I had an 8 inch SCT. I preferred a 40mm 68 degrees to 50mm for this reason.

Quite a lot of comments when a small sunspot group appears as well. We are an astro forum - what are we supposed to discuss ?

Clouded over here for now. Quite thin stuff though. I agree with Neil / @Littleguy80 above. Last night was too cloudy to observe but there were enough breaks in the right place (for a change !) to see the comet when the time came. Don't need a scope set up either - 70mm binoculars should show it very well and are very "grab and go"

I've owned lots of Tele Vue plossls (both the earlier ones and the current range) and found them very good apart from the eye relief which is rather short with the 11mm and 8mm given their inflexible rubber eye cups and a bit too long in the case of the 32mm which needs (for me at least) the eye guard extender to make it comfortable to use. Most of my use of these was at night.

Thanks Louis. The number of "crossings" seems to be important. This one appears to show 4 and nearly a 5th. What is the significance of that ?