John

Here is another perspective of this fascinating area. This image was taken from the Apollo 16 Command Module in 1972:

We care mate ! Going to get a t-shirt made up with this from your original post: "Astronomy - the PERFECT antidote to the crappy week"

This relates to planetary observing as well as deep sky objects of course !

The more you look, the more you see Nice report on your latest M42 encounter - sounds great !

Nice report Doug - one of my favourite areas of the lunar surface to observe I snapped the rather basic pic below with my mobile phone at the eyepiece of my 12 inch dob a while back which I think shows the two features that you describe so well:

Nice "heads up" The main challenge of this split from the UK is that Sirus does not rise that high in the sky. That said, I've split it quite often with my 12 inch dobsonian, a few times with my 130mm triplet refractor and a couple of times last Winter with my Tak 100mm refractor. I've found magnifications between 180x and 280x the most effective. The seeing conditions need to bs reasonably steady to give the best chance of the split from here. This is a sketch I did of Sirius as observed with my 12 inch dobsonian back in February this year:

Personally I would suggest just getting the scope and a decent star atlas such as "Turn Left at Orion" to start with. There are loads of accessories that can be purchased and many are very useful but narrowing down what to invest in for you is going to be easier when you have a little practical experience under your belt.

My astro society purchased a Meade LX600 12 inch last year. Complex scope, if it goes wrong, I would think. It would be a shame if Meade does go to the wall. They have produced some better products over the past couple of years.

This is absoloutely true from my experience. I've owned dobs in 8, 10 and now 12 inch apertures. Goodness knows what size (and cost) an equatorial mount would need to be to hold my 12 inch F/5.3 dob steady but the simple plywood dobsonian mount that an SGL friend made for me holds the scope easily steady enough to use 300x or even 400x magnification. The atmospheric conditions are the limit on what can be usefully used, not the mounting. The Skywatcher Skyliner 200P is an excellent scope - good choice !

How does a star test look ? That is the most important thing

Although it's fit and finish are not in the same league as the AZ100, the Skytee II would fall into the category that you mention. I did compare the AZ100 with my Skytee II and the latter held up surprisingly well considering the price difference. Not quite as good at vibration damping but not far off. But if you want something new, shiny and black, the Skytee II is not that of course !

I don't know where you are but we had very dewey conditions here (North Somerset, UK) last night. My scope and finders don't usually suffer from dew much but last night I was repeatedly having to clear the dew off the finders last night. I keep my eyepieces at a bit warmer than outside temperature which stops them dewing / misting. So as Paz says, depending where you are (including height above sea level and proximity to water bodies) dew formation can vary a lot session to session.

With the F/10 SCT I'd be tempted to go for a BST Starguiders rather than a Hyperion. You can get 2 BST Starguiders for the same price as a single Hyperion and their optical quality is pretty much the same at that focal ratio. Actually I think the BST's are better corrected in faster scopes as well. You could go for the 15mm for 133x and the 12mm for 167x or even the 8mm for 250x. The Baader FT rings are an interesting concept but somewhat fiddly to fit in "field conditions" because they involve opening up the optics of the eyepiece. Or at least thats what I found when I tried them. I think I'd rather use a decent quality barlow rather than an FT ring.

Baader did just this with their 32mm Classic plossl although it's a plastic push fit extension. The AFoV of that eyepiece is a bit less than 50 degrees though. I prefer the TV 32mm plossl with the eye guard extender to the Baader 32 pl despite the price difference.

Its good to know, from a reliable and experienced observer, that you can get a decent eyepiece that will enable your scope perform well and provide enjoyable views, for under £20.00 Thanks for posting this Dave.

The main additional features that the enhanced drive set has is a 16x max slew speed and for imagers an autoguider port on the control handset. Skywatcher also do the enhanced kit for the EQ3-2 mount - I've realised that you did not specify the mount that is involved.

I have the Skywatcher Enhanced EQ5 dual axis drive fitted to my Vixen GP mount. Straightforward to fit and does just what it says on the tin. The batteries seem to last for quite a few sessions. I don't image though, just a visual observer.

The FC-100 Taks have Fluorite as the rear element and use the Steinheil design.

I spent 2 hours sharing Neptune this evening at an outreach event. Many of the 60 or so observers commented on it's blue tint but noticably more so the younger observers a few of which felt the blue tint was quite striking. I've noticed this before when sharing the views of coloured double stars so my conclusion is that younger eyes are the most sensitive to colour tints and older eyes much more variable. Very unscientific but fun ! The scope was my ED120 refractor at 281x.

The diameter of the AZ100 body / mounting plate is as the name suggests, 100mm. The ADM clamp fitted and worked fine but did look a little puny against the bulk of the AZ100 mount head. A losmandy / vixen dual fitting plate (by any good manufacturer) would look more to scale. The Rowan ones are rather nice though and do match the finish of the mount perfectly as you would expect.

The spec of the same scope marketed under Orion (USA) branding gives the secondary mirror minor axis as 58mm. Granted that would be bevelled as well so the aluminised surface will be more like 55mm or so. I wonder if the secondary mirror on your example has been changed by a previous owner ? I also wonder if the primary has been moved up the tube at some point - the Synta (the manufacturer) newtonians generally have the focal plane of the scope not far outside the scope tube wall. Interesting stuff all the same - good experience. FWIW my Orion Optics 12 inch F/5.3 has an aluminum tube and a 63mm MA secondary which is the OO stock size for this scope.

The eye relief on the 32mm TV plossl seems to be longer than the rubber eyecup which is why I find that the eyecup extender makes it an excellent eyepiece. I like to have my eye snuggled up to the eyecup so that a) the eyecup does its job and keeps stray light off the eye lens and b) that the edge of the eye cup acts as a quick reference point for the positioning of my head and eye in the dark. I really don't like having to "hover" my eye someway off the eyecup. Without the eyecup extender accessory I was less comfortable using the 32mm TV plossl despite it's excellent build and optical qualities. I don't wear glasses when observing. FWIW I'm finding the 92 degree ES 17mm and 12mm very similar - but there is no eyecup extender option as far as I'm aware.

I've not had any dewing on my 130mm TMB/LZOS triplet while observing. As with Michael, the objective has misted up when the scope is bought cold into the house after observing but that clears quickly and without residue when as the scope warms back up. I've not had any misting between lens elements or on the inside surface of the objective even when the glass is cold and the house warm. The tube on my scope is made of Kruppax which seems to be very good at stopping the objective dewing even when the outside of the tube is dripping wet. I guess if triplets routinely dewed / misted on more than the externally facing optical surface, they would be deemed pretty impractical scopes in UK conditions ?

My earlier 2 posts were made in 2016 when this thread was young. My more recent one (after Alan's re-boot of the thread) was simply agreeing that personal feelings on an eyepiece can change citing the Nagler zoom as a personal example. Your post introduced two different eyepieces by different manufacturers which did not seem relevant to the topic being discussed since Alan updated us on his experience with the 32mm Tele Vue Plossl. Still, no harm done so lets just move on ?

I think Stu makes some valid points. With my 12 inch dob and an excellent H-beta filter the Horsehead Nebula has proved a very challenging target needing the darkest skies, lots of research and practice sessions and even then I have only barely glimpsed it as a slight darkening against the background nebulosity (which is very faint in itself). An O-III filter actually makes it harder to see than with no filter at all. There is a dark rift within M42 (the Orion Nebula) that has been mistaken for the Horsehead Nebula by others in the past ???? This area is known as the "fishes mouth":