John

The good thing you can do is to learn your way around a scope thoroughly with the 114mm, learn observing techniques and push its capability as far as you can. With that experience under your belt, when you do upgrade you will "hit the ground running" with your skills and experience and get a lot more from the upgrade

When I was testing the AZ100 Dave from Rowan suggested that I tried putting the slow motion control knobs directly onto the shafts to produce a more positive feel to the motion. That did work to some extent but as my scope of choice on the mount was my F/9.2 130mm refractor having the cables in place made reaching the slow motion knobs much easier. Its difficult to grow ones arms a few inches at will !

If you use a hybrid barrel eyepiece like the Morpheus in 2 inch mode you need to be careful that the 1.25 inch section of the barrel does not contact the mirror or prism in your diagonal.

I do the vast majority of my observing with scopes on alt-azimuth mounts and have done for years. I don't image though.

10 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

https://www.explorescientific.it/out/media/50c37e2d0427ea14408f9fe6735dd29c.pdf

Eyepiece spec chart for ES.

Focal planes above the shoulder are labeled minus because you have to move the focuser in.

Focal planes below the shoulder are labeled plus because you have to move the focuser out.

Thanks Don - very interesting !

Shame that the precise field stop position is not shown for the 12mm 92. The 17mm says 0.00 so I guess thats right at the shoulder of the eyepiece. The 12mm is likely to be around 2mm above that ?

Wow ! - 12 lens elements for the ES 120 degree 9mm

No wonder they are expensive !

2 hours ago, Alan64 said:

I'm seeing the Cassini Division within that video from the Philippines; fancy that.  That alone may be justification for doubting its authenticity.  Add to that the use of a 3mm Plossl, which I've never known to exist, only a 4mm.

EDIT: Ah, in the comments below I see that the author stated that they used a Datyson 4mm, but that's not a Plossl.  Still, that's an awfully sharp image, and with a resolution usually had with larger apertures.

I agree Alan. I'm doubtfull about that video as well.

I think this thread covers how to achieve that:

There could be other threads that cover this as well on the forum.

To fit the counterweight bar when there is a clamp on the end of that axis you need a clamp that has a 20mm hole drilled in it so that the counterweight bar can pass through the clamp and screw into it's threaded hole on the end of the axis.

The Telescope Services (Germany) version of the Skytee II already has the tapped holes to add a clamp to the other end of the axis:

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p4537_TS-Optics-AZ5-Alt-azimuthal-Mount-with-tripod-and-fine-adjustment.html

Yes they can. There may be some edge distortion with the longer focal length ones but the Omnis are plossls so dont have super wide fields and should be OK. Certainly better than the stock eyepieces you get with scopes.

Most (85% ?) of my kit was bought on the used market. Without that I would not have been able to afford what I have in all honesty. I tend to look for a used price (assuming the item is in excellent condition) of around 60% of the retail price. Occasionally I've found bargains for 50% of retail and very occasionally I've pushed my limit to 70% of retail for a hardly used or hard to acquire item.

I've noticed that items on the used market are hanging around longer these days. Perhaps there has been some uncertainty around regarding investment in hobbies ?. Perhaps a newer generation of astronomers prefer to buy new ?. Hard to tell. I rarely buy items that have electronics within them - if I did I might well be more tempted by the warranty that newly purchased equipment comes with.

Nice report - thanks for posting it

I've been pleasantly surprised by how good the BST Starguiders that I've owned have been.

A few years ago I compared the 8mm BST Starguider with my 8mm Tele Vue Ethos and, apart from the massive field of view of the Ethos, the overall quality of the view was really not much different when used with my F/5.3 12 inch dobsonian scope.

There is some variablity of optical performance across the range fo focal lengths but overall BST Starguiders are a big step up from the stock eyepieces that are supplied with scopes and an eyepiece that seems to perform pretty well in quite a wide range of scopes as well. They are quite a bit more comfortable to observe with than plossls or orthoscopics, especially in focal lengths shorter than 18mm because the BST Explorer design allows more comfortable eye relief and a larger eye lens than those designs.

Out of fairness to the Baader 10mm Classic Ortho, its is optically a sharp, contrasty eyepiece with excellent light transmission and low scatter but the orthoscopic design inherantly has a 40-45 degree sharp field of view (the BCO actually has 50 degrees but the last 5 of those are not sharp) and an eye relief that is around 80% (max) of it's focal length. 

Imaging DSOs or observing them ?

Great report Alan

Since joining my local astro society I've been able to participate in lots of outreach type sessions and have found that showing the sky to others, especially others who have not looked through a telescope before, is probably the most enjoyable aspect of the hobby for me now.

I think John Dobson hit the nail on the head when he said "....the importance of a telescope is not how big it is, it's not how well made it is, it's how many people less fortunate than you got to look through it..."

Another happy 1.25 inch Lunt HW user here. I use a single polariser on the eyepiece barrel and turn the eyepiece to get the desired brightness levels. It works very well IMHO. I agree with Stu that quality refractor optics give better quality results. Putting the Lunt wedge on my Tak FC-100DL produces amazingly sharp and detailed solar views. Not that there has been a huge amount to see recently 

40 minutes ago, johnturley said:

... I note that not only has the 10 % off sale now ended, but some Tele Vue prices now have increased to more than what they were before the sale, so that I actually ended up saving  nearly 20 % on current prices.

John 

Good saving John.

I recall that the 10% off sale has often been followed by a price increase by Tele Vue in the past.

This might help:

Just now, carastro said:

Must be very rare then, I have had refractors for years and never needed collimating and I don't know any-one else who has had to do anything to them either.  Change a focusser maybe, and occasional pinched optics, but never heard of any-one collimating a refractor. 

Carole 

Quite a few refractor designs include push-pull collimation screws on the objective cell just for this purpose.

Very few included tilt adjusters on the focuser mounting so that is trickier to sort out.

Good piece here from one of our members on this:

adventures-1.pdf

12 hours ago, Science562h said:

No, it would not be better. You need to work back & start from scratch, with a 60 mm refractor & hire an astronomy tutor. 

Hire an astronomy tutor ? - you can't be serious !

7 hours ago, carastro said:

This is not true.  Refractors don't need to be collimated....

 

 

Er, yes they do. I've owned a number that proved to be out of collimation and / or had their focuser unit misaligned from the optical axis.

18 hours ago, Science562h said:

You need to line-up the finder 'scope. (1) Aim, at something in focus, with your telescope & then, (2) adjust your finder 'scope. Center your finder 'scope, with, what you see, trhough the EP. I  find Apertura's finder exceptionally good & better than Celestron & Orion's shaky ones. There isn't much comparison at all there. Apertura's hold's accuracy. Id'e stick, with the 8x50mm finder 'scope, it's awesome for viewing fields. If you just 'wanna star hop & cut down on finding time, put on a red dot. though. A GOTO 'scope wouldn't make a difference because you have to find alignment stars.  

Image 1. Apertura 12 inch.

Aperturas are made by GSO. The GSO 8x50 finder is pretty much exactly the same as the Celestron and Orion ones. They are designed and work in exactly the same way. I've owned all thee types.

Hmmmm......

I don't observe from the Phillipines. I put together a short Powerpoint presentation for my astro society of what I think astro targets look like with small to medium astro scopes. It seems reasonably accurate based on my observing experience and others in the society tended to agree. The darkness of your skies and your observing experience will affect how much you can see. Here is a link to the presentation:

telescopeviews.pptx

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.

12 minutes ago, Stu said:

Just wish I could get some more time with the loan unit I've got currently, constant cloud and rain currently

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 ?