John

Some great reports from last night Another good one to come tonight perhaps ?😁

Very interesting capture - nicely done I got it myself a couple of years ago but interestingly the ISS appeared as a bright spot back then. I guess it's illumination by the Sun caused it to be brighter than the lunar surface against which it appeared to transit ? I only managed to get a couple of frames of it - it all happens so quickly ! Your capture is much, much better 🙂

It was a cracking night for planetary and lunar observing last night. While I was using my ED120 I tried out loads of different short (6mm or shorter) focal length eyepiece and eyepiece / barlow combinations including, Hutech abbe orthos, Pentax XW's and the Nagler 2-4mm zoom. I got quite bemused by them all after a couple of hours of swapping around 🤪 The one that stole the show last night was the 4.7mm Ethos SX. Saturn at 191x was absolutely stunning with this eyepiece. How on earth Paul Dellechiaie of Tele Vue managed to squeeze abbe ortho levels of performance out of an optical design which has 9 elements and that is held right across a 110 degree field of view is beyond me 😲 Paul sadly passed away in June last year so my little tribute to him was to think of him as I gazed in wonder at that lovely ringed planet last night

Despite the thin patches of cloud and the moonlight now starting to encroach I've had some nice views of the Blue Snowball and Saturn Nebulae plus globular clusters M15 and M2 with the full 120mm aperture.

I've been pretending that my ED120mm is somewhat smaller and slower for a while this evening: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/411857-the-60mm-doubles-project-an-invitation-to-collaborate/?do=findComment&comment=4410012 Back to full aperture now. I agree with @Mr Spock that the seeing is nice and steady this evening. Lambda Cygni shows that and Pi Aquilae was lovely even at 450x Saturn should be a nice show 😁

I've been playing with my ED120 F/7.5 stopped down to 53mm F/17 while waiting for Saturn and Jupiter to get into decent positions. Using 225x Epsilon Lyrae was interesting with a definite "black line" split of the D & C pair and a "touching pair" type resolution of the A & B pair. I managed to see all 3 components of Iota Cassiopeia although the fainter two stars were really quite faint with such a small aperture. The Ring and Dumbbell nebulae looked surprisingly clear at 60x magnification and the globular cluster M15 was quite well defined as well. Izar is the wrong side of my house and rather low just now so I'll try that another time. Not sure that I would want to do a lot of observing with 53mm of aperture but it's fun now and then 🤔

I had the ES 92 12mm and 17mm for a while. They were both noticeably heavier than the Nagler 31. My Ethos 21 is a little heavier than the N 31 I think.

I think we will need to sort out repairs / maintenance for the chair from within our own resources. The binoculars I suspect we could get serviced somewhere if needed but there are some very knowledgeable optical experts within our ranks 🤩

It looks pristine @Stu 🙂 Many thanks 👍 I was up at the observatory a few days ago. We are awaiting the delivery and erection of the shed that will house the starchair and binoculars. Hopefully we can have 1st light when the darker skies are here in the Autumn 😁

I've just checked - 14 years ago. Where does that time go ? 😬

Luckily for me, my Nagler 31 cost just £200 🙂

I've been using the Baader fluid applied via a micro fibre cloth for many years now. I don't use it on mirrors - just lenses.

I have not used a 30mm UFF so I can't comment on it. I have read a lot of good things about it though. When observing the largest deep sky objects, any, well corrected, additional true field is welcome for me. With the Veil Nebula, I like to see the E & W segments with some dark sky framing them rather than having them nestling against the field stop so the additional AFoV is worth it to me. I have observed the Veil using 30mm 70 degree eyepieces so I have seen the difference. If you prefer to see the Veil one piece at a time, which I often do as well, then you don't need that ultra wide AFoV of course. The Nagler 31 is very expensive to buy these days though - I bought mine, used, well over a decade back. It is without double the eyepiece that I have owned the longest of all my current ones.

Tonight Iapetus is looking a little brighter than I would have expected, again. It seems close to Rhea in brightness and certainly brighter than Dione although the latter pair are quite a bit closer to Saturn itself so will be affected by it's glare. Tethys and Enceladus are too close to the planet to discern tonight. Dione is quite tough to spot with the 4 inch refractor that I'm using tonight.

4 inch Vixen ED out currently under a sky which could be more transparent (quite a lot more !) but the seeing is steady at least. I've just been watching Europa slip behind Jupiter while the Great Red Spot is making it's way across the giant planet's disk from the other direction. Jupiter is about to be occulted by a tall conifer so I will switch my attention to Saturn I think 🙂

When planets are close to the moon, from a visual perspective, some of the best planetary views can be had 👍 As we all know, the universe does not exist for our convenience. We need to be canny and adaptable enough to make the best of the opportunities that we do get 🙂

Light pollution, including a moonlit sky, tends to wash out deep sky objects such as nebulae and galaxies. They are simply not seen well with a bright moon in the sky and sometimes not visible at all. Planets, double stars, open clusters and the moon itself of course, are good targets under moonlit conditions. I find the contrast of planetary features actually clearer and more obvious with some light in the sky. Some of my very best views of Jupiter have been just after sunset when there is plenty of light still in the sky. One class of nebulae which does seem to be observable in a moonlit sky are planetary nebulae such as M57, M27 and a number of others such as the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543), the Blue Snowball (NGC 7662) and the Blinking Nebula (NGC 6826).

Great 1st light report 🙂 To keep your eyepieces dew free try and keep them a little warmer than the outside temperature. In a pocket perhaps ? If they get really cold they tend to fog up as your eyeball gets close to them. Each time you use the scope you will achieve more and more - just keep at it 🙂

It does cause headaches and confusion if different collimation aids simply don't agree with each other. Fortunately, if it's dark, a simple star test can settle the matter. I ended up going with my cheshire eyepiece more often than I did my laser collimator, despite carefully collimating the latter !

I bought a new TAL100 refractor in 1999 and that arrived in a single but massive wooden case. The scope had come overland from Siberia but despite some gouges in the wooden case, arrived in good shape. I was on holiday when it was due to arrive in this country so I arranged for the delivery to be to my work address and forgot to tell any of my colleagues. When it arrived they said they thought that a small coffin had been delivered for me ! 😁 The thing with TAL's is that you suspect that they will still be around and working long after we have shuffled off ...... 😉

Douglas Adams floated the concept of the "Gnab Gib" but that was a theory concerning how the universe ends rather than begins 😉

On the topic of Berlebach products, has anyone compared the stability of a Berlebach spreader stopper verses the rigid wooden trays that are supplied as standard with the tripods ? I have been using a spreader stopper with my Uni 28 tripod since I bought the accessory but recently tried the wooden tray again out of curiosity and it seemed to me that the tripod became a little more stable and more vibration resistant with the tray in place. The spreader stopper is very convenient of course when it comes to folding the tripod legs for storage.

Here is my modest snap from about half an hour ago. Thin cloud here so had to make the best of it with my wife's compact zoom camera.

The 2 inch extension is the adapter for 2 inch eyepieces, not a barlow lens. If you use it and the 1.25 inch adapter together (like your top and bottom photos) you get just the problem that you have experienced with the 1.25 inch eyepieces - they won't come to focus. Use just the 1.25 inch adapter on it's own (your middle photo) and you should be fine.

Hello and welcome to the forum 🙂 I can't answer all your questions but I might be able to help with a couple of them. The blue painted versions were the very early ones. Sometimes known under the branding "Sovietski". Later the colour scheme changed to the more traditional white tube with black fittings and the brand name "TAL" was used. 1993 may well be the year of manufacture explaining the 12.93 printing on the labels. The early ones had a simple rack and pinion focuser but I seem to recall that they did not quite use the normal 1.25 inch fitting. The supplied eyepieces were slightly larger in diameter. This caused issues when other brands of 1.25 inch eyepieces were going to be used which might explain the replacement focuser on your scope. There is quite a lot of information around the internet on these scopes but you have to dig for it.