John

Some of my binoculars have long eye relief and eye cups that twist up and down so you can position them high for the non-glasses wearer or lower for those who do wear glasses with observing. My Helios Naturesport 10x50 and 8x40 have that feature:

Ooops - I mean 11 months ago - I'm wishing January away too quickly !

This is how it appears with my 12 inch dobsonian if that is any help. The Pup star trails Sirius as it drifts across the undriven field of view. The position angle has changed just a little since this sketch was made a year ago (to the day !):

For outreach sessions I carry the above plus a 30mm Aero ED 2 inch eyepiece for a set that gives decent performance across a wide range of applications. Not so expensive that I worry about them getting finger marks etc on the lenses either.

I've seen the pup with my 130mm triplet refractor. Its easier with my 12 inch dob though. I'm trying to think back to when I first managed it - probably around 5 years ago when I first got the 12 inch dob up and running. I don't fancy my chances between 2040 and 2048 ! (and I'll be in my 80's as well )

Your "rant" seems entirely justified to me. I hope you get a reasonable outcome soon.

I use one of the 7.2mm - 21.5mm zooms. Very decent performer for it's cost. The field of view at the longer focal length end is a bit narrower than the spec says but it's wider than specced at the shorter end. Its sharp though and I often use it with a Baader Q-Turret 2.25x barlow as a high power zoom.

I used this combo recently at an outreach event showing the folks Neptune at 280x on a manual alt-az mount in my ED120 refractor - many folks enjoyed the view of the outermost planet on that evening

Mine is not stiff to zoom - very smooth in fact. The twist up eyecup is nice as well.

Surely the cross hair will be at the same place as the field stop and therefore at the focal plane of the eyepiece, if it is to be sharply defined across the field of view ?

Or are you looking for a way to deliberately put the cross hair slightly out of focus ?

39 minutes ago, Stu said:

...Just out of pure curiosity, do we know how they know these meteorites are from Vesta?

It was first proposed back in the 1970's that 4 Vesta was a good candidate parent body for the HED group of achondrite meteorites. The asteroid is large enough to have had and maintained a differentiated structure, ie: a crust, mantle and metallic core and also at some point the tectonic activity required to produce achrodrite rocks. Hubble images of 4 Vesta suggested massive impact structures and the events that created them would have liberated a vast quantity of material some of which, over a period of millions of years could have found its way to the Earth. 

NASA's DAWN mission orbited Vesta between 2011 and 2012 collecting masses of data and images about the make up of the asteroid. This data has added weight to the theory about the parent body of the HED meteorites being 4 Vesta. It's not completely proven but it is the strongest candidate I believe.

Some more here on this if you are interested:

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/tiot-uth061119.php

Analysis of the meteorite samples today can show not only what minerals and other substances they contain, when they were formed on their parent world, indicate how long they were in space and also how long they have laid on Earth. Clever stuff

On the subject of cooling the scope, would one of the Lymax cat coolers work ?:

https://www.astroshop.eu/miscellaneous/lymax-cosmicone-sct-cooler-r-1-celestron-meade-8-/p,44537

Great report Stu - what a super setup

I found the seeing a little unsteady here last night. Not quite what was needed for the tightest doubles and Sirius didn't "go" for me either. Lots of central heating plumes around I reckon including our own house. My other half seems to resist the idea of watching TV with several layers of clothes on, strangely

It was really nice being out under the stars with a scope for a few hours after all the rain we have had. Back to that again this morning though - those star clusters against black velvet seem a distant memory already !

2 hours ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

... I find meteorites fascinating. To be holding something that was once flying around in space is incredible. I have always had a dream of owning a decent size nickel iron meteorite with thumb printing. I know they can be bought on the web but I have so much more astronomy kit to get so it will just have to wait.

 

One of my suppliers is based in France Marv:

http://meteor-center.com/

The Hyperions will be fine in the F/10. They will not cope at all well with F/3.5, coma corrector or no coma corrector though.

Well I'm back in now after a fine session with lots of nice objects observed

I now remember why I do this hobby I think !

I've had a lovely session with my Takahashi 100mm refractor tonight. Particularly enjoyable because of the awful weather we seem to have had for the past month - a clear and reasonably dark sky for a decent period seems a real novelty !

I've observed a wide range of targets from Venus at dusk out to galaxies "far, far away". The distant gas giant Uranus, binary stars, star clusters, star formation nebulae, planetary nebulae and super nova remnants have also been visited and admired over the past few hours.

I don't generally observe asteroids that often but tonight one of the largest in the asteroid belt, 4 Vesta, was conveniently positioned in Cetus near the 4th magnitude star Mu Cetus. At magnitude 7.7 4 Vesta was not easy to pick out in the 6x30 optical finder that I was using but the star hop from Mu Cetus was pretty simple so I had no difficulty identifying the star-like point of light amongst a distinct field of background stars. This is the Stellarium view of 4 Vestas position tonight:

And a point of light is all that 4 Vesta appears as in the scope, even at high magnifications. While it is a giant among asteroids, 4 Vesta is a mere 550km or so in diameter and currently a bit over 300,000,000 km from Earth. Stellarium estimates its apparent diameter at .3 of an arc second. I don't know how accurate that is but my 100mm refractor was not going to show its disk, thats for sure !

Despite the modesty of its visual appearance, I was very happy to be observing this little worldlet during its 3.6 year journey around the Sun.

A few years ago NASAs DAWN spacecraft visited 4 Vesa and produced some outstanding imagery such as this example showing the whole asteroid in all its scarred glory. 4 Vesta has clearly been though a lot in it's 4.6 billion year existance:

Now one of my other astro-related interests is meteorites. I currently have a small collection of specimens of the main types built up over the past 12 months or so. Three of my samples are small representatives of a group of meteorites known as HEDs - an abbreviation for Howardite, Eucrite and Diogenite. These are types of achondrite meteorites so were formed through melting and recrystalisation of igneous rocks.

The exciting thing about the HED group of metorites is that we are now fairly certain that they originated from the asteroid 4 Vesta !.

So I thought it would be fun to include some photos of my little specimens of 4 Vesta in this report. Perhaps one day a sample return mission will bring back some material from 4 Vesta so that it can be compared with the meteoric samples that we have ?

Here are some pictures of my specimens of these 3 types. The green cube is 1 cm square for scale - these are small pieces of rock !
Of these 3, only the Tatahouine Meteorite (the greenish one) was actually seen to fall. The other 2 were finds in the north african desert regions. Small fragments of that distant body that I was observing earlier though my telescope. Rather awesome

Hi Simon,

Would I be right in thinking that you will be using a coma corrector with your F/3.5 10 inch newtonian ?

Picking eyepieces that will perform well in both an F/10 Edge HD 800 and such a fast newtonian is going to be challenging I think. The Edge 800 is not too challenging but the newtonian certainly will be !

Yep, I'm expecting clouds a bit later as well.

Enjoying it while I can though. Uranus and (4) Vesta have been good targets so far. Orion just starting to show well so I'll pop out again. Seeing not that great here for tight doubles though. Too many central heating plumes around me I reckon !

You really do not have to accept that sort of stuff. The scope should be replaced straight away as well. It's not as if they are rare items.

My understanding is that Synta / Skywatcher ED doublets (the 80, 100 and 120) have always used a Schott glass mating element together with the Ohara FPL-53 ED element. A marketing deal was agreed a few years back which is when the Schott logo started to appear on the tubes. I guess that agreement has ceased now but I would be very surprised if Schott mating elements are not still used. The mating element is the low cost one remember - the FPL-53 element costs many times as much. The nature of the glass (ie: refractive index) of the mating element is very important to the overall performance of the objective though.

That looks a mess.

OVL are the UK importer for Skywatcher scopes. The replacement should come from, or at least be organised by the vendor. I hope they are not going to expect you to wait around while OVL clean the objective lens. You are entitled to a pristine new replacement and promptly supplied.

3 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

Good luck, I desperately want to go out but am full of cough and cold so probably better not. Might pop out for quick binocular session though.

Are you sure Venus is only 55% illuminated John? SkySafari is suggesting 78% though I thought it looked like less than that the other evening.

You are quite right - it is 78%

I should have believed my eye and not the duff data that another SW package provided

It was a nice view anyway !

Whats this ???? - I actually have a scope out !!

The Tak FC-100DL is out for the first time in ages. Just been looking at a 55.5% phase Venus. Hope it stays clear for a while longer

Venus is looking rather good just now actually. 200x with my 100mm refractor is showing the 78% phase very nicely although the phase is obvious at about half of that magnification. The planets apparent diameter is around 14 arc seconds just now.

20 minutes ago, joe aguiar said:

sorry I didn't say I spray paint not paint with regular paint and paint brush or roller so it has never flacked off even years later. 

also never the inside BUT only the outside

joejaguar

But why even bother ?

The scope is used in the dark so the colours don't show. The dew shield will be devalued if Baz ever wants to sell it on. The Astrozap dew shield works great just as it is and a colour change won't make any difference at all.

I guess I just dont see it as any sort of priority

29 minutes ago, joe aguiar said:

scope looks good

the only thing I do but I may be picky but its manilly for looks is paint the dewcap whatever colour the scope is. maybe its just me not sure anyone else does that

so its its white I spray paint it white/orange spray paint it orange/blue = blue etc

joejaguar

I see where you are coming from but the Astrozap dew shields are flexible (I use them on my refractors). Paint is likely to crack and flake off and could even fall onto the optics. I would stick with it the colour it is in all honesty.

Personally I think Baz's scope is ready to roll. I'd be getting out under the stars as often as possible with it

Another vote for observing Venus before it gets dark here. When there is still some light left in the sky. Just make sure that the Sun is safely out of the way. Jupiter is another planet that benefits from this technique - I've had some of my best views of the giant planet against a trilight sky.