John

The TAL finders from Russia are very good optically as well. Not as nicely finished as the Tak but optically very nice indeed.

My feelings exactly on both points

Thanks Alan. I've just managed to spot SN 2020hvf. NGC 3643 not visible in my 12 inch scope at 199x tonight but the SN is clear and noticably brighter than a nearby mag 13.15 star. Next one is 2020jfo. Much easier host galaxy but much dimmer SN !

90mm F/10 refractor will create a fair bit of force on the mount head through lever arm. The 102mm / F/6 somewhat less. I don't know the Nano mount but it would be worth checking if it's able to cope with the longer tube.

Well I'm glad you got that off your chest Louis. I stand corrected of course

I've used lots of both types and they all worked RACI's on all my scopes now though. Using the straight through on the Tasco the other night reminded me why. I didn't even get on with the lovely little Tak 30mm straight through ...... my Tak now carries a Skywatcher RACI Not a bad finder though - Venus slim phase was clear at just 6x with it this evening. Glad some folks like the straight throughs though

Could not decide tonight so went for the Tak for Venus and some binary stars and then the dob for some DSO's later

Got Venus just now with the 100mm Takahashi. The slim phase is clear even though the 30mm finder !

If you cannot see any stars with the naked eye in the sky then I agree that the zero power finders would be difficult to use.

I guess this may or may not be related to all this but I find that using high magnification (very high sometimes) and obviously very small exit pupils helps me pick dim point sources out, eg: super novae, quasars, faint planetary moons etc. These don't seem to be as apparent at lower magnifications. Or is that something different at work ?

Another set of free downloadable ones here. Down to mag 10 stars and mag 14 DSO's: http://www.deepskywatch.com/deep-sky-hunter-atlas.html

The 6.2mm eyepiece will max out the scopes capabilities on it's own most of the time - that's 242x ! Much observing is done at the low to medium magnifications.

Venus definitely looks better when observed with a fair amount of light still in the sky Jupiter does as well !

I should have mentioned that 7.2mm-21.5mm - it's the one that I currently have as well !

Sorry

Excellent I have a TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet. The one with the Kruppax 50 tube.

Hi (again !) Matt, Our sponsor, First Light Optics, has a range of bags which might be worth a look: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescope-bags-cases-storage.html

Hi Matt, These days, zooms work pretty well and their optical quality is almost as good as fixed focal length eyepieces. The downside with them (most of them anyway) is that at the longer focal lengths, the field of view is quite narrow. This widens out at the shorter focal lengths though. The Celestron and Skywatcher (and Seben) 8-24 zooms are quite good quality and all the same item as far as I can see. The cheaper 7-21mm ones are not so good though. The Baader 8-24 is very nice but a lot more expensive. The Skywatcher Hyperflex zooms are pretty good as well. With your scope I can see the attraction. I might want to compliment the zoom with something like a 30mm fixed focal length eyepiece for low power wider views than the zoom can provide. Cheers, John

I had a Feathertouch on my LS50 and it was superb. I also have one on my 130mm triplet refractor with similar results. I like Moonlites and use those on my 12 inch dob and ED120 refractor but the Feathertouch is a noticable step up in all respects. I wondered what the fuss was about until I got to see and try a Feathertouch. Fabulous devices. I wish I could afford to put one on all my scopes.

Yes - an optical 9x50mm right angle, correct image finder and a zero magnification Rigel Quikfinder. A very effective combination

For the sake of £19 I think I'd prefer to buy from a reputable dealer that has good pre and post sales support such as First Light Optics. That assumes the scope you are looking at is this one: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-8-dobsonian-telescope.html

I've queried that with the seller. Hopefully they will confirm one way or another ASAP.

Lovely setup (mount and scope) What scope is it by the way ?. Clearly a LZOS objective but which one ?

The only filters that I use are O-III and UHC filters which enhance the views of nebulae. Oh, and special filters when observing the Sun in white light of course. I have owned and used moon and planetary filters (coloured and specialist) a number of times over the years that I have been observing but, for me, they did not bring any benefits over observing without a filter. I still keep a moon filter for when doing outreach if someone feels that they would like to use one. Even with my 12 inch scope though, I don't use a moon filter. So by all means try some and see if they work for you (others will make recommendations I'm sure) but they are not a mandatory part of observing kit in my opinion, unless you wish to observe the sun in white light when they a suitable filter MUST be used of course.

The CA levels are pretty low. Venus looked very nicely defined at 133x and was surprisingly good even at 200x. Some CA fringing the edges of the crescent but really not distracting. Those old Vixen Or's are quite nice eyepieces - I used to use them with a Vixen 102M achromat. A lot better than the Huygens ones I got with the Tasco.