John

I had cloud cover all night last night 😒 Hoping for better things tonight though 🙂

I find that one superb with my scopes, although I don't use it much with my 70mm F/6 travel scope. The Nagler zooms are not really complex eyepieces - 5 elements. Clever design though. @ollypenrice's point about travel scopes majoring on the widefield is an interesting one though.

I bought an "as new" Skywatcher "Classic" 200P dob recently and, now I've tweaked it a little, it is proving an excellent performer. I owned one many years back but I had forgotten how good these things are. I bought mine to get a bit of aperture again after selling my 12 inch dob earlier in the year but I've found the 200P dob good pretty at the high magnification stuff as well.

I use it quite often. I also use the NASA Dial-a-moon facility: NASA SVS | Moon Phase and Libration, 2023 and the excellent 21st Century Atlas of the Moon by Charles Wood and Maurice Collins as a more detailed reference.

Lovely image - the GRS detail especially !

I found this image taken within the last 48 hours by US imager Mike Spooner. It might to show the same feature in the NEB but it's a little straighter in this image. Of course Jupiter's features can change shape and position quite rapidly and the surface features rotate at different speeds. Makes it hard to keep track ! 🙄

That could well have been what I saw. Looks like a wurst type sausage rather than a barge. Now whether it's linked in any way to those festoons of just happens to be located close to where they appear to derive ??? - no way to know I suppose 🤔

I agree with @Ricochet - a 6 inch F/8 dobsonian will give you the best planetary viewing you can get for your budget. Your budget will almost buy a new one but will certainly buy a very nice used one - they usually go for a bit less than £200.

Not mine (I don't image) but a simulation generated by Stellarium. I could only see Europa itself against Jupiters disk as it neared the limb of the planet and then, obviously, as it left the planetary disk.

Was Jupiter still in the field of view when you saw this faint point of light traverse the view ? Was your scope driven ?

Nice report ! It was a very watchable event. I used my 100mm refractor to observe it last night: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/385898-what-did-you-see-tonight/?do=findComment&comment=4436418

That's a great setup and they are capable mounts. Mine (a Skytee II) carries my ED120 with ease and has handled my 130mm F/9.2 from time to time. I do use counterweights for the 130 but the ED120 does not need them. The colour scheme of the Askar looks nicer in real life than it does in the promotional shots 🙂

My travel / ultra portable setup is a 70mm ED refractor on a light weight alt-azimuth mount on a sturdy photo tripod. The whole setup weighs just under 5kg. Like @michael.h.f.wilkinson above I use a 1.25 inch diagonal for travel and 3 eyepieces: 20mm 68 Maxvision, Baader 24mm-8mm zoom and the Svbony 8mm-3mm zoom. I have a Lunt solar wedge if I want to do some white light observing. If space is really limited I take either 11x70 or 8x56 binoculars instead. The travel scope setup is much more capable though.

Excellent, thanks. Nice image 🙂

Last view tonight before coming in - there seems to be an elongated dark feature on the N side of the NEB, currently around the central meridian. It looks a little barge-like. I've not seen a barge for a while on Jupiter. Sky & Telescope guide to jovian features:

Yep - Europa itself is now showing as a small bright disk close to Jupiter's limb. It's shadow is nearing the central meridian of the planet. Nice to get the two showing against the disk at the same time with the relatively small aperture 🙂 Just like this:

Saturn then Jupiter with the 100mm refractor so far tonight. It's cold so I'm popping in and out. The sky is quite clear now so I will have a look at the moon shortly. Europa's shadow is crossing the jovian disk with Europa itself ahead of it. I can't see the moon itself currently - maybe I'll get a glimpse as it nears the planets limb. The shadow is nicely defined though. 180x seems an optimum observing magnification this evening. Stellarium image of the event:

It would give you magnifications from 75x to 200x with that scope. The whole of the mid to highest magnification range covered with one eyepiece.

I'm using mine right now to observe Saturn with my Tak FC100. Gorgeous views at 225x 😁

Those were my thoughts when I bought mine Jeremy. I will be interested to know what you think of yours.

I have not compared them myself. I have read that a few folks have noticed slightly less light scatter with the Zeiss version but only on the nights of best seeing and when observing certain targets. Most reports are that they perform the same. When I'm using 2 inch eyepieces with my FC100-DL (which is infrequently) I use an AP Maxbright 2 inch diagonal or a TV Everbright 2 inch.

According to Baader the T2 Zeiss prism diagonal has a clear aperture of 35mm. The non-Zeiss Baader T2 prism diagonal has a clear aperture of around 32mm I think.

I'm ambivalent about the need for 2-focusers. 4 of my scopes have them, 2 don't. I find the focal ratio of the scope makes a difference to how easily things "pop" into or out of focus though. As I understand it, steeper light cones (faster scopes) have a narrower zone of apparent sharp focus than slower scopes do.

I've compared it with the Nagler 2-4, Pentax XW's, Ethos 8, 6 and 4.7 and Astro Hutech HD orthos so far. Not lengthy comparisons examining each minute detail of multiple aspects of the image being seen (I've not owned the Svbony for long enough !) but comparisons enough for me to realise that the Svbony 3-8 is a very decent performer. Last night I actually felt that the Svbony zoom at 5mm was showing Jupiter slightly better than the mighty Pentax XW 5mm. I'm not about to sell off the XW's or the Ethos on the basis of what I've seen so far but I have let the Astro Hutech HD orthos go to a new home. The Svbony zoom showed Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon as well as they did but with the additional comfort of 10mm of eye relief, a larger eye lens and 16 degrees additional AFoV.

The same applies to planets as well. Adjust the focus so that the planet looks as small and sharp as possible in the eyepiece. You might be surprised at how small planets look in the eyepiece, even the giants such as Jupiter and Saturn.