John

Its very rare for the view though a telescope, any telescope, to rival the images that you see even if they were made using a similar scope to the one you are viewing through. Our eyes just cannot compete with CCD imaging and post capture image processing.

I didnt actually get around to using 2 scopes on the AZ 100's that I was sent to try. Its a good point though

Sorry that I missed this post Dermot. I would look out for a pre-owned one in good order. They do crop up quite often.

That was the problem that I had when I had the AZ100. I think I got 3 short sessions of actual use during the time that I had the units that I was sent

As a mental exercise today I've been trying to recall other scopes that I've owned over the years. Us oldies need to do this sort of thing now and then to stave off becoming decrepit you know Anyway, I've come up with a further 20+ but I wont go into detail about them. A few didnt last that long in my ownership but only a couple were actually "dogs" as I recall: Skywatcher ED100 Skywatcher ED80 (a couple of these) Skywatcher Evostar 120 Skywatcher ST80 Celestron ST102 Skywatcher Skymax 127 mak-cassegrain Skywatcher Skymax 180 mak-cassegrain Skywatcher Skyliner 250PX Orion Optics Europa 250 F/4.8 TAL 100RT (a couple of these) TAL 150 F/8 Newtonian Bresser Messier 127L achromat refractor Meade AR5 127mm F/9.2 achromat refractor Meade AR6 152mm F/8 achromat refractor Meade Lightbridge 12 dobsonian Meade Starfinder 8 inch F/6 newtonian Helios Evostar 150 F/8 achromat refractor Helios 200P newtonian William Optics Megrez 90 William Optics 70 ED Tele Vue Ranger 70mm ED Celestron C5 SCT (3 of these) Celestron 8SE SCT (in addition to the C8 plus already mentioned in my earlier post) Tasco 60mm F/13 refractor - still have this one, my 1st scope. A bit scary, isn't it ?

Quite a list Stu - well remembered

Interesting thread I can't honestly remember how many scopes I've owned since my first one nearly 40 years ago. I guess it must be somewhere between 30-40 with practically all the design types represented. I can cover the ones that I currently own though: - Vixen ED102SS. I wanted a portable, quality refractor that would handle high power and show a wide field of view and this nice little F/6.5 Vixen came up from an SGL member. I've owned it 13 years now but it dates from around 6 years earlier than that. The ED102SS was not made in large numbers and did not have a long production run. I've rarely seen them for sale since I picked mine up. At F/6.5 it is a very versatile scope and despite being an ED doublet rather than a triplet, false colour is very well contained and the objective has an excellent figure and polish so star images are crisp and clean. Vixen know how to make a good objective lens. - Skywatcher ED120. The Vixen above got me hooked on ED doublet views so I wanted more of that. The ED120 was another purchase from another SGL member probably around 8 years ago now. It is one of the original gold / cream colour scheme ones. It came with a William Optics crayford fitted but I've since changed that for a Moonlite craydord. Super optics in this example - competes with much more expensive scopes I've now found. When I bought this I did have thoughts about this becoming my only scope because it combined reasonably generous aperture with a high quality objective. I was not immune to aperture fever though - see below ! - Orion Optics 12 inch F/5.3 dobsonian. I bought this as an optical tube for a bargain price considering what they cost new. I'd owned 8 and 10 inch dobs and a 12 inch Meade Lightbridge. I parted with the Meade because of it's weight but I missed the aperture. My original plan was to buy an Orion Optics dobsonian mount but my SGL friend Moonshane offered to build be a dob base in the same style but made of good quality plywood. That worked out very well and the dob turned out as light as a chinese 10 inch dob but with the optical clout of one of Orion Optics better quality primary mirrors. Best scope that I've owned really in terms of being able to show me things that I'd not seen before and things that I had seen before, with more detail than ever before. - Takahashi FC-100DL. Back in 2016 I inherited a sum of money with no strings attached. I decided that I wanted to own a top flight refractor and the recently released Tak FC-100DL seemed to offer something a little different from the faster Vixen and my 1st taste of fluorite optics. Takahashi have made 2 production runs of the FC-100DL each limited to 100 units worldwide. Mine was the last unit that was available in the UK from the first run. The only scope that I currently have that I bought new. a couple of decades back I had lusted for a Vixen 102 fluorite but it was way out of my price range back then. I reckon the Tak FC-100DL is the modern incarnation of the Vixen FL. Absolutely no false colour on any target and able to deliver top quality images at magnifications well above what is considered "normal" for a 3.9 inch telescope. - TMB/LZOS 130mm F/9.2 Triplet. What was going to be one top end refractor became two in 2016 when this German built with Russian optics 5.1 inch refractor came on the market within 30 miles of where I live. I put in an offer and soon was able to travel down to the Somerset Levels to collect the scope from it's former owner, who had owned it from new. What attracted me to this scope were the reports that I had read of these LZOS made triplet objectives and the connection with the great optical designer Thomas M Back who sadly passed away at a very young age in 2007, the year after my scope had been made. APM in Germany handled the build of these refractors and production levels are even lower than the Tak FC-100DL. I believe around 120 have been made to date during a 14 year production run. Mine is #20. It's a long, heavy scope and challenges most mounts but the image quality is truly superb. The LZOS triplet objective is completely free of false colour and, like the Tak FC-100DL soaks up high magnification effortlessly. So thats my lot, currently. One largish dob and 4 quality refractors. I count myself very lucky to be able to own and use these quality telescopes. When I started out with my 1960's Tasco 60mm refractor I would never have dreamed that I would be able to have these gems at my disposal Of the other scopes that I've owned over the years that have stood out: - A 6 inch F/6 UK made Astro Systems newtonian that I put on a crude DIY dobsonian mount. My first "proper" scope after the 60mm Tasco. Showed me Halleys Comet in 1986 and I was glad that I had it - the comet was pretty underwhelming visually despite its fame ! - A Vixen SP102M achromat refractor on the Super Polaris mount with the original Skysensor GOTO system. - A Skywatcher Evostar 150mm F/8 achromat (I've owned 3 of these actually) but fitted with a Chromacor CA and SA corrector which delivered performance close to an ED doublet. That gave me a taste for what ED doublets could do but I wanted that performance without the faff that the Chromacor entailed. - A stock Skywatcher Skyliner 200P dobsonian. Bought from FLO as an "open box" bargain. Great all round performer and probably the best "bang for the buck" of any scope that I have owned. - A 1990's USA made Celestron C8 Plus. Great optics and showed me some of the best views of Saturn that I've ever seen through a scope. The scope did have a bit of the infamous mirror flop though. - A lovely Russian Intes 150 F/6 maksutov-newtonian. Super, apo refractor-like images. Rather a heavy tube for the aperture but cracking optical quality like most Russian optics. - A massive Istar 150mm F/12 achromat refractor. I dreamed of being like a victorian astronomer, on the end of a traditional, long, large aperture refractor. The Istar ticked those boxes alright but finding a mount for the beast was a huge undertaking. It deserved a permanent observatory type mounting really but I could not oblige, unfortunately.

You have made some good choices there Adam There is a sort of domino effect with eyepieces I've found. You get a nice one to see what they have to offer and then rather quickly get hooked and find yourself wanting to move the others to the same standard.

I agree 100% John - the Rowan AZ100 is a very impressive piece of work indeed. When you see and handle one you really "get" just what you are paying for. Real craftsmanship and thoughtful design. Designed and produced by a small UK company as well

Joining my local astro society (Bristol AS) a few years back has added a big new dimension to my enjoyment of the hobby: - Regular meetings with others interested in the hobby (rather than boring my family !) - Great programme of talks from people active in astro research programmes, experienced practitioners etc. - Opportunity to use the society observatory and equipment. - Regular observing and outreach events both at the observatory and at other sites around Bristol. I should have joined years ago ! Not all the members are active observers or imagers by any means but all of us are interested in astronomy from one perspective or another, which makes it very interesting

Welcome to the Stargazers Lounge. Just trying to understand your post. NYE = New Years Eve ? The Island = which one ? Volcano = which one ? At a guess I'd say Hawaii but that is just a complete guess. Iceland, Sicilly, Tenerife and a number of other places might also satisfy the criteria. Please feel free to post more on what you are interested in

Very interesting report on this fascinating scope - thanks for posting it I'd be interested to know how the eVscope performs on targets where the technology assistance does not improve the view ?

I tend to agree. I'd no problem with your earlier comments either

Its a great place - I could spend a week there but my other half would eventually protest I guess. My last visit was 2011 so it will be interesting to see what has changed.

Quite a number I suspect. They don't tend to post on forums though, they just get on and buy whatever they feel is the best. £20K is small change to some folks.

"... there's not a lot of difference in visual observing between a good Achro doublet and an Apo triplet ...." Not sure that is the conclusion but perhaps today is not a good time to prolong this thread ! Happy holidays to you too

I agree they are eye wateringly expensive and that there are a lot of other, probably more sensible, ways to spend 20K plus euros. It was just interesting to see the Jena name back

Interesting to see this name again but apparently their scopes will be made to order and will be very, very expensive: https://apq.de/en/index.htm https://apq.de/en/150-1200.htm Pretty impressive optics !

I have a 130mm triplet and an ED120 doublet. The triplet is quite a bit larger and heavier than the the doublet - much more so than the 10mm aperture difference would suggest. Both excellent scopes though

I have an ES 17 / 92. It is a very heavy eyepiece. It reaches focus about 9mm further outwards than the Ethos 17mm does, if that is any help.

The only astro related presents that I got were DVDs. - The film Apollo 11 from my Son; - The re-mastered version of the original Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy TV series from my other half: Both were on my list so very welcome I also got the go ahead to spend my birthday in February at Kennedy Space Centre so I'm sorting out a trip to Florida over the next few days

Meade re-brand Chinese products like many other brands these days. I don't think they have a production facility any more. They switch manufacturer now and again as well although the products are made to the same spec. I have an older Meade filter (UHC type) and that is made in Japan.

Custom adapters are available for some zooms so that they fit a 1.25 inch or 2 inch astro fitting.

The Leica ASPH is really good as is the Zeiss Vario D I believe. I've owned the Leica and it is really top notch optically. Of the more affordable zooms the Baader does pretty well although not quite as well as good quality fixed focal length eyepieces. I currently use a 7.2 - 21.5 zoom (same as the Hyperflex and TS ones I believe) quite often and that does well too, especially with a Baader 2.25x barlow as a high power zoom. Then we have the little gems from Tele Vue, the Nagler 3-6mm zoom and 2-4mm zoom (latter out of production). They are excellent tools for exploring the high and very high magnification ranges. Edit: I've just remembered the Pentax XL 8-24mm which has a good reputation as well.

My first newtonian was a UK made Astro Systems 150mm F/6. great scope and very versatile. The TS one is probably made by GSO: https://agenaastro.com/gso-6in-f6-newtonian-reflector-ota.html GSO make the Meade Lightbridge dobsonians and the Revelation dobsonians too.