John

Very good, traditionally designed, quite heavy, 6 inch F/8 newtonian on a strong equatorial. Some features are a little quirky but they are very good performers as Stu says.

The eyepieces are better than the usual stock ones supplied with scopes (especially the 25mm plossl which is a gem). Looks like the equatorial mount needs to be setup properly but the condition overall looks pretty good.

If you have to carry it up and down stairs you might want to think again but if it be kept near or at where you observe it is a very good instrument.

I might set the 130mm triplet up tonight for this and some other challenges

Hyperions show quite a lot of astigmatism in scopes faster than around F/7.

If you go for ultra (82 degrees) or hyper (100 degrees) wide eyepieces you may well need a coma corrector to get the most out of them with an F/4.5 scope.

The Baader Morpheus won't be perfect right to the edge but might be a good compromise choice.

Other accessories that you might find useful would include a Telrad or Rigel illuminated reticule finder to compliment the optical finder and a light shrouds to keep stray light (and dust) out of the optical path.

Collimation tools are going to be important as well.

1 minute ago, Skipper Billy said:

Or get one of these?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adm-replacement-saddles/adm-vixen-style-saddle.html

That's what I use. Very secure

1 minute ago, dobblob said:

...These days it is difficult NOT to see a satellite scooting through the field of view...

Indeed. I was observing the Ring Nebula last night and 3 went through the field of view in a period of just a few minutes.

It must be frustrating for the imagers.

2 hours ago, Littleguy80 said:

With my dob I have a clicklock extension tube that I screw the filter into. I can then change eyepieces without moving the filter. On my frac, I screw the filter into the diagonal which again allows for eyepieces changes without moving the filter from eyepiece to eyepiece.

I've only ever tried it with with an HB filter but it's worth a shot with UHC filter.

A UHC filter passes the O-III and H-Beta lines so they do sometimes help with H-Beta emitting targets. 

It is possible to shim an objective cell and a focuser to introduce some tilt, if it is needed to achieve good collimation. It's a bit trial and error but it can be done.

1 hour ago, Stardaze said:

How far do you go with it? You could have the heated shield with a band around the bottom and bands around telrad and finder, with a 4 way controller and power supply for £250+ 🤔

And bands to fit around around the eyepiece and heated wires installed behind the secondary mirror ........

I'm very glad that it's not an issue here.

What dobsonian do you have ?

They can provide pretty good planetary views. I was rather surprised when I first got an 8 inch F/6 dobsonian (GSO) in that it delivered better planetary views than my C8 SCT was !

My current 12 inch F/5.3 dob gives stunning views of the planets when they are nicely placed.

2 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Quite a nice one. With the 180 Mak last night, the pair were clearly separated with dark space between them, with the secondary appearing as a bright point in about the right place. The colours looked to me whitish yellow. I struggled to separate them with my 102mm f13 achro though - definitely a double, but with the two disks touching.

Always fun to look at these close, uneven doubles - Sissy H is gathering data on 6 Ser at the moment, which is worth a look.

Chris

I had a nice view of this one with the ED120 last night as well

Also  a first view of Pi Aquilae this year as it cleared the tree line. A tight but even brightness pair. Currently 1.4 arc seconds separation I think ?

8 minutes ago, johninderby said:

I didn’t think you thought it was overpriced. 👍🏻

That's a relief - I don't want the Rowan boys to set Hypno-Disc onto me

Just now, johninderby said:

Expensive yes but not overpriced ...

I'm not saying that it is at all John.

So a different high capacity design is required if my niche is going to be filled perhaps ?. In the past their have been mounts such as the Bray Tablet (UK made) and the Giro XXL (German made) that have provided simple but really well made and high capacity alt-azimuth solutions capable of holding the sorts of loads that the AZ100 is capable of.

Maybe everyone wants slow motion controls and DSC capability these days though so the simpler approach would not find a market

Probably a topic for another thread though so I'll shut up about it now

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

The “problem” is the AZ100 is built to a standard not down to a price point so never going to be cheap. 

Initially I seem to recall that it was thought that it might be priced somewhere in the range that I mentioned John.

1 minute ago, Alan White said:

John, I see what you are suggesting, but the AZ100 is not a Giro etc with extras, it’s a far more substantial mount, more akin to the AYO Master size, but with slow motion, it has filled a niche well, just not the niche you thought it would.

I do hope that Rowan make a smaller version, but the engineering required would still come at a cost.

Decent engineering and materials don’t come cheap.

 

I know quite a bit about the AZ100 Alan - I had two of the early ones to beta test and I performed some tweaking to them under the guidance of Rowan Astronomy.

I'm in no way knocking the AZ100. I realize why it costs what it does but that does put it out of reach for many.

When the AZ100 was first mentioned (by FLO I think) early thoughts were that it might fall into the sort of price range that I was hoping for but it was not to be and I can see why.

So the niche is still there - perhaps Rowan can fill it as @johninderby suggests

9 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

Here’s my SkySafari list of HB targets. Some well known targets can reveal some extra detail when viewed through an HB filter. I’m sure you wrote an excellent report on doing just that with M42, John. 

H-Beta Targets.skylist 2.98 kB · 0 downloads

I did actually use the HB filter last night - by accident !

I was observing the Dumbbell with my 100mm refractor and wanted to see what impact the Astronomik O-III would have. In dim light I selected the Astronomik HB instead, installed it and spent a frustrating 10 minutes wondering why I could not see M27 at all with the filter when it had been quite nice without a filter. And then the penny dropped .....

I did actually manage to see a trace of the Dumbbell eventually with the HB but it was virtually invisible compared with the filterless view. The O-III bought out the halo surrounding the core very nicely - when I managed to find the right filter.

Obviously M27 is not a good HB filter target !

3 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

And that ultimately means I’ll need an HB filter after all 😂 Better write to Santa..

I have an Astronomik HB. I use it very rarely. It did help me to (eventually) see the Horsehead Nebula but I have to be honest and say that is the only object that I have actually managed to see with it. I'm pleased that I have the filter if that was it's only achievement after a few years of trying.

I know there are some other HB targets out there. I probably need to put more time into those.

On 21/06/2020 at 10:48, Alan White said:

Same here Ade, as you know from our PM's.

The Rowan mount is stunning and if I could fund one, I certainly would some day, but,
I would only want it in full form and that's a lot of hobby funding for me.

 

Back in August last year I posted this in a thread on heavy duty alt-azimuth mounts:

Shortly after that the AZ100 was announced and, after some beta testing, shipped to very happy customers.

The AZ100 is a wonderful mount and, having sampled a couple of units, I can see why it is priced as it is.

However, even in it's basic form, once you have a DT clamp, a counterweight bar and a weight, it is a £1000+ mount.

Having reminded myself of the post I made back in August, I still feel the niche that I mentioned is still there. We need a heavy duty alt -azimuth mount that sits between the Skytee II / Giro Ercole and the high end £1K glories that the AZ100, APM Maxload etc. Something priced around £400-£500 ready to use.

My one regret about the AZ100, as soon as I saw the pricing, was that whatever it's qualities (and it has lots), it has missed this niche 

Interesting report, thanks for posting it

Developing a taste for Tele Vue's ? - expensive !!!

That's what I do - play around and see what works best

49 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

@John how does this stack up with you? Just working out that my new APM 13 would give me an exit pupil of 2.67mm, so the O-III might not be ideal? What do you use mostly with the O-III filter in terms of EP's? 

This post on another forum by the filter expert David Knisely is worth a read:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/549184-narrow-and-broad-band-contrast-filters-and-exit-pupil/?p=7417928

I keep my eyepieces at a warmer than outside temperature to stop them misting or dewing.

Other than that, I've not found dewing an issue with my 12 inch dob

Where we live and I observe from is 300 ft above sea level so maybe that makes a difference ?

Yes - the Dumbbell is great with and without filters.

5 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

I've managed to pick up an Astronomik O-III this last week and plan to get a UHC towards the end of the year. Desperately want to see the Veil in all of it's glory first. I'd like the UHC for Orion ideally. 

I was observing the Veil last night with my 100mm refractor. Both the UHC (an older Meade 4000) and O-III (Astronomik) filters showed the east and west segments quite nicely. In the field of view that I had last night, I could only fit one segment in at a time !

Without a filter = no nebulosity to be seen at all !

The O-III nicely bought out the halo surround the "apple core" of the Dumbell nebula as well.

You need dark skies though - these filters are not "magic bullets" if there is much light pollution about.