John

I did look at M87 a while back thie evening but not to for too long I'm afraid. I'm wading through the Virgo galaxy field currently and its easy to get distracted and rather lost ! There is some LP in the sky currently so not the best for spotting faint jets perhaps ?

There is the excellent freeware planetarium "Stellarium": https://stellarium.org/ This one is simple and printable: https://www.heavens-above.com/skychart2.aspx More here: http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html Really detailed stuff here: http://www.deepskywatch.com/deepsky-atlas.html

That is about as far as you can take it. There are ball bearings within that silver and brass housing that bear against the shaft. If you take it off, getting it back on with the bearings in the correct place can be very tricky indeed. It's very difficult to get the same "feel" that it used to have.

The Orion Nebula (Messier 42) is located in what is often called the "sword" of Orion, that is a line of stars that come down below the 3 "belt" stars. I've arrowed the nebula in red in this photo and Betelgeuse is indicated by the green arrow:

Thanks for these reports Alan AT2020ftl is the only one that is within my grasp here with my 12 inch, unless one of the others does something interesting, but I've really enjoyed observing that one over the past 2 nights. Great part of the sky to have a decent aperture on as well

Nice report and some excellent binaries. Shame about the dew. I have dewing problems when I use my ED120 at the society observatory and find that an Astrozap dewshield on the end of the stock dewshield does a good job.

This was the longest scope that I've ever owned - Istar 150mm F/12 achromat. A beast to find a stable mount for though

Not astronomical targets. Landscapes, ships at sea, distant animals and birds. That sort of thing.

Very good report Baz, thanks for posting it M101 is a tricky blighter as Stu says. With a very few exceptions galaxy spotting is about picking out those faint smudges. This is my star hop route to Tegmine, in case it is of any use:

The 1.5x erecting eyepiece turns the image to a fully corrected (ie: up, down, left and right as our eyes see it) view as well as acting as a 1.5x image amplifier. It is intended for terrestrial viewing rather than astro observing I believe.

The company Antares is / was Canadian. Much of their stuff was imported from Japan or other Asian countries. I agree that the stopped down optics, once they became known about, were off putting. Vixen used to make fine F/13 and F/15 achromat refractors. Much less of those around than the more familiar Vixen F/10 / F/11's I used to lust after these Vixens (the scopes) which were branded Celestron back in the early 1980's:

Interesting that there are still good quality long focal length achromat refractors being produced. These remind me of the Antares "Vixen Spec" achromats which were available a decade or so ago. Bresser produced a couple of long achromats a couple of years back (90mm and 102mm) but they used a lot of plastic in these so I;m not sure how good they actually turned out to be ?:

Another clear and dark night here last night. Probably a 7 out of 10 in terms of sky transparency. Naked eye limit at zenith was around magnitude 5.5. Again armed with the 12 inch dobsonian I covered targets in Leo, Virgo, Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici, Ursa Major, and finally Hercules and Lyra. I alternated between tougher and easy targets. I always try and find some easy targets at the end of a session rather than packing up on a negative note having not found something ! In the Virgo / Coma Berenices area there are so many galaxies visible with this aperture that you can easily get lost - they keep popping into view as you sweep around with a low powered eyepiece. I found 75x (21mm eyepiece) was a good general viewing power last night to darken the background sky and then using 8mm (200x) or occasionally 6mm (265x) to tease out smaller, fainter targets (eg: the supernova). These are 100 degree field eyepieces though so you still see a decent amount of sky with them. In Leo: Double stars: Algieba (Gamma Leonis) and Iota Leonis Galaxies: NGC 2903 NGCs 3226 and 3227 (a close pair just E of Algieba and quite faint) M105, M95, M96 M65, M66, NGC 3628 (Leo Triplet) In Virgo: Double Star Porrima Galaxies: M61 NGCs 4281, 4273, 4268 and 4277 (very faint) with supernova SN2020ftl shining dimly at around magnitude 14 just N of the core) Markarins Chain galaxies M86, M84, NGCs 4388, 4387, 4435 and 4438 ("The Eyes"), 4458, 4461, 4473 and 4477 (the last two are in Coma Berenices) Also in Coma Berenices: Galaxies: M64 (the "Black Eye" galaxy and it was showing the structure that it is named for) Globular clusters: M53 (nicely resolved at 200x, one of the more distant clusters) NGC 50503 (very, faint, indistinct and scattered globular cluster. Hard to see even with 12 inches of aperture and low power and hard to believe that its classified as a globular) In Canes Venatici: Globular cluster M3 (simply magnificent at 200x, resolved deep into its core and surrounding sprawling mass of stars) Galaxies: M51 and NGC 5195 (the "Whirlpool" and showing faint spiral structure, nearly at the zenith). M51 was clear in the 50mm finder scope as well. In Ursa Major: Galaxies: M81 and M82 (never miss the chance to see these two. M82 showing several dark rifts at 200x and M81 quite a bit of outer halo) M101 (not always easy to spot this faint face on spiral. It's big with a low surface brightness. Was visible as faint patch in 50mm finder last night which shows that the sky there was quite dark) In Hercules: Globular clusters: The "Great" globular cluster M13 and the also far from shabby M92 both showing very well as their home constellation climbed into the sky. As with M3 and M53 earlier, superb resolution at 200x with this aperture. The dark 3 bladed "Propeller" structure just off centre in M13 was clearly defined. Finally, in Lyra: The famous "Double, Double" Epsilon Lyrae very nicely split at 200x at at the same magnification the equally famous "Ring Nebula" M 57 showing some nice structure despite being still low in the sky. All in all, another very enjoyable session under the stars. And another clear one tonight perhaps ?. Attached is a recent image by Luca Grazzini of supernova SN2020ftl in Virgo mentioned above. It is a type 1a supernova and was discovered at magnitude 16 on the 2nd April. The host galaxy, NGC 4277 is 101 million light years from us.

A friend of mine who has the same scope that you do uses a Vixen NPL 30mm as his lowest power eyepiece and likes it a lot. It is currently £35.00 from First Light Optics: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/vixen-eyepieces/vixen-npl-eyepieces.html

I got this supernova again tonight. Similar observing conditions and the same scope. It seems a touch easier to pick up but that might just be because I now know where to look and what to look for. The SN is still a touch fainter than the magnitude 13.55 star just to the S of it so still around mag 14 I'd say. 265x (Ethos 6mm) is doing the best job tonight. Nice wide field of view despite the high power.

If you saw Venus looking like this (below) then that is what it usually looks like just now. Seeing any details on the planet is very challenging and it takes experienced eyes to pick them out.

I think all scopes of a similar type and budget are made in China or Taiwan so will also be subject to such supply restrictions currently. Orion Optics in the UK make an 8 inch dobsonian but they are much more expensive. Have you thought about buying a used one ?

If you can see the outline of the mirror supports you are not in focus. Keep adjusting the focus until you have the target (Venus in this case) looking it's smallest as DaveL59 says. Then you should see it is around 50% illuminated - like a tiny version of the Moon.

What were you trying to focus on and what eyepiece were you using ? Or has this been the case with a number of targets and eyepieces ?

I notice that you have the 18mm and 8mm BST Starguiders arriving shortly ? These will work pretty well with a 250mm F/5 dobsonian.

It does not change the position of the optics so focus should not be affected. It does change the position of the eye in relation to the top lens of the eyepiece. The purpose is to allow different people to find a position where they can see the exit pupil of the eyepiece easily. People who wear glasses when observing usually find that having the eyecup in the lower position works best whereas those who don't wear glasses often find a higher position works for them.

Not sure about the total weight of the Skywatcher you have there. I've seen figures of 25kg and 27kg for the Skyliner 250PX solid tube. I used to own one and I don't think it was that heavy My old Meade Lightbridge 12 inch dob weighed around 40 kg all up - that one was a beast !

I'm not an imager so I can't help you there but you have got an amazing bargain. The scope alone of worth the price you paid. You got the mount for free The William Optics eyepiece (is it a SWAN ?) is worth £50 if its in good nick as well.

The eyepiece is missing it's silver barrel - is should look like this:

Nice report Mark We both know how well 6 inch scopes can do under dark skies from that great night at Lucksall a few years back. I feel that I have a gap in my scopes around the 6-8 inch aperture so I might see if I can find a suitable OTA to fill that