John

Nice - those "floating mountains" are a lovely sight I think

Great report, great session of lunar observing

Also now the Kraft Crater Chain (Catena Krafft) bridging the craters Kraft and Cardanus is showing up well. Out towards the Marius Hills is the strange bright feature, the Reiner Gamma looking like a bright tadpole with a long squiggly tail.

Moon now in full view. Fascinating detail in the thin area between the illuminated and dark surface. The Rimae Darwin and Rimae Sirsalis catch my eye where the former joins with the latter in a form of "T" junction. Rimae Sirsalis then sets off across the lunar surface for over 400 km.

I'll have to try a Vixen HR sometime. For now though I'm very happy with my TV 2-4 zoom The odd thing is that I have owned a couple of the 3-6 zooms in the past and not got on with them

When it rises above the trees / rooftops shortly, me and my ED120 will be ready for it !

Thanks Jeremy and Dave, I've just been observing Tegmine (Zeta Cancri) at 257x up to a stupid 450x - amazing with a clear split of the tighter 1.3 arc second pair all the way ! Just waiting for the Moon to clear the trees and rooftops. I'm keen to see what can be seen around that sliver of a terminator tonight.

The position of Sirius B corresponds to it's predicted position for 2020 on this chart: The illustration below was made in February 2010 (by Harry Roberts, not myself, alas). Imagine the faint star to the E of Sirus A more to the NNE and with E & W reversed (refractor view) and that is a reasonable representation of the view that I'm getting during the best seeing moments:

Early in the session this evening I thought that the views of Venus with my ED120 were pretty good 250x and 280x. For the first time with this scope I've just been able to see Sirius B, the elusive "Pup" star. It's glimmering faintly and intermittently in just the right position at 257x and 300x. The glare around Sirius A is well controlled an the star is sporting a nicely defined set of diffraction rings. This first for me with this scope after quite a few years trying on this tough target. Having seen the Pup star with my much larger 12 inch dob and my 130 triplet refractor I'm pretty confident now that I've got it with the ED120. It does help having seen the little so and so though other scopes ! Good start to the session. Looking forward to some double star and lunar observing later

24 Panoptic, 17.3 and 14 Delos, 10, 7, 5 and 3.5 Pentax XWs, 2-4mm Nagler zoom.

I've owned a LXD75 and one of the older HEQ5 mounts. The HEQ5 was the stronger and more capable mount. The latest versions of the HEQ5 will be even more so. The LXD75 was about the same as the Celestron CG5.

Great report Stu Nice to see the hedgepig as well. We had a cloudy night here and actually quite a bit of rain (which the garden needed) so it was movie night with my other half last night. Hope to get out with a scope again tonight though. You can understand why Sir Patrick Moore spent so much time observing the Moon - there is so much to see !

I've only had one significant one, thank goodness. My lovely Vixen ED102SS refractor fell out of the jaws of the dovetail clamp and onto the patio about 5 feet below The noise as it hit the paving slabs was horrible. Very fortunately Vixens are tougher than they look and the damage was limited to a bent focuser wheel axle and a dent and a scratch on the dew shield. No optical damage and no change to the collimation of the scope. The focuser has been replaced, the dent smoothed out of the dew shield, a touch up with paint and the scope is still looking good and performing well. Heart stopping moment though. Due I think to using one of those small dovetail bars in the flat jaws of the ADM dovetail clamp. It felt tight but it wasn't really

With my 12 inch dobsonian 75x is my normal low power - its a 21mm Ethos though

Can we confine buying and selling to the classifieds section please ? Thanks.

Perish the thought baz ! I found with hyper wide eyepieces I needed less focal lengths so I found 31mm, 21mm, 13mm, 8mm and 6mm replaced a somewhat larger range of eyepieces with slightly narrower field of view. All was going well until I decided that often I wanted smaller eyepieces when using refractors, so I put together a 1.25 inch fitting set. Then I decided that I needed an outreach / travel set so added a zoom, a barlow and a wide field for those purposes. So all my good intentions are undone now "Confessions of an Ocularholic"

When I first joined this forum the Hyperions were the "new kids on the block". That was 15 years ago ! Some additional focal lengths were added later (can't recall which).

Mostly cloudy here plus it's film night with my other half. Enjoy the views if you have them

For what its worth I did a report on the SSW's a while back Gerry: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/255080-vixen-ssw-ultra-wide-angle-eyepieces-review/ Gosh - where did those 5 years go !

Eyepiece sets always seem to be a "work in progress"

I think reports are starting to indicate that C/2019 Y4 Atlas might not achieve the brightness that some predicted. This information has been posted on my society website by Nigel Wakefield (who is also a member of this forum): "There are reports coming in that indicate that the C/2019 Y4 has ceased brightening. There is speculation as to the cause but the dust production has dropped markedly so the nuclear magnitude appears to have fallen a little in consequence. It could be that the nucleus has turned so that a solid crust now faces the Sun. This crust is presumed to have formed when it was part of a larger comet as that neared the Sun and subsequently broke up. It's orbit matches very closely to a bright comet in 1844 and it is speculated that C/2019 Y4 and the 1844 comet are part of a parent body that split up a long time ago."

I got Antares once with my 130mm triplet. Just the once though. Sirius is easier with some light still in the sky. It gets harder as it gets darker. Like many astro observations there is a "goldilocks" period when there is just the right amount of light in the sky to control the glare from the primary while still allowing the much dimmer secondary to glimmer though. Sirius has never looked to me like a "classic" binary though, ie: two crisp airy disks side by side. It's always been a matter of peering though the "skirts" of Sirus A to try and catch the glimmer of the Pup. If the seeing is less than good the glare and shimmer of the primary extends further out and that kills the dim Pup star.

What scope are you using the eyepiece with ? Is it the ES 24mm 68 degree or the 24mm 82 degree eyepiece ?

Can the eyepiece angle be changed, ie: rotated, on the Gen 2 scopes ? Sticking straight of of the side like the one in the picture is not the most convenient eyepiece position I think. An angle like the one in this picture seems to work best:

225x - 257x occasionally to 300x. The seeing is a bit variable with the higher powers.