John

I'm 100% confident in the ability of everyone on this forum to excercise restraint and common sense, as we always do.

I'm not encouraging anyone to do anything .........

Some lovely refractors in this thread And of course true frac fans will not have missed a certain scope that has been listed on e.bay today (not by me)

Great review Matthew ! I thought about one of these when I had my 6" F/12 Istar refractor. Unfortunately the mount costs about 50% more than the scope had cost me and my budget would not stretch that far. I wonder how the Maxload would compare with the new Losmandy AZ8 alt-az mount ?: http://www.losmandy.com/AZ8.html It looks like the Maxload has a higher weight capacity for a starter.

What a great setup I've seen a few T-Rex mounts but I've never had the pleasure of using one. A real "Rolls Royce" alt-azimuth !

I guess the TAL 100's will develop a sort of legendary / mythical status if they no longer available Having owned a couple (I've still got one in a cupboard somewhere) I think they are good 4" F/10 achromats. Probably optically a bit better than most of the chinese 4" F/10's and very similar in performance to the Japanese Vixen SP102's (one of which I owned before I got my 1st TAL 100). For the original cost and current used costs, good buys. If their price rockets then they won't make so much sense IMHO. The reviews I've read comparing the 102mm F/11 achromats (such as the Lyra Optical one) seem to show that the F/11's are slightly better in optical performance and the build is nicer. You pay somewhat more for the F/11's though.

The TAL Apolar is a great concept but delivering optical consistency in a 6 element in 3 groups spaced along the tube design is a tough ask especially when they are shipped overland from Siberia. If you get one that is out of collimation then it's a complex job to sort it out to say the least. When I tested the scope, the 1st one was delivered with a smashed internal lens group and a 1cm scratch across the outer objective element. The 2nd one was in much better shape but, being critical, the star tests showed egg shaped airy disks rather then the nice tight circular spot that we all like to see.

I'm afraid that crossed my mind as well ........

I think the importer (Opitical Vision Limited) might have lost enthusiasm for bringing TAL stuff into the UK. I don't know if it's still being made although I did hear rumours that the priorites of some Russian manufacturers such as TAL had been re-directed back towards state / military production again ? The TAL 125 refractors seem like a really nice prospect but there have been a lot of quality issues (optical) with the few scopes that have been around, some of which have been reported on here.

With my eyepieces, I have a low to medium power case and a high power case although there is currently a little overlap between them. With my 12" dob in use the 1st case is usually all I use. I've had some sessions where I've just used 2 eyepieces all night. The 3rd case is my "outreach" set which is just 3 eyepieces plus a couple of other bits and pieces. This last set is getting more use than all the more expensive ones to be honest !

It's a very nice casefull Derek I have split my eyepieces over 3 cases now to avoid too much overcrowding. I suspect that I'm using smaller cases than yours though.

If they are not all full of eyepieces Derek, you are not yet a true "occularholic"

Nice compact kit there Shane The odd thing is, apart from when I'm coming to the SGL Star parties, I don't take astro kit when I'm on holiday, apart from birding binoculars Perhaps I need a break from the hobby from time to time, or at least my other half does !

I hope the Quark keeps working Derek. One device that I'd not risk I'm afriad.

Those 72mm's are really cute scopes Stick a Nagler 31 in it and browse the sky on a warm Summer night !

I wondered if I would keep both the N31 and the E21 when I got the latter. There is no doubt in my mind now though that the N31 does things a little differently from the E21 and I would miss it if I didn't have it, even though the big Nagler only gets out occasionally. I definitely don't need anything in between the two though and likewise between the E21 and the E13. I had the E17 for a short while and it was great but it would not have seen much use in my scopes. This is all about personal preferences though, isn't it ?. None of the eyepieces under discussion is anything less than superb, it's just how it sits in the existing set, with the scopes folks have, their typical seeing conditions, field of view preferences etc, etc. I've had a few chances to compare the ESX4.7 with the XW 5 now and, apart from the FoV and the eye relief, I can't see any differences in the quality of the images at all. I can see myself keeping them both through indecision !

Excellent review Ed - really brings out the charactistics of this scope very clearly I think the 150mm F/5 would show substantially more CA as that increases as the aperture increases. It would still be a very nice deep sky / rich field type scope though. According to this table, your 102mm F/5 will be showing about as much CA as my 150mm F/8 shows:

I think it's my 4th or 5th but it is what I call a project scope so I may not hang onto it for that long. I tried some of the CA filters on another scope a while back and didn't really like the results. I prefer to use a Chromacor if at all possible. They do need quite a heavy duty mounting arrangement, I agree. Not as severe a challenge as my Istar 6" F/12 was though !

Those are "The Goons" (Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine). Bluebottle was a character in the show voiced by Peter Sellers. One of his catch phrases was "You dirty rotten swine you" usually when he had been blown up, shot or otherwise "deaded". I think it was your "knotted string muscles" reference that made me think of him

No problem - they do "come and go" a bit, much to my wife's frustration ! My "core" set of 12" dob + ED120 Skywatcher + ED102 Vixen seem to be fixed though.

Nah - it's probably 13 or more years old. Dark blue was the colour scheme that Synta used for the Skywatchers desined for the European and US / Canada markets. It's a project I'm working on at the moment - it's needed some TLC but it's in very decent nick really

Look what I grew from seed in our greenhouse - 150mm achro and 120 ED doublet cooling for a session

This is probably way before your time but you sound like a character called Bluebottle from "The Goon Show" to me

I'd like to try a Nikon Nav HW as well. The other that competes with and maybe even exceeds the Ethos is the Docter UWA 12.5mm but there is only one in the range.

It's rubbish Paul - don't bother with it http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2014/02/26/televue-ethos-21mm-review/ Seriously, I have the 21, 13, 8, 6 and 4.7mm and have used the 10mm and 17mm. They are all superb unless you i) wear glasses when observing or ii) dislike hyper-wide views.