John

Yes, 6 inch F/12 refractors need very heavy duty mounts !

I reckon the 80mm F/15 is going to need at least an HEQ5 / Skytee II to control that moment arm force.

4 minutes ago, Nikodn said:

Sorry but what does sketch at the eyepiece mean ??

sketch = drawing of what you see

More open sky than clouds there Jeremy. I had the opposite here !

It was a lovely sight when I did get some views though and it sounds like you enjoyed the spectacle as well

I observed the Blinking Planetary the other night with my 12 inch dob. It doesn't really blink with that aperture. A smaller aperture gets that effect though.

Interesting that Bresser introduced two long achromats a year or two back as well. 90mm F/13.3 and 102mm F/13.2. Different end of the price / quality spectrum than these ScopeTech ones but somebody must think there is a market for them.

A few years ago I think folks thought the long achromatic refractor was no more. Clearly not !

Lovely moments this evening, what it's all about

Just now, markse68 said:

Good to know thanks Jiggy. I do have a uhc I could try. It says it’s small- could I mistake it for s faint star with a wa ep do you think?

Easy to mistake small planetary nebs for stars at low power.

One trick is to hold the filter over the top of the eyepiece and move it (the filter) in and out of the view. This should cause the planetary nebule to "blink" on and off which can make it easier to spot. Can be a by fiddly with the filter though.

Loads of clouds around this evening but I got lucky and had some nice views of Venus and Mercury in the same field of view with my Takahashi FC100 refractor.

The Panoptic 24mm gave me a 1.8 degree true field which framed the 2 planets perfectly. Venus thin crescent on one side of the field and Mercury's tiny gibbous disk on the other. I think they are around 1.25 degrees apart just now.

Despite Mercury's very small apparent size I could tell that the illuminated portions of both planets were facing the same way - towards the Sun of course !

No time for images because I was catching glimpses between clouds but it was a lovely sight for those few minutes when they both came into view.

2 worlds, one of them the same size as Earth and 46 million km away and the other 38% as large as our home planet and 161 million km distant. Both basking in light from the star that we share with them.

This is why I do this hobby

Ouch !!!

So sorry that this happened Stu. Hopefully you will either be able to get the tube, tube shaped again or at least move the mirrors, cells etc into another tube.

The secondary vane should straighten I should think.

Not sure about the tube though.

I've found some more photos of these on another forum. They remind me very, very much of the Pentax J series refractors. Goodness how I wanted one of those way back when !

These Scopetech refractors look practically identical to the Pentax J80.

15 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Don’t say that, another £180 I need to spend...

Cygnus isn’t accessible from my back garden so I’d have to travel for that one.You do realise that I’ll want to now 😂

It will much higher in the sky in July.

I love Summer observing - some fantastic targets in and around the Summer Triangle and elsewhere !

The O-III filter earns its keep on the Veil Nebula alone - so much to explore in just that one target !

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/explore-night-bob-king/explore-veil-nebula/

I'm going to post another picture of my dob, because that's what this thread is all about

5 hours ago, johninderby said:

....Easy to overtighten with a screwdriver. 🙁

I think it's easy to overtighten if you don't realise that they don't need to be tight !

They are adjustment screws not locking screws.

Just now, markse68 said:

Square base is more compact but does it give up anything stability-wise compared to the wider round base? 

I've used my dob at very high powers (400x plus) and it is very stable. Rock solid in fact.

My garden is pretty smooth and level though.

My Lightbridge 12 was stable as well, just larger and a lot heavier. The LB 12 weighed around 37kg in total. My dob weighs 10 kg less.

I thought @Moonshane's 16 was an OO ?

Very interesting scopes - good to see.

I wonder if 4" inch achromats of similar specs might be in the pipeline as well ? 

A side by side comparison between the Stellamira ED F/10 80mm and one of these slow 80mm achromats would be fascinating

I reckon it might need to be the F/15 to match the colour correction of the ED F/10 ?

2 hours ago, Stardaze said:

Me neither. 

The squared base of the OO does give a slightly smaller bottom profile to tuck into a corner better though.

The base of mine is 40cm x 40cm so quite a small "footprint" for a 12 inch dob. My old 12 inch Lightbridge (below) was quite a bit larger and much heavier.

No kids here now - all grown up and flown the nest

@Barry-W-Fenner The mirror in my dob is, according to the test sheet, around 1/9th wave PV and has a .987 strehl rating.

With Orion Optics I feel that there is no point in spending out unless you go for one of their better quality mirrors. The mirrors from the far east are probably as good as the "standard" quality OO mirrors so you might as well step up a level or two. It's what OO are best at.

I don't think a debate on the pros and cons of GOTO is really relevant here. The scope that the OP is considering is $199 I believe. Assuming that is the budget available, GOTO scopes are just not in the running 

38 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

I do like the base being quite compact and as I keep mine in a corner of the dining room, little bumps (you never know with a 4 year old around) might be better suited. 

Same here. I have a "scope corner"

8 hours ago, Pixies said:

Thanks. I tried it that way first, but the screws went straight through the plastic before I had even tightened them up. Obviously the ends are VERY sharp. I didn't bother trying to file them down as they are being replaced shortly. I've also seen some other posts describing having the plastic washer between metal washer and holder, so gave it a go, and it feels great.

I'll see how it goes when I have the new screws. I might change things round then.

You don't need much tension on the screws.

That does look better.

With the milk carton washer modification, I think the optimum benefits are gained from having the collimation screw tips bearing directly onto the washer / washers. This PDF file from long time SGL member @Moonshane explains:

Collimation of Newtonian Telescopes-1.pdf

And discussed here:

How dark was it ?

Galaxies need dark skies.

Non-galactic M's such as open and globular clusters are likely to be an easier way to progress during these times of little / no proper darkness.

It certainly looks a great setup.

If you get a chance, it is nice to have the chance to own and use something that is in or around the top tier performance wise.

There is a certain satisfaction from gazing at, say, a nice tight double star under steady seeing and thinking that it's quite probably as good as it is going to look though anything of that aperture than an amateur can own.

Mind you, you also realise just how good the regular stuff has become these days, often at much lower cost