John

I use the Celestron Illuminated RACI finder on my 12 inch dobsonian. I don't use the mount that it comes with though. I took the finder out and fitted it into a Skywatcher 9x50 RACI mount. It fitted OK but the Celestron finder is a little shorter bodywise than the Skywatcher 9x50 RACI so it is just long enough, but only just. I also had to make my own rubber rings from an old bicycle inner tube to hold the finder in the front part of the Skywatcher finder mount. In it's standard mount the Celestron finder uses a thick rubber O ring which is much too thick to fit inside the Skwatcher mount. The Celestron finder is a little heavier than the Skywatcher so be aware of that if balance is critical. The eyepiece and diagonal arrangement are quite different to accommodate the illuminated reticule. Its a good finder though and I find the illumination nice to have although you can use the finder without turning it on. Some photos of my setup:

The Rowan AZ100 is EQ6 tripod compatible as I recall ?

I caught that bug quite a few years ago and it has cost me dearly There are other quality brands / ranges around now as well though - Pentax, Nikon, some of the Explore Scientific, some of the APM's, etc, etc. I believe the profit margins on astro gear are relatively small, at least at the retailer level.

Signed limited edition prints are available Stu ......

Its the usual thing with optical quality. Most of the time there is little in it but differences start to show when the conditions are good and when you are going for challenging targets.

The one in NGC 3643 should be OK as it's still mag 12.5. I could see it (just about) with my ED120 refractor the other night. The host galaxy is very faint though. The one in M61 is mag 14 so may or may not be doable. If you get a good dark night then it is possible I reckon.

My mistake, Matthew's is "only" the 180mm. Still pretty dreamy: Hope Matthew does not mind me sharing this. We had a "show us your LZOS scope" thread a while back:

It's the short dovetail bar that the supply. Pretty useless really.

OK - that's answered the question for me as well. The Maxload makes sense with a scope like that. Matthew uses one for his 200mm APM / LZOS.

Interesting find Steve. The DGM NBP is a very good UHC so I would take other filters from them seriously. So far I have not found a filter that helps with galaxies but I have not tried that one !

Gorgeous refractors Neil I'm wondering the same as Jeremy re: the 152 mount ..... The CNC TMB's were something else ! - heavy I believe but superbly built.

It depends on quite a lot of factors. With my 12 inch OO I can get down to mag 14.7 at the zenith. Similar skies to you I guess. At least that is the faintest star that I have seen so far. Extended objects (ie: galaxies, nebulae) would be not quite as faint as that. I reckon you might be able to get down to mag 14.5 maybe ? The theoretical limit of a 10 inch is dimmer of course - something like mag 15 I think. There are observing techniques that can help push things such as averted vision and a sort of "1000 yard stare" thing that I try sometimes where you deliberately try and defocus the eye. That one is difficult to describe !

I got this one through the Tak 100 a few days ago. My phone is an ancient Samsung S3 mini and the clamp is a cheapo 6 quid e.bay one

That's looking a very handsome scope

Not last night. We had my Astro Society "Zoom" virtual meeting which took until 9:00 pm by which time it was pretty cloudy. Looks like if might be clear from around 10:00 pm this evening for a while. The good thing about astronomy is that the Universe is not going anywhere so you can have a break for while and it's all still there when the clouds clear again

Great stuff Stu I'm glad my sketch was reasonably accurate - its easy to find yourself doubting what you saw at this game, particularly as we all have to observe on our own just now.

@Nerf_Caching is in Hong Kong. In the UK the early hours are when Jupiter and Saturn can currently be seen.

Tele Vue eyepieces seem to do OK without being purged with anything

The Mizar-Alcor pair are pretty straightforward under any reasonable sky with the naked eye. The separation between them is 12 arc minutes. To split Mizar into it's 2 components, Mizar A and Mizar B, requires a scope. The separation between these is 14 arc seconds.

1st time I observed it I reckoned around mag 14.5. 2nd time (couple of nights back) I reckoned it might have brightened to 14.0 or even the high 13's. Latest estimates have it still around that.

The bottom one is nearly in focus. Just a bit more adjustment. That's as big as its going to get really. It should look like this when at focus. I've enlarged the image a bit over the eyepiece view:

Looks superb Garry

Here is the diagram that Mark mentions in case it is any help. I look for the right angle (green lines) between the top star, the galactic core and the SN (red circle). Cloudy here now though

Todays high quality wide field eyepieces using the latest glass types and coatings give little away to simpler designs I find They do cost quite a lot though

Fullerscopes reminded me of TAL scopes from Russia. Robust, slightly "agricultural", a touch over-engineered, a bit quirky but they worked well. I still have one of their early catalogues: Rob Miller went over to the USA to work with Roland Christen at Astro Physics on their mounts I believe. Also worked with Software Bisque on the Paramount. I have an Astro Systems catalogue somewhere as well. Rather sad probably ......