John

The optics of the Skywatcher dobs are excellent. I've owned the 200P and the 250PX and observed with a few of the 300's (solid and flex tube) and the optical performance was consistently good.

Its a very useful concept:

Moon still hidden behind trees for me here. I reckon another hour until I see it Luckily I don't have to get up early tomorrow. The seeing is very steady again judging by the appearance of tight binary stars though the scope.

If you use the freeware planetarium software Stellarium you can see what the sky looks like from many locations other than the Earth. This is a view from the Moons surface:

Well done for getting Tegmine with the ED120 Ade I got it again tonight with the 130mm triplet. Seeing good again and even a barmy 600x showed a well defined triple system of stars. I found these rather quirky facts about traveling times to Tegmine on the web: Description Speed (m.p.h.) Time (years) Walking 4 13,715,786,604.62 Car 120 457,192,886.82 Airbus A380 736 74,542,318.50 Speed of Sound (Mach 1) 767.269 71,504,448.14 Concorde (Mach 2) 1,534.54 35,752,177.47 New Horizons Probe 33,000 1,662,519.59 Speed of Light 670,616,629.00 81.81 So there you have it ! David A Hardy produced an artists impression of the system a few years back:

It's yet not above the conifers / houses that are also in that direction for me. I have my 130mm refractor out waiting for it though

One thing that the Skywatcher mak-cassegrains do have is pretty decent optics. I've owned a 180 and a 127 for a short time but they both put up very nice, sharp and contrasty views. Another 127 (blue tube) that I observed through at an SGL star party a few years back showed Saturn wonderfully well

Did they make the tube diameter larger to accommodate the larger primary ? Big revamp if they did - primary and meniscus cells would need re-design I guess. I know that Neil English had one of the original gold tube 180's and referred to it as his 170 mak-cassegrain in his reports on it. Perhaps the revisions to effective aperture were made when the colour scheme changed ?

Good. Can't really see why they put the design out with undersized mirrors in the first place. Its not as if it was an innovative new design

4 here. No binoviewers involved. 5 if one makes do with a birding scope. 6 if I got my old 60mm refractor out of the loft. Quite a few more if binoculars can be pressed into use

I guess it is 200mm of aperture vs 121mm (the mak-casses work a little under their quoted aperture).

They are 1.25 inch eyepieces despite the 2 inch section of barrel. You need quite a bit of outwards focuser travel to use them with the 2 inch section inserted. BTW - the "W" is Cassiopeia. Cygnus is a Summer constellation and looks like this:

I have given it a sort of wax treatment. We have recently acquired a light oak dining table which is a very similar colour so after waxing that I thought that a go over the tripod and tray would not go amiss

Its quite an old one Jeremy. It was actually made by Berlebach for BC&F Astro Engineering according to the stamp on the side of the leg so that dates it a bit. The bottom part of the legs is actually 2-tone slightly where the tripod was left at the same extension for quite some time I imagine. I've used a couple of others that were loaned by FLO for testing purposes and they were quite a bit lighter in tone.

Cool down time might be the answer. Also though, the F/6 200P dob is a pretty darn good lunar and planetary instrument.

Just got the Berlebach Uni 28:

Thanks - I've moved it and left a link where it was originally posted so folks can find their way to it still.

I had a cursory look for it with my ED120 last night but the sky was awash with moonlight and I'd found the comet underwhelming with my 12 inch dob a couple of nights previously so I didn't pursue it. Sadly I don't think this one will get anywhere near the once-predicted magnitude in May of -1 It will probably be a "fizzler" rather than a "sizzler"

Good luck ! It's cloudy here so no observing tonight for me.

A couple of movies about a really BIG refractor Pathe News: "The Sky at Night":

No markings on the edge or back ?

Try finding Sirius in twilight Baz. It helps reduce the glare from the primary star.

I have to say last night that I did wonder how much better the views of the double stars could actually be ? On a number of close double stars I was able to use a crazy 450x with the ED120 (Nagler 2-4 zoom on the 2mm setting) and the star images and gaps between them seemed absolutely textbook. Of course observers such as Herschel used really immense magnifications to observe with (over 1000x) with far less sophisticated optics so I do wonder if the gradual degredation of our skies over the intervening years has got us where we, usually, are today. Because of the exceptional circumstances in effect currently across the world perhaps we are getting a glimpse into the past ?

I hope it lasts too Stu. My observing is all about star hopping so my dalliance with the Vixen GP the other night didn't last long I'm afraid. Within an hour I had the Tak back on the Skytee II and was much more comfortable that way. Like putting on an old pair of slippers ! I'm not an "eq man" these days I fear, despite how well they look

Thanks for the comments folks. It was a cracking night last night and I ended it with a superb view of the lovely Izar as Bootes rose above my conifer line @markse68 - I don't know why the images don't show in a mobile. I don't use a mobile for this sort of thing - maybe others will know ? @F15Rules - well done on the Pup at 99x mate - I can seem to get it below 200x. Anyway, Izar by Richard Orr about a year ago: