John

Nice as ever Shane Hard to take these photos - all the shiny bits confuse the auto focus and exposure sytems ! Need a camera with an "Eyepiece Case" mode on it

Lovely scope but a refractor ?????

You have some lovely instruments there Helen The Feathertouch focuser looks wonderful on the Tak 100 !

Good answer Gus Thats what I'm doing with all my scopes and eyepieces - evaluating them

My original lightweight set involved a Powermate 2.5x. Very good it was as well. I'm hopeless at minimalist sets though. It's an affliction you see - Occularholism

The Delos 17.3 is excellent. It's the heaviest of my lightweight set though. I recently picked up a Nagler 13mm T6 which shows nearly as much sky in a much smaller package. The Delos is really easy and relaxing to use though so I'm happy to give it case room. As you say though, these are nice "problems" to have to think through

Nice set Mark I've also built a 1.25" lightweight set to use with my fracs. Trouble is that I'm finding that they are convenient in the 12" dob as well so my Ethos set is not getting as much light as it used to

Sorry that I missed this Jules but it looks as if you have your answer

Very nice Paul I like the handle on the scope as well - I could do with some of those on my fracs. I guess you mean ED120 - or have Skywatcher produced an exciting new 130 and kept it quiet ?

Very interesting and useful stuff folks I think what this tells me is that anyone joining the hobby over the next year with the intentions of concentrating on planetary observing should be gently pursuaded that there are plenty of other interesting and worthwhile targets in the sky !

Excellent report Mike ! The most detail I've read on this mount since it was launched. I can see that Losmandy might just go on to be a big name in mounts

Guess what happened about 20 mins after posting these photos ? ......... thats right Silly hobby !

PS: @ Mike / iPiece: The Ercole will be next up !

My TMB / LZOS 130mm F/9.2 on the Skytee II mount and the Berlebach UNI 28 tripod. Hoping to catch views of Venus and tiny Mars before the clouds roll in This setup has ticked one important box for me already - I can pick the whole setup up and move it around the garden without too much trouble !

If you decloak one of those you get a flat topped eyepiece as per the picture below ? OK it looses weight and girth but you also loose the eyecup feature. When I've used flat topped long focal length eyepieces without an eye cup (eg: Ultima 35mm, old style "smoothie" Meade plossls, Orion Optiluxe etc) Ive found that the lack of an eye cup introduces a few extra challenges: - eye positioning is a matter of "hovering" away from the top of the eyepiece with nothing to rest your eye against. This can prove less relaxing I feel. - the gap between your eye socket and the eyepiece top (around 20-25mm I guess with the above eyepiece) admits any straylight around which gets onto the eyelens top surface which introduces reflections and can reduce contrast in faint objects. - the top surface of the Meade eyepiece, adjacent to the eye lens, is highly reflective which again introduces the possibility of reflections and light scatter. It's a personal thing I guess but the above factors are worth considering if you are considering decloaking an eyepiece or even purchasing one of the older "smoothie" designs that does not have an eyecup.

It's looking great Mike Solid cloud here since the Ercole arrived of course

I believe the TMB Paragon, the Astro Tech Titan II and a few others share the same optics. The one I've personally used was the Aero ED.

I think the 24mm Hyperion shows as much sky as a 1.25" eyepiece can. If balzer wants to go wider still, the 2" format will need to be considered. He does already have a very fine 2" diagonal

Very neatly done Nicos. It's nice to see something other than the foam lined aluminum cases (like I use )

I think the Skywatcher Aero ED's are better corrected than the Hyperion Aspherics, for what it's worth.

Lovely, really lovely Mike I think the pics in this thread are the best ones I've seen of this mount anywhere - it looks so well put together. The big test is when you use it of course. I'm looking forward to hearing about that almost as much as I am to using the Ercole !

I will be very interested to find out about the Losmandy AZ8 Mike I noticed it when it was 1st launched but it's quite hard to find much feedback on it. With Losmandy's reputation it should be really good though

As I unserstand it, the secondary offset is built into the way that the secondary holder is designed.

I can certainly empathise with that

I'm onto my 3rd case now So much for rationalising my eyepieces ......