John

The washing line might have been enough. Veiwing a star when it is  near a hard edge such as a roof roof ridge can do the same.

I use the ADM clamps but there are alternatives as @johninderby shows above.

Another issue to consider is the overall height of the mount. The 127L is a long scope. If you observe when seated then the stock tubular steel tripod option for the Skytee II might be OK. If you prefer to stand then you will need something taller.

Mounting a large aperture, long refractor, effectively, throws up some interesting challenges !

You already have a BST Starguider 8mm which is one of the best of that range and the zoom. I think the 16mm Nirvana would bring something new - it's field of view will be much wider than the zoom.

2 minutes ago, andrew s said:

While I agree the eye relief should be added. If you exclude exit pupil size you can get vignetting if the eye lens is not large enough. 

Regards Andrew 

I'm trying to think of an example of an eyepiece / scope combination where the exit pupil might exceed the diameter of the eye lens

I would go for the Aero ED 30mm over the Panaview 26mm. The 26mm is not the best in the Panaview range, the 32mm is better but the Aero ED 30 is better again. Also a 26mm 2 inch 68 degree eyepiece does not show much more sky than your 32mm plossl does.

Given your other eyepieces are already quite good, I would hold on for the Nirvana's to become available otherwise you might not get any improvement in performance without spending substantially more.

I don't think the AZ5 would cope with a 127L. The Skytee II would but do upgrade the dovetail clamp before putting the scope on the mount. The stock clamps are very poor quality.

An alternative would be a Giro Ercole if you can find one.

I've put some quite heavy scopes on my Giro Ercole and Skytee II mounts:

The Nirvana is a much better eyepiece in an F/4.7 scope than a Hyperion.

Having longer eye relief is a popular feature these days and that sometimes requires the use of large lenses.

Not all the wides and ultra wides have massive lenses though. The Panoptic 24mm and Nagler 31mm have more modest eye lenses.

The Explore Scientific 17mm 92 is the largest of the ones that I own:

Orion Optics offer a dobsonian mount option for their newtonians. You can pick the specification from their options or, if you are really patient, they will make something to your precise specifications:

https://www.orionoptics.co.uk/home.html

I think the answer to some of your questions is that the market is relatively small overall. Two or three decades ago there were more companies in the UK making dobsonians and telescopes generally but back then the chinese made instruments hit the market which had a big impact.

In europe there are some other choices:

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5999_TS-Optics-12--f-5-truss-type-Dobsonian-telescope---made-in-Germany.html

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p2236_Geoptik-Nadirus-12-Truss-Dobsonian-Telescope---12-inch-Aperture-f-5.html

https://www.sumerianoptics.com/products

Interesting thread this, as the owner for the past 6 years or so of an Orion Optics SPX 12 F/5.3 which I use as a dobsonian for visual use. The optical tube was originally purchased for imaging (not by me) and I've seen photos of it on a huge observatory based equatorial mounting. Tube flex has not been an issue for my visual use of the scope but I can see that it might affect an imager with a heavy rig hanging out the side of the scope. 

The original owner of my scope who did image successfully with it (deep sky and planetary) used a number of additional tube rings along the tube presumably to increase rigidity.

As a visual scope on a dobsonian mount, it has been superb I have to say

Great image from @davhei - thanks for sharing your view of the event

Thick clouds and persistent rain here so nothing worth getting out of bed for

Thats fine.

So the range of movement of the finder just isn't enough by the sound of it. On a different scope the next step would be to adjust the position of the finder bracket on the scope but it does not look like that is possible with the design used on the Heritage 150 - it's a simple rail that the finder clamps onto by the look of it ?

53 minutes ago, Dannomiss said:

No I've turned the azimuth axis as far as it will go and up as much as it will go and still not centred in the image 

How far away was your target ?

Looks like the finder is skewed as far as it will go in the azimuth axis. Is it jammed there ?

I've heard that these stickers are required by the state of California specifically.

https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/

X-ray's help to see whats going on inside without intrusive surgery. Some of the lens surfaces inside the more complex wide fields have serious curves on them !:

I've used all the LVW's but I agree that the 22mm was the pick of them. The others are pretty good as well

The 22mm LVW is on my "wish I hadn't sold it" list, along with a few others ......

34 minutes ago, Louis D said:

..... If GEM style EQ mounts didn't require counterweights like a split ring Newtonian EQ mount, then the gap would be somewhat narrower.

My society has one of those - except that it is the 18 inch

Economy measures and solar observation are not a sensible mix IMHO.

Oh, that is very different then.

It's been a long time since I've had the 6mm so I could not remember what it looked like from beneath !

I wonder why the design was changed ?

I'll guess and say that the longish tube acts like a light baffle to keep stray light away from the optics.

No harm in having a look to see if things can be improved a bit further

These are the 3 that I was sent to review:

Have they changed the design of the 6mm then ?

Interesting stuff.

The Baader Classic Orthos that I've tested and owned have been pretty good eyepieces. I didn't notice any issues with light scatter or transmission so it will be interesting to see if the improvements you have made result in noticeable improvements in performance.

The only issue I had with the 6mm was a slightly fuzzy field stop. Not a big issue and it doesn't affect peformance but I found it a little annoying.

The BCO 10mm is regarded as one of THE best deep sky eyepieces by folks who use huge scopes under dark skies in the USA so Baader certainly knew what they were about

My 12 inch dobsonian is the probably my most used scope. I observe 99% of the time from my back yard under moderately light polluted skies in the outskirts of a large town.

Mine 12 inch weighs around the same as a Skywatcher 10 inch though which helps a lot with portability. I had a 12 inch Meade Lightbridge a few years ago which was very heavy and unwieldy.

I'm not likely to go any larger though, unless we move house and I can setup an observatory or roll-off shed.

If I lived in a flat / apartment with no easy and level access to a garden I might well have settled for something smaller. Where I observe is just a few paces out through the door from the room where my scopes are stored. I can have my 12 inch dob outside and cooling in about 1 minute.

Knowing where to stop for your observing circumstances is the trick I think. Nothing worse than a fine large scope that is not getting used because it is impractical

Good call on the Nirvana's from Mike above.

I can't believe the value that these are currently. When they first came out (William Optics UWAN's back then) they were expensive eyepieces, not quite Tele Vue expensive but getting on that way.

Now they are not much more than BST Starguiders for something which is pretty close to Nagler performance

I have some telephone cables that run across my garden. Occasionally I've noticed a new bright diffraction spike on a star only to find that one of those dratted cables has strayed close to the field of view