John

Me too. I can see east from our bedroom window but I might get into trouble if I take the dob up there !

You can replace the whole EQ1 mount for around £75.00 or just get a replacement tripod from the website below for around £40 delivered or just the EQ1 head for somewhat less if the legs from the old one can be reused: https://www.astroboot.co.uk/AstroBoot I think they probably have just some EQ1 legs on there somewhere if you have a browse. Alternatively you could put a "wanted" advert in our classifieds section or on UK Astro Buy & Sell and see what comes up.

John started this general "show us your dob" thread back in January - feel free to post pics of your dob there: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/347610-show-us-your-dobs/ It's nice to see the variety of designs and makes that are around and in use including some great "homebrew" ones

Up to you, but personally I prefer to avoid these "silo" type approaches on forums We have occasionally been asked to setup brand-specific sections but have resisted. At the end of the day, they are scopes like all the rest. Unless they are Takahashi's of course ....

The TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 triplet I picture above is BV friendly - it has a section of the focuser that slides in about 13cm so you can get to focus without the need for a barlow or other optical adapter. FLO kindly loaned me the above WO BV's for a few months so I had ample opportunity to try them at no cost. Sorry Doug - I didn't want to hijack your thread about your very nice new setup.

Strangely, I've owned a couple of the TV 3-6 zooms in the past and felt the same but I now have the 2-4mm which is just the same ergonomically of course and I love it !.

Interesting the different eyepiece angle that we are choosing here. With tube rings it is adjustable, which is good. My preference is similar to Johns. My eyepiece is at a level that suits standing observing which is how I wanted the scope to be setup. John is clearly a "sitter".

This thread makes me want to have another go with BV's but this will be the 4th or 5th try. I'm in 2 minds to be honest Just to prove that I have really tried - this ought to be a good setup:

Magnetic strip needed because Orion Optics use aluminum tubes. One reason why their scopes are a bit lighter than some others. Some of my eyepieces are over 1kg in weight so I need back end weight. Nice that they supply the Peroni with the scope

Great stuff Doug I do wish that I could get on with binoviewers. I've tried a few and even owned a set for a while but just couldn't take to them

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.

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

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

Happy to oblige:

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

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

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.