John

I've been looking at it with my Tak 100. Nice rilles and central peak structure. A very complex floor to this crater.

I don't know the exact figures but I think the 20mm erecting eyepiece will have an apparent field of view of around 35-40 degrees and the 10mm somewhere between 45 and 50 degrees.

Nice report Doug No beer here but it's a totally clear sky. Gassendi does look very nice. Using my Tak 100 tonight.

Very clear here as well. Not that great seeing though ? Just using 11x70's on Venus at the moment. Nice view though.

Are you using a newt Neil ? Could be the secondary shadow.

Thanks Stu. I've had the GP a while but I have not used it much. The slow motion cables are from the T-Rex but suit the GP very well I think. I put a Skywatcher motor drive set on the mount which works fine but I thought I'd try it with the long slo mo cables tonight, for a change.

I got it some time ago on the Astroboot site. I've had to create my own DIY mount attachment system because this one was fitted with the mount that large binoculars use. I use a large 8mm thick steel washer under the tripod hub with an M10 bolt through it into the mount base. A large diameter M10 knob bears against the bottom of the plate to hold everything in place. It works well for my Skytee II and Ercole mounts as well.

I got it yesterday and have hopes again today. I'm being greedy Scope is out.

This is my Celestron / Vixen GP on an Oberwerk hardwood tripod with the Takahashi FC-100DL on board. The long slow motion cables give it quite a classic look I think

Funny how things come around. Vixen used to make stuff in Japan for Celestron back in the 1980's / 90's. Nice stuff too

This link has some info on low cost hacks to improve dob motions: https://flylib.com/books/en/3.311.1.60/1/ They use the term milk jug where we would mean a large plastic milk bottle eg: 4 litre size.

As usual I found the Pentax XW's excellent for lunar observing. The 5mm and 3.5mm are so sharp When I had the 3.7 amd 4.7mm Ethos SX's I compared them to the XW's over a few months but in the end had to conclude that the XW's were the sharpest even in the centre of the field of view. There was not much in it but despite my love of hyper-wide views, the Ethos SX's went to new homes eventually.

Actually I've used one Rigel Quikfinder for the past decade. They are more robust and long lasting that they at 1st might seem.

I've changed the colour of your text - it was black on dark grey for me and practically invisible !

The Rigel is a very light unit. I've found that the pads work fine but my scope is stored indoors. If it was stored outdoors / garage / shed I would find something stronger. There is a hole in the finder base section so it can be screwed to the tube if you have a convenient hole. There are strong 3rd party pads available from DIY stores. When I'm not using the scope I always take the finder unit off it's base. You can clip them on and off easily and pop then back on again without disturbing the alignment. I've used Rigel Quikfinders for the past decade now and I've been very happy with them. I have had Telrads as well and those are great as well.

W is an odd one. Depending on the illumination, it can just look like another wrinkle in the wall terracing around that part of Plato's ramparts. Its diameter is 2.6km so its the largest in there but not always very apparent.

I've just picked the comet up with my 12 inch dob. Still does not seem that bright or striking to me even with a decent aperture. Transparency not that good though and a bright moon is over between Leo and Cancer. Nice to see it again though.

You should be able to get "the big 4" craterlets with the 102mm I would think under favorable illumination and steady seeing ? D & C may well look like a single elongated feature though.

Great image Craig. I was getting similar detail with my 12 inch dob visually at 400x albeit with slight variations as the clarity fluctuated slightly - overall though the seeing was very good tonight ! Some 1 arc second detail in there - excellent capture.

Still quite clear here - I must have got lucky tonight. Venus has dropped behind the trees to the W now so I'm on the moon for a while. Seeing is great - 400x is sharp. I'll have a go at comet Y4 Atlas soon.

I'm getting A through to G tonight with the 12 inch dob. G is glimpsed on and off though. Sections of the rille in Vallis Alpes showing too. Seeing supporting 300x - 400x with the 12 inch dob tonight pretty well.

Best views of the Venus - M45 conjunction for me were with the 11x70 binoculars and the Vixen with a 40mm SWA eyeiece in it. Both giving around 4 degrees of true field. Interesting to count the Pleiades stars in both instruments Naked eye was nice too but Venus drowned out all but the brightest Pleiades stars. Lovely, lovely sight

Very clear here. Spoiled for choice with the 12 inch dob eyeing the Moon and Sirius A & B in the back garden and the Vixen 4 inch and 11x70's taking in Venus and the Pleiades on the side lawn. Don't get this sort of situation very often

A good introductory 2 inch eyepiece would be the Skywatcher Panaview 32mm. You can pick those up for around £50 on the used market.

I'm thinking of using my Vixen ED102SS with the 13mm Ethos to get a 1.9 degree true field @ 51x. I'll also have my 11x70 binoculars around for an alternative viewpoint.