John

I'll send a photo via PM when I get a chance - I don't want to sidetrack this thread.

Yes it is. I use two old iron counterweights of around 1kg and 2kg.

Thanks Stu. I'll watch out for your feedback on it. Tube length makes or breaks these lighter mounts so I'll be especially interested on how the Vixen fares. Don't know why I'm interested - I already have 3 very good alt-az mounts. Must be a bit obsessed with the things !

One of my favourite areas of the Moon I snapped this a while back with my old mobile phone:

When you started out, if anyone had told you that you might spend as much on eyepieces as you had the 16 inch scope you would have thought "no way !" but you can see how it's easily possible to do that Keep away from the Ethos's, that's my advice

I wonder how it would handle my Tak FC100-DL 🤔

I was thinking of the OP's interest in the deep sky. The light grasp of the 100mm might leave him feeling short changed on DSO's compared with his current ST120. Put an ED120 and a 127 Triplet side by side and the latter seems a lot larger and heavier. The ED120 often manages to show less CA than the lower cost triplets as well. This comparison is worth a read - the Astro Tech 127 is the same as the Meade and ES 127 triplets I believe: https://astromart.com/reviews-and-articles/reviews/telescopes/refractors/show/orion-120ed-vs-astro-tech-127edt

The price is rising ! We started with a circa £1K scope I have a Skywatcher ED120 and it is a fine scope. Compares well with my much, much more expensive Takahashi 100 fluorite doublet and TMB/LZOS 130 triplet. You can get the ED120's in nice pre-owned condition for £600-£700.

Sounds similar to my skies, which are listed by "Clear Outside" as Bortle 5. I get a few nights when it's closer to 4 but it depends which direction you look in !

Some interesting data: This paper attempts to quantify the risks: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103516307126

The focus point of the 17.3 and 14mm Delos suited me because it is much closer to where my Pentax XW's reach focus so they play together quite nicely

I've never needed to use a Paracorr so I don't know how it affects that. It looks as if the TV "In-Travel" adapter would make all the Delos eyepieces par focal: http://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=23&Tab=_intrav

If my main field of interest was the deep sky I would go for a reflector every time. I can't afford, house or handle the sort of aperture in refractors that I can in reflectors. 12" in reflector: 12 inch refractor:

I believe these are accurate and independently measured: 24mm - 42° 20mm - 49° 16mm - 52° 12mm - 58° 8mm - 70° So good and bad news, so to speak !

Actually the focal length stays the same. The focal ratio changes because of the reduction in aperture. If you reduce the aperture to 16mm you will get to F/30. Apologies if you already knew that

If you buy a complete set of Delos it's worth noting that the 17.3mm and the 14mm reach focus at a point that is about 8mm further inwards than the rest of the range.

Nice report - thanks Really fascinating objects, globular clusters. Here is another one, when you are next observing in the vicinity of Lynx:

They both look great and work excellently too I'll bet I love wooden tripods. Really finishes off a scope setup well and they are really effective too

A good alternative to the TV 40mm plossl might be the Vixen 40mm NPL. I believe the NPL's use a figuring approach to the lenses that are similar to the TV Plossls. The 30mm NPL is certainly very nice for it's price.

The Skytee II might be OK. Depends how fussy you are about stability. On the double stars I think the 127mm triplet will be better than your current scopes. On the deep sky, the 7mm over your 120mm F/5 will make a slight difference but the scope will be a lot heavier, longer and will take longer to cool down than the 120mm achromat. If you go for the triplet 127, make sure you have a good returns policy. If the collimation is knocked out of whack in transit it's a specialist job in sorting it out.

What mount do you have in mind ? These 5 inch triplets are quite heavy and long scopes - they need stout mounts. If you need to buy another mount as well, it would well skew the equation somewhat.

Maybe a candidate for triple layer boxes like Takahashi use ?

I can put a strong shelf in above the refractors and fit an 8-11 inch SCT or mak-cassegrain in there It's called "scope corner" already so might as well go for broke !

I keep the finders off the dob though - too much chance of whacking something on the way out of the french windows.

Fortunately it's not too heavy lifted in two sections. 10kg for the base and 16kg for the tube. I've taken it to star parties quite a few times.