John

If you use a smaller aperture scope, you get a larger airy disk.

This is an excellent idea and I'm sure it will be a great success I hope that visual observation and other non-imaging interests will be catered for in the near future I do realise that the majority of forum members do probably image or are interested in imaging though. Back to my eyepiece now, while it's clear ....

Definitely upgrade the scope if that is an option. The 2x barlow will be pushing it to the limit already so the 3x or 5x won't help even if they are top quality.

Great result Craig ! Makes my crude mobile-at-the-eyepiece efforts look pretty poor but, hey, it's been fun trying and seeing the phase of Mercury in a scope is a rare occurrence

Got them both !!!! Lovely views with the Tak 100. Mercury's phase showing clearly at 100x and more. Venus just 6.6% illuminated so very slim and delicate now. Venus clear in the 30mm finder but I found Mercury at low power with the scope. Took Mercury up to 281x but the high power seemed to emphasize atmospheric diffraction. 150x was nicer really. A small planet far away ! I think this is only the 3rd time that I've been able to see Mercury's phases clearly with a scope. Very pleased ! I took some at the eyepiece mobile snaps but I've no idea if the Mercury ones will show much. They will be closer together tomorrow evening and Friday but the forecast is dodgy then so I'm glad I got sorted this evening. Hope others are getting nice views of the pair as well

I've taken my Vixen 102 upstairs to try and get a decent view of the conjunction. From the garden my view to the W is quite constrained by a very large conifer hedge I've been seeing Venus OK but I wanted a bit more clear sky in that direction for the next few days.

Nagler 2-4mm zoom. Just kept clicking down the .5 mm increments ..... If it had been the Moon it would have been "floater city" I would think though The weird thing is, when I backed off to 3mm or 4mm and "took it easy" the scope was still way above "50x per inch"

Yep - I've got a scope upstairs at the moment because that where I have my clearest and lowest western views. Last time I observed it I managed an image, well in silhouette anyway

I've not seen anything obvious when I've observed it previously. But I didn't have a Tak back then .......

Mercury's disk is around 6 arc seconds in apparent diameter. Venus is 52 arc seconds. Mercury will be a very small gibbous disk.

I actually found last night pretty steady. Zeta Herculis still looked well defined at 600x with my 130mm triplet refractor. Nice round primary and secondary of differing tones rather than the "blob stuck to the side" look that this pair can have sometimes.

I guess one thing that might have affected this discussion is that the original post was made in the eyepieces section of the forum where discussion usually centers around tools that are used for observing and the practical observing experiences with them. There seem to be quite a lot of aspects of this particular thread, especially recently, that might be more relevant to the Physics, Space Science and Theories section of the forum perhaps ?

M 51 can be quite challenging to find with a small aperture scope in other than dark skies. M 101 even more so. M 81 and M82 in Ursa Major are easier to find and will appear a little brighter. I found those with my old 60mm refractor - the first galaxies that I ever observed with a scope. Under dark skies and when you have experience of finding and observing these faint targets, your scope will show 100's of them and some at mind boggling distances. I was using my 130mm refractor (same galaxy capabilities as your scope) last night and managed to see a galaxy called NGC 5846 which is 90 million light years away. It was just a very faint and small patch of light which is how practically all galaxies look through smaller scopes, even the famous ones like the Whirlpool (M 51) and the Pinwheel (M 101). You scope is actually ideal for galaxy spotting because it is so portable so transporting it to dark skies is (normally) somewhat easier. Dark skies are what helps more than anything when observing galaxies.

Great report Kerry ! I wish I was able to get up that early - I seem to be more of a night owl

Nice dream Dave ! I had a similar night here with the 130 refractor

I'll get a scope on Venus and Mercury on Thursday, if it's reasonably clear. Looks like the pair will be a touch under 2 degrees apart so both in the same FoV will be nice then some power on Mercury to tease out it's phase

Show us some better ones and I'm sure they will get as well

It's out cooling so I could not resist

As much as the hours and hours of work that Mark puts in cost

Tim Wetherell's refractor was pretty special as well (he is a member here)

I think Mark does has found a great niche. The aesthetics won't appeal to everyone of course but they are very competent instruments as well as having unique looks. Lowell Observatory have recently installed a rather nice example of Marks work at their public observation deck. This one has a 200mm objective:

Yes, that is a point. Where nebulae can be seen in other galaxies a filter can help emphasize those regions.

12 inch newtonians are superb for observing but on a dobsonian mount

They are awful and dangerous devices. With an SCT, a filter, or a filter mounted in a mask, that securely covers the whole of the aperture of the scope is the only way to do it. With a refractor you can use a herschel wedge which works extremely well and is also extremely safe but they are only for refractors.

I've seen so many of the eq6 12 newtonians for sale over the years and I reckon the reason is often the same - they went for as large as possible on the basis that they didn't want to feel the need to upgrade anytime soon and quickly found the scopes too much to handle. IMHO a 12 inch on an equatorial needs to be based in an observatory as a permanent setup.