John

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 ?

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

Same here. I have a "scope corner"

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

Lovely image ! I had a look at Panstarrs last night up not far from M81 and M82. It's still a decent comet to observe - magnitude 8.8 but quite condensed. I saw those three galaxies as well Comet SWAN is just too low for me just yet, unless I wait up really late.

It think it is just Mercury and Venus that were given that term. It seems to go back a long way but it looks as if the usage is dying out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_and_superior_planets

Yes, I'm pretty sure that it is the same eyepiece. I have seen them under different brandings at a range of prices as well. The OVL one is well priced. They are a little narrower at the 21.5mm end than, for example, the Baader zoom, but the optical quality seems good. I use mine with a Baader 2.25x barlow and that works well as a high power zoom. Not a perfect eyepiece of course (what is ?) but pretty good and very versatile.

I used a 30mm optical finder to put the scope where I knew Mercury to be, but I could not actually see it with the finder. I actually "found" it using the scope at low magnification. If you know the separation and approx orientation between an easy to find and a harder target, the defined field of view of finders (6 degrees in the case of my 30mm) can make finding things easier, or at least getting to the right spot, even if they are not actually visible in the finder. I find Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel very useful for helping with this process. CdC has a handy distance measuring tool to help preparation. Maybe Stellarium does as well ?

Not here I think

The AZ100 has an EQ6 fitting. That's why FLO loaned me the 2nd Uni 28 - mine is HEQ5. @johninderby converted his to dual fitting I think.

I reckon my 21.5 - 7.2 zoom will become a "sentimental" eyepiece of sorts. I just use it such a lot ! I'll wear it out at this rate !

Great stuff Nick. I went for some of those with my 12 inch dob after the Venus / Mercury observing. I want a refund though, the Blinking Planetary does not blink when observed with a 12 inch !

Both the tripods in my photo are Berlebach Uni 28's.

Here is one that I took when I was trying out an early AZ100

Great post Doug - more for my next time out as well !

Thanks folks. I use a very cheap bracket to mount my old mobile phone to the eyepiece. There are much better ones (and phones !) available but I'm a cheapskate when it comes to astro snapping (can't really call what I do imaging)

I don't know if the term "Inferior Planets" is used much these days Anyway, it refers to Venus and Mercury. Mars, Jupiter Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are the "Superior Planets" (but don't tell them that !) I don't know if it will be clear tonight and tomorrow so I made the most of last nights clear evening to observe Venus and Mercury in conjunction. I think they get closer together today and tomorrow ?. I snapped a few photos with my mobile at the eyepiece of my 100mm refractor. Mercury is just 6 arc seconds in apparent diameter though so hard to get with such a basic method. Later on I got the 12 inch dobsonian out for a nice deep sky session which included a nice line of 4 galaxies on the outskirts of Virgo (not far from Messier 5 in fact) with NGC 5846 and 5850 the brighter of the line, a handful of globular clusters (M5 included) and some nice planetary nebulae including the Cats Eye in Draco and the Blinking Planetary NGC 6826 in Cygnus, which does not blink much with a 12 inch scope ! Nice central stars visible in those two. Tried for the central star in M57 but it was no-go last night. The nebula looked quite impressive at 500x though ! Anyway, here are the snaps of the Venus / Mercury pairing. Many better ones will be posted but these are my "souvenirs" of yesterday evening

Some good targets there. Better point out though that they won't look anything like that though a scope - unless you have a 30 inch dob on top of the Canaries !

Beats me !!! But I thought this thread had gone into realms beyond practical usage so I thought I'd throw it in