John

Yes indeed - in between the clouds, the Moon has looked very fine tonight.

As has been said, there a lots of different was to enjoy the skies and no wrong ones, unless its adding light pollution !

Personally I don't use GOTO systems and enjoy hunting new targets down. I can see though where not taking too much time to find something is a good thing eg: when time is short and when non-astro family and friends are waiting !

Also GOTO is invaluable for imagers.

2 hours ago, Pixies said:

That looks great - a bit canon-like!

Is that a magnetic knife-block?

Yes - with a couple of weights to counterweight my heavy eyepieces.

6 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Very nice John. You say cheaper than the Orion, what's it work out?

Less than 50% of what Orion Optics would have charged.

It was made by an SGL friend though so while the build is of professional quality, the costs were very reasonable

36 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Needs a picture John 😉 There's always something to aspire towards...

Happy to oblige:

15 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

Just needs these clouds to clear 🤞

Is it just me, being a newbie to dobs,, that I find it odd that they keep to a traditional wooden base when they are to be used outdoors? Appreciate not in the rain, but these days you'd think..

Orion Optics (UK) use an alloy dob mount as John says. Mine is made from good quality baltic ply and is along the same pattern as the Orion Optics ones but was a lot less expensive. The MDF is cheap and easy to manufacture I guess. Heavy though, compared with other materials.

At least you get a mount with a dob

Some important points there Mike

I've also found that some eyepieces are better for, say Jupiter, than they are with, say Mars and vice versa.

Each planetary target has it's own specific characteristics and the approach needed to get the best out of them needs to be tailored accordingly.

In HA presumably Mark ?

It was a bit dull in WL earlier, apart from a nice faculae area.

I think the basic accessories are supplied so that you can get going with the scope out of the box.

The more expensive scopes don't tend to come with them - I guess they assume that you will already have the ones you want ?

I can see that this approach might have a future even beyond the pandemic. While we get good attendances for talks, its proving a little hard to persuade many of my society members to come along to our out of town observatory site to actually do some observing / imaging.

I can see that there might be quite a bit of interest in watching "live observing broadcasts" from the comfort of our meeting room.

Won't be as entertaining as this though

19 minutes ago, Alan White said:

How did anyone get to look at anything, I have been under cloud all day.
 

Its been very mixed here but there have been some nice patches of sunshine.

8 minutes ago, Stu said:

Had a look in WL today and it all seems to have disappeared, apart from a nice patch of faculae on the limb.

Yes, I saw that earlier today. I was half expecting a small amount of spot activity from the Solar Monitor images early this morning. The faculae area was pretty bright and nicely defined though.

I find with my Tak FC-100DL that I'm starting at around 200x and going upwards on all the above except Jupiter which just does not seem to benefit from much above 200x mostly. I did not think that my Nagler 2mm - 4mm zoom would get so much use !

That looks similar to my DL. I've not had any dewing issues, so far, with that scope though.

Sounds excellent Stu.

We are using Zoom for our society meetings and have the 3rd one using this system tomorrow night. The speaker who was booked to visit us has agreed to do his presentation "live" over Zoom so that should be interesting. The past couple of sessions have been a social 10-15 minutes then a pre-recorded presentation which we all watch "together" as it were - Zoom allows text comments as we go along.

Doing some "live" viewing would be great if we can set it up. I'll give that some thought - thanks for the info on what you have done.

We are getting about 40 folks logging on to our sessions so a live broadcast of views though a scope would be a lot of fun !

9 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

Oh and John, a little off topic but okay, i once advertised an c5+ on this forum.  For sale or to swap.  And remember you telling me to not need an apo because the c5+ is some sort of, or is, an apo.  The scope is still for sale and biddings came from 50,- to 600,-   I received like 10/15 mails asking me to sell for 600,-  people who were not on a hunt for a scope but were willing to add that white celestron to their arsenal.  Maybe its not worth more then that. I dont know.  And still dont use the c5.  But you told me the set was fine, the accessoires were plenty to start with etc etc.  And when reading all these messages from ex-owners who were sorry they sold this scope in the past, im really thinking of keeping it for moments with family or my kids to look back in time through a scope that was also made back in time. My only (semi)apo refractors i own are a 71 and 80 mm zenithstar.  Do you still think its not worth to search for an used 100 or 120 mm apo to complete my own collection, keeping in mind that we always will carry a shoppinglist of items we terribly need😅, or do refractors have some pro’s to consider over using a sct?   Ill probably keep the c5.  But your comment made me think about the terrible need for a medium to big apo.   Thx for reading a long and boring question

I honestly can't recall that advice but I have made quite a lot of posts here over the past 15 years so perhaps thats not surprising !

It might be worth starting another thread on the differences between a C5 and a 100mm or 120mm apo / ED doublet refractor.

I'm probably biased now because I do have an ED120 and I've not owned a  C5 for quite a while

The C5+ if I recall was a particularly nice version of the C5 with a table top motorised mount. A sort of complete portable and compact instrument. An ED120 is a great scope but can't match the C5 for compactness and portability.

I don't think I've read the manual that came with my Tak

I'll have to dig it out and have a look though it - might pick up some useful tips !

The Telrad would look fine on the 10" dob.

I feel that they are an iconic design despite their size. I've enjoyed the ones that I've owned but with my current dob I want the smaller "footprint" of the Rigel.

What that does not show is the effect of the additional magnification in darkening the background sky which in turn helps to enhance the contrast of deep sky objects. This is why I use my 21mm Ethos a lot more than the 31mm Nagler.

True field is one thing but contrast is also a very important part of deep sky observing.

7 minutes ago, Stardaze said:

I have to say that I'm happier with the feel of the Telrad but can't help think that surely it can be made smaller?....

Yes, it can:

Neater job:

https://astronomyconnect.com/forums/media/short-telrad.130/

5 minutes ago, John said:

What about that old "meaningless magnification" thing that used to get quoted a lot when referring to scope performance ?

How do these top quality refractors seem to bypass that ?

 

Actually, maybe a subject that is better discussed in a thread of it's own perhaps.

What about that old "meaningless magnification" thing that used to get quoted a lot when referring to scope performance ?

How do these top quality refractors seem to bypass that ?

I wanted it to save having to use the tray.

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

Funny how the spread stoppers used to be silver. Not sure if I prefer silver or black. 🤔

Well, all the other fittings are black