John

I find I can happily live with the 31-21-13 sequence in all of my scopes. I had a 17mm Ethos for a short while and it's just as good as the others of course but I could see straight away that I didn't need it. At the shorter focal lengths though I like 1mm increments and even .5mm to "tune into" what the seeing will allow.

You might find the 3.7mm desireable with the ED120 as well Derek. I often find myself using my Pentax XW 3.5mm (257x) with mine and also the 3mm Radian (300x) on tight double stars and the Moon. These ED doublets are well figured objectives and seem to handle high power very well

Mine came from the USA but was owned by a couple of forum members before me. I've owned it for 9 years which makes it my longest serving scope

Thanks. It's the ED102SS. It's an ED doublet at F/6.5 and dates from around 2000. I've not seen many of them about.

I don't do H-Alpha and hardly ever use this white light setup but here it is anyway. The Vixen has since been fitted with a Moonlite focuser but otherwise no modding I'm afraid :

Yep, a few hours with "Dr Swamp" will see you sorted. You then start eyeing up your current dob and wondering if would make a decent finder for the next one .................

Wonderful scope, the Portaball

I'd have been delighted to have a 6" dob as a 1st scope Back when I started the most I could get was a 60mm refractor. Fortunately it showed me enough to get me hooked on the hobby. Your 6" has loads of capability and can be moved easily to dark skies if required.

The Chromacor corrector, launched around 2001 by a Ukraine based optical company calles Aries was intended to turn the Synta/Skywatcher 120mm F/8.3 and 150mm F/8 achromats into scopes with the equivalent performance of ED doublets. The Chromacors were not cheap by any means but the relatively low cost of the OTA's meant that you could have such a scope for around £1K which is considerably less expensive than an ED150 was costing back then. The downsides are that the Chromacor needs to be matched to an objective lens and are rather finicky devices to install. They did work though, with some care. The production run was rather short due to the supply of the special glass needed running out. I believe Istar Optical were working on a similar device but the project seems to have stalled.

Very nice Derek Is that a Moonlite focuser ? Mine has a finder foot on the focuser flange which makes it look a little different.

Hi Steve, Titania and Oberon at Uranus. Here is my "1st contact" report: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/253930-uranus-and-a-moon-maybe/ I've repeated the observation since but these two are still right on the limit for my scope and observing site - mostly seen with averted vision. Triton at Neptune was a little easier and I could see it with direct vision most of the time.

12" dob plus the 3.5mm Pentax XW (454x) primarily Derek.

Yep - it's good to experiment I had no idea that 400x plus would show me some of the moons of Uranus and Neptune ...... until I tried it.

Nice case Mak ! Out of interest, whats the 40mm TV plossl going to do that your 24mm Panoptic doesn't ?

These specialst solar scopes are equipped with all sorts of high tech filters which produce safe views in the hydrogen alpha wavelength of light. They can only be used to view the Sun and nothing else. Here are the details of the Lunt 152 in case you are interested http://www.telescopehouse.com/lunt-152mm-h-alpha-ota-b1800-bf-feather-t-p-tuner.html And here is the other scope thats in that photo: http://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/telescopes/refracting-telescopes-ota/apochromates/apm-lzos-telescope-apo-refractor-152-1200-lw-photo It can be an expensive hobby but they are marvellous scopes

You have made a good start - the Baader zoom plus barlow covers around 5/6 eyepieces ! With the longer focal length pair you can cover virtually all observing needs with your scope I'd have thought.

Looks Russian, around 5" aperture If it's an Apolar you are a braver man than I am but good luck to you !

I'm baffled - and so is the scope tube !

This is the 3rd scope that I owned back around 1987. Although it was branded as a Bresser, it's actually a Vixen SP102M with the early Skysensor GOTO unit controlling the Super Polaris mount. I started out with the .965" eyepieces that Vixens were supplied with back then before upgrading to 1.25" in the form of Tele Vue plossls. The matt black colour scheme for the tube wasn't very practical because it showed every finger print ! Overall it was a very nice scope though and I was very proud of it

I've owned dozens of TV eyepieces over the years but never got a signature in the instructions Perhaps Al reserves that for scope owners !

Thats a nice, compact scope You don't see many of the TV Rangers about. There are a number of eyepieces around that weigh more than the Ranger does !

Thanks for the guide to whats what Michael

Impressive Michael. As someone who does not observe the Sun much, the only bits of kit I recognise are the diagonal and the eyepiece though

One of my early scopes was a Vixen SP102M. I have very fond memories of it. My current Vixen ED102SS dates from around 2000 and is Japanese made. It looks like a shorter version of the SP102M but with a 60mm focuser. It's a fine scope too I believe that some of the current Vixen scope range are still Japanese made or have Japanese optics and are of very good quality. They tend to have comparatively high prices in the UK though.

Very nice Wooden tripods as well !