John

My 1.25 inch set goes 24mm - 17.3mm - 14mm - 10mm - 7mm - 5mm and 3.5mm (plus a few other "hangers on" !) To be honest, most of the time I skip the 17.3 and go straight from 24mm to 14mm and then often seem to skip the 10mm and go to 7mm. Two expensive eyepieces that don't get much use but I'm loathed to part with them

Yes, it looks like a new model. Interesting scope. The 130 Heritage has been a great hit so why not a 150 ?

Ahhh - forget the bit about "rough around the edges" then. Hopefully the AZ100 will seem of comparable quality

The AZ100 is one of those products where initial nervousness over the cost evaporates as soon as you unpack it. The design, quality of engineering, fit and finish is 1st class. The price actually quite quickly seems reasonable as you move it around and get a feel for it. Your previous pride and joys seem a touch rough around the edges all of a sudden

I don't have experience with the APM either but Grerry / @jetstream in Canada thinks highly of them and I would be influenced by his opinions. On the ES 100's and 92's I agree with the above but I was not keen on the eye positioning with the 12mm so I don't have that one any more (I preferred my Ethos 13 to it as well). I think the 92's are ES's best eyepieces to date. The only downside is that they are very large and heavy - very heavy in the case of the 17mm.

I've tended to avoid scope designs that need a lot of cooling time even if they are excellent. This Mewlon owner dealt with it by keeping the scope at close to outside temperature in a sealed box: https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/user-reviews/takahashi-mewlon-210-review-r2713

Personally I'm a big fan of the Ethos range but they are very expensive I agree. I had the ES 20mm / 100 and thought it pretty good. The 21mm Ethos proved a touch better still but at a lot more £'s of course. I think I would go for an APM / Lunt 100 over an ES 100 because of their ergonomics as much as anything else. Don't underestimate the weight impact of the ES 92's - they are even heavier than my Ethos 21 and Nagler 31 and I thought those very hefty when I acquired them. Eyepieces in this class will require some form of counterbalancing and need well engineered focusers. I have a set of 4 Pentax XW's as part of my 1.25 inch case and think very highly of those. Their eye relief is a bit longer than the Starguiders - 20mm. All this, and more ought to be the subject of another thread I think although it might help the original poster a bit.

It terms of correction and image quality I find that the ES 92 17mm compares well with my Ethos eyepieces. I've found the eye positioning harder to get used to with the ES but optical performance in my 12 inch F/5.3 dobsonian is very good. I think the ES 92's are the best performing eyepieces that ES has produced to date. They are very large and heavy though.

This is a great idea but with 5 scopes I'm going to need to devise some sort of matrix to present the information in a useful form I think. I would also want to represent variables such as the seeing conditions and the varying requirements within the target categories that you have listed. As an example, take the category "planets" and, with my 12 inch dobsonian I would say that I have found anything from 80x to 400x useful and usable depending on the planet, the conditions and my objectives at that time. Its going to be complicated I think ! I'll give it some more thought though - not much else to do currently !

My Tele Vue labels just sit in their boxes, apart from this one which covers up a scratch in the paint

Yes, I've done that. It looks like a William Optics scope, or a clone of one.

There is no special tape sold for this purpose. I don't know what scope the dust cap is from but they are all different so it is a case of finding something suitable in a DIY store that give you the fit that you want over the end of the scope. 3 pieces of tape will give a more even fit than 2.

There are different classes of filter. It's worth finding out a bit more about which filters fall into which class and the impact that they have on various types of target. This is worth a read: https://astronomy.com/-/media/import/files/pdf/8/c/7/0805_nebula_filters.pdf

I've tried a few and some broadband filters (eg: Orion Skyglow) but found that they made little or no impact, at least for me.

It took me many years before I ever owned a filter of any type to use on deep sky objects Building stuff up gradually is definitely the way to go. These objects will be there year, after year, after year so there is no hurry

Any UHC or O-III filter will show the Veil somewhat better than it appears without a filter. I first saw it with a 100mm refractor and the Baader UHC-S filter which is a rather "mild" UHC filter but it still showed the Veil with that scope whereas removing the filter left nothing to be seen. It still took me a while to "learn to see" this large object, even with the filter. I've since tried lots of UHC and O-III filters and they all worked on the targets you list, and others to some beneficial extent. I would say get a mid-priced UHC (such as the ES) and at least you will be getting some benefits. You can decide later if exploring these objects are something which really grabs you. I ought to say that there are many nebulae that I prefer to observe without a filter as well, M42 and M57 being a couple of those. It is actually interesting to have a UHC and an O-III in the tool box (eventually) because they bring out different aspects of the objects.

I use the Baader Wonder Fluid applied via their micro fibre cloth. Never apply the fluid directly onto the glass. I don't so this often though - perhaps a couple of times a year ? I have a manual blower to puff off any dust and loose stuff. I always do this before applying the fluid / cloth clean as well. Some eyepiece designs have the top surface of the eye lens more exposed than others. It's the top surface that gets the dust etc. Rarely need to clean the field lenses (the bottom ones) I've found. Some eyepieces have large glass surfaces as well but those are easier to clean than the ones that have tiny lenses.

My "game changer" has been my 12 inch dob which was a 2nd hand tube and a mount made by the good hands and mind of @Moonshaneof this fine forum It's the scope that has cost me the least and yet has shown me the most

I'm not sure that investing heavily does help much I've always had totally separate funds for my hobbies and have never taken a loan out to fund anything. So it's never been a choice between domestic and astro equipment expenditure. Before the lockdown I was going to have a massive clear out of gear and cut right down. Ironically, due to the generally fine weather that we have had since March, I've actually done a lot of observing and I've used most of what I have so I can see the point of it more now. I had a big spend in 2016 and got a couple of top end scopes that I would only have dreamed about in years gone by. It has been great to own and use them and to see what "premium optics" actually look like at the eyepiece but I don't feel that they have been game changers in the hobby for me. One of the things that using a premium optics has shown me is just how good the standard of more "ordinary" equipment is today

I thought that was the case when I was observing them. Good to have it confirmed Cloud has thickened here so no more observing just now

My mobile phone efforts were rather poor too. The best is below and that barely shows the group

I've just been observing this nice group of sunspots which have been designated AR 12765. Nice group comprising a decent sized spot with well defined umbra and penumbra and next to it 4 other smaller spots 2 of which might be splitting into pairs. There is another active are on the disk (AR 12764) but that does not show activity that can be observed using the white light setup that I have. Seen through hazy cloud so 60x or so is the most useful magnification. My equipment today is a Vixen ED 102mm F/6.5 refractor fitted with a Lunt Herschel Wedge and a zoom eyepiece. Nice group of spots considering the paucity of activity that we have had recently. I've attached a live image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory which is much better than I can snap with my mobile phone !

http://www.ianmorison.com/the-maksutov-newtonian-telescope-discussion-survey-and-an-image-of-the-10-day-old-moon/ Like everything in astronomy, compromises.

- Very small secondary and no secondary supports so very low diffraction. - 30% the coma that a normal newtonian has. - A "niche" design so expensive and made to high quality. Despite all that, I don't have one now. I went for a refractor instead

I reckon this might beat it (just about) https://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=162161 I used to have the 6 inch version - it was a brilliant planetary scope.