John

I suspect it's alsways going to be a case that these 2 are incredibly closely matched. My DL stayed inside last night though - the 12" dob was delivering superb Jovian views AND showing 8 or 9 Markarian's chain galaxies to boot

4 minutes ago, Crose01 said:

Pop a new battery in the Telrad and switch it on low. it works like a gunsight for getting a rough alignment.  

And turn it around perhaps ?

The Telrad finder is mounted backwards in your photo Jim - easy mistake to make though

Hi Jim,

I see you are Bristol based ?

If you can get along to Bristol Astro Society sometime you will be able to get some hands on help. A number of members there have the same or very similar scopes to yours plus the Soceity has a couple as well

Here is the website if this is of any interest:

http://www.bristolastrosoc.org.uk/www/

We meet on Fridays and try and have observing sessions on Saturdays, weather permitting, which it often does not !

16 minutes ago, Stu said:

It's a good question. In my opinion, I reckon the excellent figure on the lens gives you more in terms of high magnification views. The granulation cells show up beautifully at x200 in the binoviewers when the seeing allows it

When I've used my Lunt 1.25" herschel wedge with my Tak DL the detail shown has been impressive. I think good lens figuring pays dividends day and night

3 hours ago, nightfisher said:

Wow, triton, thats good going, what apparent magnitude  would that be, im guessing at 12.3 ish

Yes, it was around that. I've seen a couple of Uranian moons with my 12" dob but they are another magnitude fainter again (closer to 14th mag actually) so beyond the 130.

1 hour ago, nightfisher said:

Looks lovely John, whats the best target you have acquired to date with it 

Thanks Jules

So far, I think spotting Neptune's moon Triton, splitting Sirius and a lovely split of the close pair of the triple star Tegmine (Zeta Cancri) are the highlights.

Much more to come I hope

9 hours ago, swag72 said:

Oh yes!!! Original paperwork and serial number 109

My 130 F/9.2 is number 40. Since 2006 they will have made 114 in total when production finishes this year, I'm told by Markus Ludes of APM. It's a visual scope primarily though, with that focal ratio.

4 hours ago, swag72 said:

 

I do need to do some comparison - It makes no sense to have both scopes........ One will need to go 

Does the 152 / 1200 have a LZOS objective lens Sara ?

Superb looking setup, whatever

Quite nice Alan

A good interim set before you really splash out on the good stuff !

The aircraft vomit filter seems to work OK Mike

I've not viewed Mercury with a scope for a while but spotted it easily enough with binoculars a few nights back.

Refractors with a capital "R" there Rusted

I've owned 1 good Bresser scope in recent years - a older type 127mm F/9.3 achromat which I believe was made by the same manufacturer who made the Meade AR5. The scopes are identical as I found when I purchased a mint AR5 a year or so later. The AR5 was a mediocre performer though wheras the older Bresser branded one was very good indeed. 

Many, many years ago I owned a superb scope with the Bresser branding on it - it was made by Vixen in Japan and was a re-badged version of their superb SP102M refractor. Different league to the Bresser stuff of today I suspect.

Just now, BlueAstra said:

Thanks for the comments. Does the 150 have any significant advantage over the 127 (considering the 150 is twice the cost of the 127)? Should I buy two 127 instead of the 150 for the world's biggest binoculars !

Neither operate at quite the full aperture stated (probably more like 120mm and 140mm respectively) because of the optical design used but the additional aperture will always provide a brighter image of DSO's and a little more resolution at the expense of a little more cool down time for the larger aperture. Whether the additional cost is justified is a personal decision of course.

I'd go Skywatcher as well - just read the reviews of their maks over the years and from folks like Neil English who really know what they are talking about

Very efficient Mike, and the results speak for themselves

Should be very good for DSO's I would think

I believe that the Maxvisions were originally destined to be Meade 5000's but Meade cancelled the order or something like that so they are sold under other branding. Not sure whether the ES 68's are the same or not

With your SW 200P dob the eyepiece will show you nearly 1.6 true degrees of sky which is a nice wide chunk.

I found this on the difference between a barlow and a telextender / Powermate. At least it explains why a Powermate / telextender is no good for barlowed lased colimation - it does not disperse the laser beam !

4 minutes ago, iPeace said:

Just don't tell anyone I'm trying one. People tend to get the wrong idea, and I can't afford a spin doctor...

Don't worry, I quite often buy things just because I fancy trying it for myself. Thats how I've managed to have 30+ scopes pass through my hands over past decade 

Similarly with eyepieces, a bit worse in fact !

They are really neat little scopes

I don't do much solar viewing but I'm running an outreach session at a local school next week so I thought I'd better check that my rig works OK. The PST belongs to my astro society, the rest is my own:

I've also had the Maxvision 24 / 68 and I think I'd prefer that over the X-Cel LX as well. I'm not saying that the X-Cel LX's are bad at all, they are pretty nice in fact but the ES 24 / 68 and the Maxvision 24 / 68 are just a bit better IMHO

There is a lot of competition in the ~25mm eyepiece niche.

Picking between the Maxvision 24 / 68 and the ES 24 / 68 is a matter of build quality and ergonomics I think, more than optical performance.

I've owned both and have no hesitation in saying that the ES 24mm 68 is the better eyepiece both in performance, ergonomics and build quality. I recently moved from the ES 24 / 48 to a 24mm Tele Vue Panoptic and I can't really tell the difference between the two in all honesty. The ES 24 / 68 maxes out the true field in the 1.25" size as well, which the X-Cell LX does not quite match.

I can't advise on whether the difference in performance is worth the extra price. I would be to me but I'm not you

Nice cases Mark

I've taken a very similar route with 2 cases (I've just managed to consolidate 2 small cases and a larger one into 2 large ones). I have quite a bit of focal length duplication but somehow can't get around to pruning the sets to reduce / remove this

Nice to see the T6 Naglers. I've recently picked up a 13mm T6 again. It was one of my early UWA premium eyepieces and I love it's compact form. Amazing how Al Nagler managed to shrink the T2 13mm down such a lot as well as delivering even better performance 

I must try a Delite someday soon !

That pluck foam preserves the memories of former occupants of the case

14 hours ago, Tyson M said:

I love that APM. I think I am going to get an APM like that or the 140 doublet from them some day for strictly visual . 

Thanks. I did consider the APM 140mm FPL-53 doublet but I managed to get the 130mm F/9.2 triplet at a very attractive price and relatively local to me. I was intrigued by the respect that it seems to be held in so I could not resist.